Architecture Flashcards

Flashcards about Architecture from lecture Materials

Ancient Rome Architecture

Focus on Function. Focus on practical matters. Concerned with good government and military power. Focus on undertaking practical architectural and engineering projects. Utilitarian.

Ancient Greece Architecture

Focus on Aesthetics. Concerned with balance and order. Focus on the artistic and philosophical. Focus on perfecting sculpture and on a classic architecture that reflects ideal balance and order. The classical Ideal.

Imperial Rome Architecture

The Roman achievement in both architecture and engineering has had a lasting effect on the development of later architectural styles. Most noteworthy is the use of the arch probably borrowed from the Etruscans.

Ancient Roman Roads

Ancient Roman roads provided efficient means for the movement of armies, officials, civilians, and the inland carriage of official communications and trade goods. There were several kinds of roads ranging from small local roads to broad, long-distance highways built to connect cities, major towns, and military bases.

Roman Concrete

Roman concrete, also called opus caementicium, was a material used in construction during the late Roman Republic through the whole history of the Roman Empire. Further innovative developments in the material, called the Concrete Revolution, contributed to structurally complicated forms, such as the Pantheon dome, the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.

The Pantheon

The building is circular with a portico of large granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment. A rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) to the sky.

Roman Aqueducts

Among the greatest architectural feats of engineering of the Ancient Romans were the aqueducts. The Romans constructed numerous of these aqueducts in order to bring water from distant sources into cities and towns, supplying public baths, latrines, fountains, and private households.

The Roman Baths

In ancient Rome, thermae and balneae were facilities for bathing. Thermae (from the Greek thermos or hot) usually refers to the large imperial bath complexes. Balneae were smaller scale facilities, public or private, that existed in great numbers throughout Rome.

The Colosseum

It is estimated that it could hold between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators, having an average audience of around 65,000. It was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology.

Hagia Sophia

The Hagia Sophia (Greek for Holy Wisdom) was the principal church of Constantinople. It had been destroyed twice, once by fire and-during Justinian's reign during the terrible civil disorders of the Nika revolt in 532 that devastated most of the European side of the city.

Monasteries

Due to its extreme isolation and the very dry weather, the monastery is a vast repository of ancient Byzantine art and culture. It preserves some of Justinian's architecture and also some of the oldest icons in Christianity.

The Gothic Style

Unlike most art movements, for the Gothic style, we can pinpoint the specific time, place, and individual responsible for this style. The Gothic style of architecture began near Paris at the Abbey of Saint Denis in the first half of the 12th century under the sponsorship of the head of the abbey, Abbot Suger, 1080-1151.

Gothic Architecture

One would have to say that the common element in all Gothic cathedrals was verticality. We tend to identify the Gothic style with the pointed arch, pinnacles and columns, and increasingly higher walls buttressed from the outside by flying arches to accommodate the weight of a pitched roof and the sheer size of the ascending walls.

Key Characteristics of Gothic Architecture

So the key characteristics of Gothic architecture are both its verticality and its luminosity. This type of architecture can be described as a transparent diaphanous architecture.

Cathedral of Notre Dame

The blues and reds of Chartres are famous and the tones were never again reproduced exactly. The glaziers produced the colors by adding metallic salts to molten glass.

Gothic Gargoyles

These carved beasts served the practical purpose of funneling rainwater off the roofs while in their extended positions on the roofs and buttresses. They also signified that evil flees the sacred precincts of the church.