Getty Research InstituteThe Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) is one of the Getty Research Institute's suite of structured vocabularies and among the most widely used controlled vocabularies in the cultural heritage sector. With over 55,000 concepts and 131,000+ terms organized in a polyhierarchical faceted structure across seven facets, the AAT serves as a shared language for describing and accessing information about art, architecture, and material culture across institutions, languages, and cataloging traditions.
Background
The AAT project began in the late 1970s in response to the gradual automation of records by art libraries, art journal indexing services, and catalogers of museum objects and visual resources. Conceived by library directors and architectural experts Toni Petersen, Dora Crouch, and Pat Molholt, the project was originally headquartered at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, then relocated to Bennington College in Vermont and later to Williamstown, Massachusetts. The J. Paul Getty Trust provided technical advice and funding from the start, and in 1983 took over editorial responsibility. The AAT was first published in 1990 in both print and electronic form, with a second edition in 1994.
By 1997, the size and frequency of updates made hard-copy publication unfeasible, and the AAT shifted to a searchable online interface with data files available for licensing. The initial core set of terms was derived from authority lists and the literature of art and architectural history, reviewed by an advisory team of scholars from relevant disciplines. The hierarchy was inspired by the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).
Purpose & Scope
The AAT is a controlled vocabulary used for describing items of art, architecture, and material culture. It contains generic terms (such as "cathedral") but no proper names (such as "Cathedral of Notre Dame"). The AAT is used by museums, art libraries, archives, catalogers, and researchers for cataloging, indexing, and retrieval of cultural heritage information.
The thesaurus complies with ISO 2788, ISO 25964, and ANSI/NISO Z39.19 standards. All eras from antiquity to the present are covered, and it is not limited geographically.
Structure & Organization
The AAT is a faceted classification system organized into seven major facets:
| Facet | Content | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Associated Concepts | Abstract concepts | beauty, balance, freedom, socialism |
| Physical Attributes | Perceptible or measurable characteristics | strapwork, round, waterlogged, brittleness |
| Styles and Periods | Stylistic groupings and chronological periods | French, Louis XIV, Tang dynasty, Chippendale |
| Agents | People, groups, and organizations | printmakers, landscape architects, religious orders |
| Activities | Physical and mental actions, methods | archaeology, engineering, drawing, corrosion |
| Materials | Physical substances | iron, clay, nylon, artificial ivory |
| Objects | Human-fabricated or formed objects | paintings, amphorae, cathedrals, gardens |
Each concept record includes its place in the hierarchy with links to parent terms, related concepts, sources, contributor information, and scope notes.
Multilingual Support
The AAT supports four major languages: English, Dutch, Spanish, and Chinese, with additional terms in various native languages. Since 2008, the Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program (TELDAP) has collaborated with the Getty Research Institute to develop a Chinese-language AAT, broadening the inclusion of terms related to Asian art, architecture, and material culture.
Serializations & Technical Formats
The AAT is published as Linked Open Data (since February 2014) through the Getty Vocabulary Program at vocab.getty.edu. Machine-readable representations are available in RDF/XML, JSON-LD, and N-Triples. The canonical namespace URI is http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/, and each concept has a persistent numeric identifier (e.g., aat:300007466 for "chairs"). A SPARQL endpoint provides programmatic query access. OpenRefine reconciliation services support data cleaning workflows. The vocabulary is updated bi-weekly.
Governance & Maintenance
Final editorial control of the AAT is maintained by the Getty Vocabulary Program, part of the Getty Research Institute. An editorial team manages additions, revisions, and quality control guided by published editorial guidelines. Institutions worldwide contribute terms and enhancements. While the thesaurus contains many variations on a term (singular and plural forms, spelling variants, forms of speech, synonyms), one is always flagged as the preferred term. Regular users are encouraged to propose new terms. The vocabulary is released under the Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-By) 1.0.
Notable Implementations
The AAT is used by major museums and cultural heritage organizations worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and Europeana (which uses the AAT to enrich its data). It is integrated into collection management systems such as The Museum System (TMS) and MuseumPlus. The Library of Congress and many national libraries reference AAT terms in their authority records. Wikidata maintains a dedicated property (P1014) for AAT identifiers.
Related Standards
The AAT is part of the Getty Vocabularies suite:
- Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) — place names
- Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) — personal and corporate names in the arts
- Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA) — object titles and related information
- Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA) — descriptive metadata categories for cultural objects