Section 3 (copy)

A number of pre-Contact cultures are collectively termed "__________”.

Mound Builders

The term “Mound Builders” does not refer to a specific people or archaeological culture, but refers to ___________.

The characteristic mound earthworks erected for an extended period of more than 5,000 years across North America, especially along the Mississippi River

Poverty Point; Neolithic Architecture

What are the features of Poverty Point?

1. The largest and most complex Neolithic earthwork occupation and ceremonial site yet found in North America

2. At its peak, the settlement extended over 3 miles along the bayou

3. Main feature is 6 concentric C-rings cut by 4 avenues of circulation, and a main mound of probably religious use

Cahokia; Mississippian Architecture

The largest and most influential urban settlement of the Mississippian culture.

Cahokia

At the heart of Cahokia is the large mound known as _________.

Monk’s Mound

Monk’s Mound; Mississippian Architecture

Ancestral Pueblo settlement areas:

1. Chaco Canyon, which shows their “great Houses” strategy

2. Mesa Verde, which shows their later period cliff dwellings

A major ancient cultural and architectural center located in northwestern New Mexico that served as the heart of Ancestral Puebloan society between roughly AD 700 and 1150.

Chaco Canyon

Buildings that were massive apartment complexes built congruously, sometimes four stories high.

Great Houses

A circular chamber, built wholly or partly underground, traditionally used by male members of the Pueblo people for religious rites.

Kiva

Smaller kivas for general use by households. _______ for use by whole community for important ceremonies.

Great kivas

Pueblo Bonito; Puebloan Architecture

The largest of the Chaco Canyon great houses.

Pueblo Bonito

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde; Puebloan Architecture

The first great Mesoamerican civilization that existed.

The Olmec civilization

The Olmec civilization is considered to be the ___________ or the beginning culture of all Mesoamerican civilizations.

Mother culture

The Olmec are known most famously in popular culture for?

Their many carvings of colossal stone heads

Pyramid of the Sun; Teotihuacan Architecture

Pyramid of the Niches; Teotihuacan or Mayan Architecture

_________ are stepped pyramids, usually composed of a series of short orthogonal platforms.

Mayan pyramids

House of the Governor; Mayan Architecture

What’s special about the House of the Governor?

Shows common Mayan use of boxy forms with exaggerated roof cornice

El Castillo; Mayan Architecture

Widely known for its fine masonry, which features precisely cut and shaped stones closely fitted without mortar.

Inca architecture

Machu Picchu; Inca Architecture

Commonalities between Chinese and Japanese architecture:

1. Wooden Structural Frame - Wood members assembled into a frame of posts/columns, beams, and brackets

2. Rigorous use of a module of construction, which establishes the rhythms and proportions of the building. Chinese jian and Japanese ken and tatami

3. Gently curved roofs with large overhangs, to protect the lightweight walls and project the water farther from the building

4. Roofs are often a hip-and-gable roof

5. Roofs are large, significant portion of building elevation

6. Pagodas (tiered towers)

7. Freestanding gateways to mark entrance to special places

The use of unit, or modular system in Chinese architecture plan, called ______.

Jian

A structural element of interlocking wooden brackets, one of the most important elements in traditional Chinese architecture.

Dougong (cap and block)

What makes the dougong special?

The pieces are fitted together by joinery alone without glue or fasteners, due to the precision and quality of the carpentry.

Brackets and bracket sets became more ________.

Ornamental than structural when used in palatial structures and important religious buildings.

An Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves.

Pagoda

Yingxian wooden pagoda; Chinese Architecture

What makes the Yingxian wooden pagoda special?

The oldest and tallest all-wood pagoda in the world

The Forbidden City; Chinese Architecture

Whats special about the Forbidden City?

Designed to communicate imperial Chinese power

There are basically 3 sections of a single module of the Chinese courtyard house:

1. Main Gate and the worker's quarters

2. The House proper

3. The Kitchen and back of house

Chinese courtyard house

The Chinese house is ______?

Introspective relative to its surroundings

A traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred (minimalist).

