Survey of Architectural History Final Notes:

This was the type of architecture produced by early human groups and culture to get basic shelter and protection.

Prehistoric Architecture

Paleolithic

Old Stone Age (Nomadic hunter-gathers)

Mesolithic

Middle Stone Age (Hunter-gathers in small communities)

Neolithic

New Stone Age (Rise of agriculture and larger settlements)

Paleolithic peoples generally ________?

Sheltered in caves and temporary structures, used fire, and fashioned simple tools made from stone

Venus of Willendorf; Paleolithic Art/Architecture

________ is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings.

Lascaux

Cave paintings at Lascaux - The Great Hall of Bulls; Paleolithic Art/Architecture

Mammoth Bone dwellings

A circular or oval structure with walls made of stacked large mammoth bones

Mammoth Bone dwellings

In the ______ we see the development of the idea of a structural frame / skeleton (wood) covered in a planar material cladding (grass/thatch, skin, mud).

Mesolithic

What began to flourish during the Neolithic Age?

Building technology and ritual architecture

______, ______, and _____ were constructed of stone and gained prominence on the landscape.

Monuments, temples, and tombs

Catalhoyuk; Neolithic Architecture

The inhabitants lived in ______ that were crammed together in an _______ structure.

Mudbrick houses; aggregate

The ______ were effectively streets at Catalhoyuk.

Rooftops

Los Millares; Neolithic Architecture

What was special about Los Millares?

Largest fortified Neolithic settlement discovered

A large prehistoric stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. Also can refer to the overall constructed monument.

Megalith

A large upright standing stone, seen alone or in alignments of rows or shapes.

Menhir

A type of single-chamber megalithic tomb usually consisting of three or more upright stones supporting a large flat horizontal capstone.

Dolmen

Carnac Alignments; Neolithic Architecture

A prehistoric circular or oval earthen enclosure. Ring-shaped bank on the outside and a ring-shaped ditch on the inside that mark out a central, circular area.

Henge

It seems most likely that henges were ________.

Ceremonial/religious spaces

Stonehenge; Neolithic Architecture

Perhaps the most famous monument from prehistoric times.

Stonehenge

In building construction, a system in which two upright members, the posts, hold up a third member, the lintel, laid horizontally across their top surfaces. All structural openings have evolved from this system.

Post and Lintel

1. Curved Lintel

2. Mortise-and-Tenon Joints

The jump to Urban Civilization was marked by what?

1. Large, relatively dense homogeneous population

2. Begin to define a common cultural system

3. Landscape surrounding city is effectively organized, agrarian

4. Social Structures become stratified

During the Agricultural revolution, cities did what?

City became an accumulation point and/or ceremonial/cultural center

Emergence of cities related to the presence which of water ways?

Rivers and coastlines

Historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system.

Mesopotamia

Where settled farming first emerged; technological advances in the region include the development of agriculture and the use of irrigation, of writing, the wheel, and glass.

The Fertile Crescent

A natural building material made from sand, clay/mud, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material (sticks, straw, and/or manure).

Adobe

A rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple.

Ziggurat

The _______ was considered a holy mountain intended to bridge the gap between the earth and the heavens. Processional structure embodies ritual of struggle to ascend to the gods.

Ziggurat

Ziggurat base provides a metaphoric mountain upon which _______ are placed.

Temples

Ishtar Gate; Babylonian Architecture

A pattern of multiple openings/notches along the top of a defensive wall, through which arrows or other weapons can be shot, while higher parts protect soldiers.

Crenellation

What were Adobe Bricks used for?

1. Molded for decorative reliefs

2. Glazed with varied colors (polychromatic)

A celestial being from ancient Mesopotamian religion bearing a human head, lion or bull's body, (sometimes with the horns and the ears of a bull), and wings. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art. Serves as guardian or protector, so often incorporated at entrances / gates.

Lamassu

Persian architecture achieved its monumental status in the city of _________, the empire’s new capital, which was intended as a symbol of the empire’s sovereignty over its vast dominions.

Persepolis

The Hall of Hundred Columns; Persian Architecture

What does the Hall of Hundred Columns represent?

It represents one of the earliest examples in which an airy dominance of space over mass was achieved

Describe the Hall of Hundred Columns?

Carved stone columns with ornate saddle capitals, holding up a highly decorated wooden roof of crossing rafters

Persian Columns structure:

1. Capitals

2. Shaft

3. Base

Characteristics of Persian columns:

1. Sculpted saddle to receive wooden beams of roof

2. Reflected body of bull, atop curled flutes, make capital

Why did Egyptian culture not change much?

The protection of the deserts and the Red Sea, as a result certain elements in architecture remained constant for almost 3000 years

A flat-roofed rectangular Egyptian tomb with inward sloping sides, containing or built over burial space. Constructed out of mudbrick or limestone.

Mastaba

Part of the decoration of mastaba was the important ______.

False door

Stepped Pyramid of King Zoser; Egyptian Architecture

What was special about the Stepped Pyramid of King Zoser?

15 projected doors—only 1 is a real door

Who designed the Stepped Pyramid of King Zoser?

Imhotep (the first named architect)

What is the structure of the Stepped Pyramid of King Zoser?

The step pyramid is basically five Mastabas - one on top of the other, with each one getting smaller as you near the top

The Great Pyramids at Giza; Egyptian Architecture

The pyramid of Khafre still retains the original _______ cover which once covered the pyramids, making them into towers of gleaming white.

