Ancient Architecture

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Ancient Architecture

• Interior Design II

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Egyptian 3000 BC to Roman period

• Funerary Buildings
• Created for Monarchs Nobles
• Stepped Design
• Granite, limestone, and sandstone - Both
  sun-dried and kiln-dried bricks were used
  extensively
• Hieroglyphics were decoration as well as records
  of historic events.

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Egyptian

• Temples
• Columns/Colonnades (post lintel)
• First stone capital papyrus flower
• Nile floods deposit fine clay, allowing ceramic
  arts to develop early
• Sandstone, limestone, granite available for
  obelisks, sculpture, and decorative uses. 
• Ramps build on the way up, decorate as its
  taken down

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Mesopotamia Babylon, Assyria, Persia

• Planned city building, cobblestone streets, and
  architecture itself have their beginnings here
• Mud brick on a raised plinth (platform base)
• Walls are ornamented on the outside with
  alternating pilasters and recesses
• Flat roofs, supported on palm trunks, (assumed)

Ziggurat
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Mesopotamia
Saddams Palace
Ishtar Gate
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Greek

• The temple is the best known form of Greek
  architecture.
• These biggest and most beautiful buildings
  reflect the importance of religion.
• The political purpose - to celebrate civic power
  and pride.
• Beauty lies in ratios proportions The Golden
  Mean

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The Greeks developed three architectural systems,
called orders, each with their own distinctive
proportions and detailing.

• Doric

Ionic
Corinthian
The Doric style is sturdy and the capital is
plain. This style was used in mainland Greece and
the colonies in southern Italy and Sicily.
The Ionic style is thinner and more elegant. Its
capital is decorated with a scroll-like design (a
volute). This style was found in eastern Greece
and the islands.
The Corinthian style is seldom used in the Greek
world, but often seen on Roman temples. Its
capital is very elaborate and decorated with
acanthus leaves.
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Greek

• Buildings were usually a cube or a rectangle made
  from limestone which was cut into large blocks.
• Marble was readily available. It was used mainly
  for sculptural decoration, only used as
  structural in the very grandest buildings of the
  Classical period.

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Etruscans 700 B.C. 280 B.C. (Fall of Rome)

• Palaces, public buildings, and early temples made
  of wood and brick, so nothing remains.
• The Etruscans also built aqueducts, bridges, and
  sewers which were built so well they still exist
  today.

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Etruscan

• Etruscans are credited with the true stone arch
• Etruscan architecture was really the beginning of
  Roman architecture.

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Roman

• Roman art and architecture shaped by extensive
  borrowing, first from Etruscans, then from
  Greece.
• One architectural technique that came into use by
  experimentation was the arch and vault.

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Roman

• To support the tremendous weight of the arches,
  it was necessary to transmit the force of gravity
  from the top of massive piers to the foundation
  of the arch. The Romans achieved this feat
  through the use of the Keystone block.

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Roman

• Circular structures were common as well,
  exemplified by the Temple of Vesta, the Pantheon
  and the Castel Sant'Angelo.

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Roman

• The word "arena" is Latin for sand. Sand was
  spread across the amphitheater fighting floor to
  soak up blood.

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Early Christian

• Early Christian builders adapted structures that
  had long been used in the Hellenistic and Roman
  worlds. (recycled buildings)
• Adistinct emphasis was placed on the centralized
  plan, which was of round, polygonal, or cruciform
  shape.

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Early Christian

• Developed from Roman secular basilica
• Rectangular space separated by two rows of
  columns making a nave and two side aisles
• Separated clergy from congregation

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Byzantine

• A continuation of Roman and early Christian
  architecture.
• Eventually combined architecture of the near
  east, with the Greek cross plan for the churches.

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Byzantine

• Brick replaced stone, mosaics replaced carved
  decoration, and complex domes were erected.

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Ancient America - Mayan

• Monumental construction
• Buildings erected on platforms
• Upper walls decorated with continuous frieze
• Lime stucco painted vivid colors

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Mayan

• Every day dwellings were rectangular
• Two doorways were placed directly opposite each
  other to allow for the free flow of air.

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Romanesque

• Romanesque is characterized by a use of round or
  slightly pointed arches, barrel vaults, cruciform
  piers supporting vaults, and groin vaults.
• The great carved portals and church facades
• Stone sculpture seems reborn in the Romanesque.

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Romanesque

• Romanesque seems to have been the first
  pan-European style since Roman Imperial
  Architecture and examples are found in every part
  of the continent. Merchants, nobles, knights,
  artisans, and peasants crossed Europe and the
  Mediterranean world for business, war, and
  religious pilgrimages, carrying their knowledge
  of what buildings in different places looked
  like.

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Gothic

• Originating in northern France (Denis) in the
  twelfth century, Gothic spread rapidly across the
  continent and England, then invaded Scandinavia,
  confronted the Byzantine provinces.
• Made appearances, under the aegis of crusader and
  explorer in the Near East and the Americas.
• By 1400 it had subsumed many types of structures.

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Gothic

• There is no fixed set of proportions in the
  parts, and no standard relationship between solid
  and void. The result is a distortion.

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Gothic

• Light, open and aerial.
• Emphasizes verticality
• Features almost skeletal stone structures
• Great expanses of glass (stained)
• Sharply pointed spires
• Flying butresses
• Ribbed vaults
• Pointed arches
• Inventive sculptural detail

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Renaissance

• Rebirth of classical art and learning
• Classical orders, round arches, and symmetrical
  composition
• The golden mean

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Renaissance

• The ideals of art and architecture became unified
  in the acceptance of classical antiquity and in
  the belief that humanity was a measure of the
  universe.
• The rebirth of classical architecture, which took
  place in Italy in the 15th century and spread in
  the following century through Western Europe,
  terminated the supremacy of the Gothic style.

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Chinese

• Simple, rectangular, low-silhouetted buildings
• Stone and brick for permanent structures
• Wooden frameworks on platforms with nonbearing
  screen walls

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India

• All surviving architecture is stone
• Post and lintel, brackets and corbels
• Rhythmical multiplication of pilasters, cornices,
  moldings, roofs, and finials
• Overgrowth of sculpture decoration

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Japanese

• Exclusively timber
• Strong Chinese influence
• Pavilion structures with nonbearing walls
• Tiled, hipped roofs are widely projecting and
  upward turning.
• Garden

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References

• http//architecture.about.com/library/bl-babylon.h
  tm
• http//archnet.org/library/sites/
• www.earchinfo.com/architecture/egyptian.htm
• http//encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761554529/Rena
  issance_Art_and_Architecture.html
• http//www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/meso/meso.ht
  m
• http//www.greatbuildings.com/
• http//www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/archite
  cture/etruscans.htm
• http//www.historylink101.com/lessons/art_history_
  lessons/greek_architecture.htm
• http//www.lookeducation.com/ancient-architecture-
  mesopotamia.html
• http//www.museum.upenn.edu/new/worlds_intertwined
  /etruscan/architecture.shtml
• http//web.kyoto-inet.or.jp/org/orion/eng/hst/hist
  .html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_architecture

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