Torii

A traditional Chinese gate structure, historically erected to honor virtuous people, mark neighborhood boundaries, or serve as grand entrances to temples, tombs, and gardens (highly ornamented).

Paifang

Several practically universal features can be found in Japanese architecture:

1. Always wood in various forms (planks, straw, tree bark, paper, etc.) for almost all structures

2. The general structure is almost always the same: posts and lintels support a large and gently curved roof

3. The walls are paper-thin, often movable and never load-bearing

4. Sliding doors and other traditional partitions were used in place of walls, allowing the internal configuration of a space to be customized for different occasions

5. Gable and eave curves are gentler than in China

Japanese roofs supported by complex bracket systems?

Tokyō, (dougong in Chinese architecture)

The _____ is a traditional Japanese unit of length, equal to six Japanese feet, or one tatami length;

thus a ______ mat is half a square ken.

Ken; tatami

Hōryū-ji Temple and Pagoda; Japanese Architecture

Great Buddha Hall; Japanese Architecture

A pervasive characteristic of Japanese architecture is ______.

An understanding of the natural world as a source of spiritual insight

Union with the natural was also an element of _______.

Japanese architecture. Architecture seemed to conform to nature. The symmetry of Chinese-style temple plans gave way to asymmetrical layouts that followed the specific contours of hilly and mountainous topography. The borders existing between structures and the natural world were deliberately obscure. Elements such as long verandas and multiple sliding panels offered constant vistas on nature—although the nature was often carefully arranged and fabricated rather than wild and real.

"Dry landscape" garden, often called a __________, creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and uses gravel or sand that is raked to represent ripples in water.

Zen garden

Rectangular mat used as a floor covering in Japanese houses.

Tatami

The standardized size of the mat has created an important modular unit in the development of ________.

Japanese architecture

Irregular plan that takes advantage of the landscape contours and views (extroverted to landscape).

Tatami as modulator of rooms

Inner space divisions are _______.

Fluid, and room size can be modified through the use of screens or movable paper walls

Sliding outer partition doors and windows made of a latticework wooden frame and covered with a tough, translucent white paper. When closed, they softly diffuse light throughout the house.

Shoji

Vertical rectangular panels which can slide from side to side to redefine spaces within a room, or act as doors.

Fusuma

They consist of a lattice-like wooden understructure covered in cardboard and a layer of paper or cloth on both sides. They typically have a black lacquer border and a round finger catch.

Fusuma

Historically, _______ were painted, often with scenes from nature such as mountains, forests or animals.

Fusuma

A geometric and symbolic configuration of shapes that represents the universe, wholeness, and spiritual interconnectedness in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Radiating lines, squares, and symbols act as a visual map guiding practitioners from the outer material world toward inner enlightenment.

Mandala

Traits of Hindu and Buddhist architecture:

1. Precise and harmonious geometry when viewed from all four sides and above. Axial and often fourfold symmetry

2. Plan - square form and grid ground plan

3. Steep soaring towers; sloping metaphorical mountains

4. Textural density - Elaborately decorated with many reliefs and 3D sculptures which includes gods, worshippers, erotic scenes, animals, and floral and geometric patterns

Kailasa Temple; Hindu Architecture

Whats special about the Kailasa Temple?

It is carved from a single rock mass

Two main styles/types of Hindu architecture:

1. Nagara architecture

2. Dravidian architecture

What makes Nagara architecture distinct?

The spire is called a shikara, a curved vertical structure

The spire standing like a mountain.

Shikara

What is a big part of Nagara architecture?

Textural density

Prambanan; Hindu Architecture

A monumental ornate entrance tower, usually a stepped and steep oblong rectangle, at the entrance of a Hindu temple. They serve as gateways in the middle of the four main sides.

Gopura

Dravidian Temple complex:

1. Multiple steep pyramids (gopura) connected by arcades/colonnades and courtyards

2. A temple complex can have multiple courtyard layers, nested together or grouped adjacent

Angkor Wat; Buddhist Architecture

Borobudur; Buddhist Architecture

What’s special about Borobudur?

It is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The central dome is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues