Prehistoric Architecture Notes

Introduction to History of Architecture

  • Course Facilitator: Janvir Moses S. Escalona, RLA
  • Prepared by: Ar. Jas Reyes Modot

Module 01: Introduction to History of Architecture

  • Definition and Objectives
  • Principles and Influences
    • Influencing Factors
    • Architectural Character
    • Methods of Construction
    • Building Materials
    • Famous Structures and Architects
    • Developments on the Period
  • Topics Covered:
    • Prehistoric Architecture
      • Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Periods
    • Pre-Classical Architecture: West Asiatic (Ancient Near East, Babylonian, Akkadian, Assyrian)

What is History?

  • Systematic, often chronological narrative of significant events relating to a particular people, country, or period, including an explanation of their causes.

Influences on the Development of Architecture

  • Geographical
  • Geological
  • Climatic
  • Religious
  • Social
  • Political
  • Historical

Terms in Architectural Styles and History

  • Architectural Character: Visual aspects and physical features that comprise the appearance of every historic building.
    • Includes the overall shape of the building, materials, craftsmanship, decorative arrangements, interior spaces and features, and aspects of site orientation and environment.
  • Architectural Elements: Focuses on the fragments, parts, or composition of the rich and complex architectural collage.
    • Includes windows, posts, doors, ceilings, facades, corridors, balconies, and their intricate details.

Architectural Styles Timeline

  • Ancient Egypt (3,050 BC to 900 BC): Monumental pyramids, temples, and shrines constructed by powerful rulers.
  • Classical (850 BC to 476 AD): From the rise of ancient Greece until the fall of the Roman Empire, great buildings were constructed.
  • Early Christian and Medieval (373 to 500): European architecture moved from rectangular basilica forms to the classically inspired Byzantine style.
  • Romanesque (500 to 1200): As Rome spread across Europe, heavier, stocky Romanesque architecture with rounded arches emerged.
  • Gothic Architecture (1100 to 1450): Innovative builders created the great cathedrals of Europe.
  • Renaissance Architecture (1400 to 1600): A return to classical ideas ushered in an "age of awakening" in Italy, France, and England.
  • Baroque Architecture (1600 to 1830): In Italy, the Baroque style is reflected in opulent and dramatic churches with irregular shapes and extravagant ornamentation. In France, the highly ornamented Baroque style combines with Classical restraint.
  • Rococo Architecture (1650 to 1790): During the last phase of the Baroque period, builders constructed graceful white buildings.
  • American Colonial Architecture (1600 to 1780): European settlers in the New World borrowed ideas from their homelands to create their own breed of architecture.
  • Georgian Architecture (1720 to 1800): Georgian was a stately, symmetrical style that dominated in Great Britain and Ireland and influenced building styles in the American colonies.
  • Neoclassical/Federalist/Idealist (1730 to 1925): A renewed interest in the ideas of Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio inspired a return of classical shapes in Europe, Great Britain, and the United States.
  • Greek Revival Architecture (1790 to 1850): These classical buildings and homes often feature columns, pediments, and other details inspired by Greek forms. Antebellum homes in the American South were often built in the Greek Revival style.
  • Victorian Architecture (1840 to 1900): Industrialization brought many innovations in architecture. Victorian styles include Gothic Revival, Italianate, Stick, Eastlake, Queen Anne, Romanesque, and Second Empire.
  • Arts and Crafts Movement in Architecture (1860 to 1900): Arts and Crafts was a late 19th-century backlash against the forces of Industrialization. The Arts and Crafts movement revived an interest in handicrafts and sought a spiritual connection with the surrounding environment, both natural and manmade. The Craftsman Bungalow evolved from the Arts and Crafts movement.
  • Art Nouveau (1890 to 1914): Known as the New Style, Art Nouveau was first expressed in fabrics and graphic design. The style spread to architecture and furniture in the 1890s. Art Nouveau buildings often have asymmetrical shapes, arches, and decorative surfaces with curved, plant-like designs.
  • Beaux Arts Architecture (1896 to 1925): Also known as Beaux Arts Classicism, Academic Classicism, or Classical Revival, Beaux Arts architecture is characterized by order, symmetry, formal design, grandiosity, and elaborate ornamentation.
  • Neo-Gothic Architecture (1905 to 1930): In the early twentieth century, medieval Gothic ideas were applied to modern skyscrapers.
  • Art Deco Architecture (1925 to 1937): Zigzag patterns and vertical lines create dramatic effects on jazz-age, Art Deco buildings.
  • 20th Century Trends in Architecture (1900 to Present): The century has seen dramatic changes and astonishing diversity. Twentieth-century trends include Art Modern and the Bauhaus school coined by Walter Gropius, Deconstructivism, Formalism, Modernism, Structuralism, Postmodernism, and Sustainable/Green Architecture.