Limestone

When _______ are used in succession from opposing sides, you get a ________, predecessor of the true arch.

Corbels; Corbel Arch

There was a shift from Old Kingdom pyramids to the _______ of processional architecture.

Linear composition/progression

A hall with a flat ceiling which is supported by multiple rows of close-set columns.

Hypostyle hall

Hypostyle Hall; Temple of Amun at Karnak

A ________ is a high section of an exterior wall that rises above adjacent rooflines and contains a row of windows placed above eye level.

Clerestory

What made Persian columns different from Greek and Roman columns?

1. Many natural forms and motifs freely mixed in temple compounds

2. More of a kit-of-parts, not a specific set of orders defined and repeated across many buildings like later Greek and Roman column systems

What type of architecture is this?

Nubian Architecture

What makes Nubian pyramids different from Egyptian pyramids?

They are not equilateral, but based on isosceles triangles

What was the goal of Nubian pyramids?

Achieve height with less base and mass

________ figurines are abstract works of art pared down to minimal representational forms.

Cycladic

Palace of King Minos; Minoan Architecture

What was special about the Palace of King Minos?

All functions were gathered around a single court. The palace did not rely on monumentality or conceptual order but rather informality

Movement throughout the Palace of King Minos was punctuated by what?

The repetitive/colorful colonnades that further accentuated the many loggia

A long sequence of columns supporting a roof or covering, usually along a main path of travel or journey.

Colonnade

A roofed open gallery especially at an upper story overlooking an open courtyard or view.

Loggia

Columns and walls of the Palace of King Minos were quite colorful, as gypsum plaster provided a smooth surface on which ______ were painted. At one time the loggia were all lined with vividly bright _______.

Fresco

Any of several related mural painting types, where paint is applied directly on to wet plaster.

Fresco

The shaft tapers from the top down, intended to produce a floating effect of the supported mass. The exaggerated capital shoulders the weight.

Minoan inverted column

A type of stonework found in Mycenaean architecture, built with huge limestone boulders, roughly fitted together with minimal clearance between adjacent stones and no use of mortar.

Cyclopean Walls

In ancient Greece and the Middle East, architectural form consisting of an open porch, a vestibule, and a large hall with a central hearth and a throne.

Megaron

1. Central Hearth

2. Throne

3. Main Hall

4. Vestibule

5. Open Porch

Tholos Tomb also known as Beehive Tomb; Mycenaean Architecture

What’s special about Tholos’s Tomb?

It is a burial structure characterized by its false dome created by the superposition of successively smaller rings of mud bricks or, more often, stones. Corbeling!

_______ was the period in Greek history lasting from circa 800 BCE to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BCE. After the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period.

Archaic Greece

Why is mythology/religion relevant to architecture?

1. Ornament

2. Hierarchy

3. Ritual

Religious/mythic stories are often expressed and revealed through art and decoration. In societies where most of the population is illiterate (most of human history), ornament/art becomes a primary means of communicating continual religious understanding.

Ornament

These stories can be well hidden to the casual viewer and are often built into the conceptual design of the architectural statement. The overall form can relate to narrative (e.g. ziggurat as mountain of power). The organizing geometry can relate to social structure (e.g. circle as sacred perfection).

Hierarchy

These stories establish processional relationships of movement embedded in and/or facilitated by the architecture (e.g. linear procession into Egyptian tombs).

Ritual

Methods to Describe Greek Temple Form:

1. Order

2. Column Arrangement

3. Number of Columns along short side

Columns in row in front.

Prostyle

Single row of perimeter columns all the way around temple.

Peripteral

The Doric Column

1. Entasis

2. Flute

Columns are not straight but are rounded; tapering of the upper section of the column.

Entasis

Grooves running on a column shaft. In Doric, caused by full scallops, with thin edge remaining.

Flute

Describe the behavior or the capital in the Doric Column.

Capital has minimal expression, no ornamental character

Describe the behavior or the base in the Doric Column.

No base at bottom, shaft sits directly on temple base

1. Pediment

2. Entablature

3. Column

1. Triglyph

2. Metope

Architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze. Largely thought to be a tectonic representation in stone of the wooden beam ends of the typical primitive hut.

Triglyph

A rectangular architectural element that fills the space between two triglyphs in a Doric frieze. Can be plain but often an ornamental relief.

Metope

Temple of Hera II; Archaic Doric Temples

Whats the structure of the Temple of Hera II?

Inner naos/cella with double stack of columns

Key characteristics of classical Greek architecture?

• Buildings are usually made of white marble. They were originally painted, but the paint wore away a long time ago

• Buildings are generally rectangular in shape

• Theatres are the exception and tend to be semicircular

  • Row of columns (called peristyles) on one to four sides of the building

  • Codification of the three Classic Greek Orders

  • Decorated entablatures (horizontal elements supported by column) with many possible components

• Triangular sections connecting flat walls to pitched roofs are called pediments

• Long, rectangular ones are called friezes

• Small, square-ish ones are called metopes

• Windows are small and interiors dark

• Decoration is primarily relief sculptures (raised figures coming out of a block of marble – not fully three-dimensional)

• Buildings have flat or gently-pitched roofs. There are no arches, vaults, or domes in classical Greek architecture