Talk:Piano nobile

The piano nobile level

I replaced the sentence

The piano nobile is often the second floor above a service floor in the rustic style.

because I couldn't attach meaning to the expression rustic style and because it's highly unclear whether the "second floor" is British or American. (I suggest that this is a European subject and should be written in British, but I can see there might be other opinions.) The suggestion that the piano nobile is sometimes the second (third) floor rather than the first (second) comes from the German Wikipedia.

Defined "rustic" as used as the architectural term. It doesn't really matter which level is used as the Piano nobile can be on any except the ground. Giano | talk 09:34, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

That's true, the piano nobile is not always the 1st floor (U.S.: 2nd floor) but it can also be the 2nd (U.S.: 3rd), like in the case a building has got a mezzanine between the ground floor and the 1st floor. You can see this in Italy too, not only in Germany. For example, I'm from Turin and a lot of old apartment blocks over here have got this shape, you can tell that just by watching them from the street. In these blocks the ground floor often contains the janitor's lodge, which is usually an accommodation where the janitor lives; as a matter of fact, a lot of these lodges are no longer in use today and some of them have been converted to small apartments (often for rent). Plus, ground floors also provide access to several rooms or places like the basement floor, the backyard, the shops' back doors (I mean, the shops facing the street at the ground level), etc.

Piano nobile in the U.S.

Would it be correct and useful to mention that the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. is built on such a plan?

I don't think the Library of Congress is a very good example. Indisputably it has a "piano nobile", (i.e. its most important floor) but as the library is really a public building, and the piano nobile does not contain a suite of principle reception rooms in the way that is generally understood by the term. You can add it if you want, I wouldn't revert, but is is not the best example to illustrate the subject. Giano | talk 10:07, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)