Pergola

A pergola is most commonly an outdoor garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway, or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support crossbeams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained.

Freestanding pergolas, those not attached to a home or other structure, provide a sitting area that allows for breeze and light sun, but offer protection from the harsh glare of direct sunlight.

[3] In 1498, Leonardo da Vinci decorated the Sala delle Asse of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan to give the illusion of the great square and vaulted reception hall being within a pergola that was made up of the intertwined branches of sixteen huge mulberry trees.

At the Medici villa, La Petraia, inner and outer curving segments of such green walks, the forerunners of pergolas, give structure to the pattern that can be viewed from the long terrace above it.

Yet handsome pergolas on brick and stone pillars with powerful cross-beams were a feature of the gardens designed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll and epitomize their trademark of firm structure luxuriantly planted.

[8] Modern pergola design materials including wood, vinyl, fiberglass, aluminum, and chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC) rather than brick or stone pillars, are more affordable and are increasing in popularity.