Part 1: Prehistoric Architecture

  • Architecture began as a response to nature.
  • Challenges: Extreme weather and violent predators.
  • Map of Early Human Migration: Illustrates the spread of Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo erectus across the globe.
    • 40,000 years ago
    • 200,000 years ago
    • 25,000 years ago
    • 100,000 years ago
    • 70,000 years ago
    • 1,500 years ago
    • 50,000 years ago
    • 30,000 years ago
    • 15,000 years ago
    • 12,000 years ago
    • 4,500 years ago

Prehistoric Period Timeline

  • Humans spread from Africa into Southern Europe and Asia.
  • Settlement in far north regions was limited due to the cold climate.
  • Migration from Siberia to North America by foot.
  • Migration from Southeast Asia to Australia by boat.
  • Before 9000 BC, humans led nomadic lives of hunting and food gathering.
  • By 9000 BC, farming and agriculture were practiced, leading to fertile soil and plentiful food.
  • Animal domestication for work, milk, and wool.
  • People settled down and lived in communities, leading to the first villages in the Middle East, South America, Central America, India, and China.

Influences on Prehistoric Architecture

  • History: Direct human ancestors evolved in Africa from 2.3 million years ago (Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens).
    • The success of the human race was largely due to the development of tools made of stone, wood, and bone.
  • Religion: No organized religion.
    • The dead were treated with respect through burial, ritual, and monuments.
  • Geology/Geography: Prehistoric people were known as nomads.
  • Technological Advancement: Fire was a chief invention of man.
  • Primitive Dwellings were constructed.

Prehistory Defined

  • Prehistory refers to the time before human civilization developed and started writing things down.
  • Scientists speculate about prehistoric events.
  • Objects serve as the documents of record, requiring the "reading" of nonverbal info found in objects.

Three Periods of Prehistoric Age

  1. Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age)
  2. Mesolithic Period (Middle Stone Age)
  3. Neolithic Period (New Stone Age)

1. Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age)

  • c. 40,000-8,000 BCE.
  • Characterized by stone implements such as the use of chipped stone tools.
  • People were mostly hunters.
  • Used caves and tents from branches & animal skins.
  • People lived in temporary shelters like tents or caves because they were nomads.
  • A nomad is a person who does not have a permanent home and moves around a lot.
  • Hunting and gathering did not always provide a steady supply of food.
  • Paleolithic people lived in small groups of no more than 60 people.
  • Cave carvings: symbolic, religious, and aesthetic (beauty) function.
  • Ancient humans in the Paleolithic period also created art using minerals, ochres, burnt bone meal, charcoal, water, blood, animal fats, and tree saps to etch humans, animals, and signs.
  • They also carved small figurines from stones, clay, bones, and antlers.
  • The end of this period marked the end of the last Ice Age, resulting in the extinction of many large mammals, rising sea levels, and climate change that caused human migration.

2. Mesolithic Period (Middle Stone Age)

  • c. 8,000-7,000 BCE.
  • A transition from the Old Stone Age to the New Stone Age.
  • Humans used small stone tools, now polished and sometimes crafted with points and attached to antlers, bone, or wood to serve as spears and arrows.
  • Initially, they lived nomadically in camps near rivers and other bodies of water.
  • Agriculture was introduced, and farming began to be established, leading to more permanent settlements in villages.
  • Main Features:
    1. Hunter-gatherers began to store food in containers (Surplus food).
    2. Less reliance on large mammals for food; more on fish.
    3. Domestication of animals began with dogs.
    4. Use of animals and much developed tools, instead of human, emerged in the field of cultivation. Slash and burn technique used by horticultural societies and use of stick and hoe for cultivation.
  • Mesolithic tool kits were made of bones and wood, were more practical in form, and lighter.
  • Animals became smaller in size and faster than before.

3. Neolithic Period (New Stone Age)

  • c. 7,000-2,300 BCE.
  • Began to settle all year round.
  • Houses were made of timber and mud.
  • The last phase of the prehistoric age, characterized by the civilization of growing crops, domestication of animals, settlements.
  • They formed villages around the fields they farmed and learned how to make jewelry, pottery, bigger houses, better clothing, and stronger tools.
  • People divided up the work; some farmed, some took care of animals, some built houses, some made tools, some made clothing, some made pottery, and others traded.
  • Neolithic people began to trade for things they wanted.

Terms to Remember

  • PALEO - "BEFORE"
  • MESO - "MIDDLE/BETWEEN"
  • NEO - "NEW"
  • LITH - "STONE"
  • MEGA - "LARGE OR GREAT"

Other Periods of Prehistoric Age

4. The Bronze Age

  • 3,000 B.C. to 1,300 B.C.
  • Metalworking advances were made, as bronze, a copper and tin alloy, was discovered.
  • Bronze was used for weapons and tools, replacing stone.
  • Innovations include the ox-drawn plow and the wheel.
  • Use of bronze introduced the need for specialized labor (miners, traders, artisans, and metal workers).
  • Advances in architecture and art occurred.
  • Organized government, law, and warfare, as well as beginnings of religion, also came into play.
  • The earliest written accounts, including Egyptian hieroglyphs and petroglyphs (rock engravings), are also dated to this era.

5. The Iron Age

  • The discovery of ways to heat and forge iron kicked off the Iron Age.
  • Iron was seen as more precious than gold.
  • People used iron because bronze tools were weaker and less efficient.
  • Mass production of steel tools and weapons occurred.
  • Further advances in architecture, with four-room homes, some complete with stables for animals, joining more rudimentary hill forts, as well as royal palaces, temples, and other religious structures.
  • Early city planning took place, with blocks of homes being erected along paved or cobblestone streets and water systems.

Primitive Dwellings

Architectural Character

  • Materials: Animal skins, wooden frames, animal bones.
  • Construction System:
    • Existing or excavated caves.
    • Megalithic, most evident in France, England, and Ireland.
  • Decoration: Caves paintings in Africa, France, and Spain, sculpture.
  • Monoliths.

Pre-Historic Structures: 3 Classifications of Primitive Architecture

  1. Dwellings
  2. Religious Monuments
  3. Burial Mounds

1. Dwellings

  • Rock Cave - Earliest form of dwellings
  • Tents - Made from tree barks, Animal skins & Plant leaves.
  • Huts - usually made up of reeds, brushes and wattles.
Rock Cave
  • Earliest form of dwellings
  • Examples: Tabon Cave, Palawan
Tents
  • Made from tree barks, animal skins, and plant leaves.
  • Ephemeral Architecture was one of the first artifacts created by humans.
  • Temporary Shelter
  • Readily Available materials and limited investment in time and energy
  • Demountable
  • Pinanahang: Lean-to shelter of the Aetas
  • Wigwam or Tepee: Conical tent with wooden poles as framework, covered with rush mats and an animal skin door.
Huts
  • Usually made up of reeds, brushes, and wattles.
  • Beehive Hut: Clochans on Dingle Peninsula, Kerry, Ireland
    • To provide greater height at the centre; the form resembles a straw beehive.
    • The beehive house is typical of Celtic dwellings from 2000 BC in Scotland and Ireland.
  • Trullo: Italy
  • Igloo: Innuit (Eskimo) house constructed of hard-packed snow blocks, built up spirally.
  • Nigerian Hut: With mud walls and roof of palm leaves.
  • Hogan: Primitive Indian structure of joined logs

2. Religious Monuments

  • Monolith: Isolated single upright stone also known as “menhir”
    • "MENHIR" = memorial of victory over one tribe.
  • Megalithic: Mega - "Large", Lithos - "stone"
  • "DOLMEN" = 2 or more upright stones supporting a horizontal slab
  • Cromlech: Also known as Stone Circle /Stone Row Enclosure, formed by huge stones planted on the ground in circular form
Menhir
  • Isolated, large upright monolith stone
  • Memorial of victory over one tribes, prototypes.
  • If Egyptian pyramids
  • Examples: Menhir Gollenstein, Menhir de Champ-Dolent
  • Carnac Stones: Located at Brittany in northwestern France
  • Moai: Monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Isla de Pascua, Chile; the living faces of deified ancestors
Dolmen
  • 2 or more upright stones supporting a horizontal slab
  • Underground mount
  • Earliest post and lintel system
  • Examples: Poulnabrone Dolmen, Ireland
Cromlech
  • 3 or more upright stones capped by an unchain flat stone
  • Indicated place of religion
  • The circular layout of menhirs
  • Famous example: Stonehenge
  • The Stonehenge, Salisbury, UK
    • A genuine architecture in the sense that it defines exterior space
    • Stones transported by sea or river then hauled on land with sledges and rollers by hundreds of people, raised upright into pits, capped with lintels
    • A solar observatory – designed to mark the sun's path during sunrise on Midsummer Day (June 20th or 21st)
  • Examples: Cromlech in Welsh
  • Sarsen Stones:
    • The larger, outer stones
    • They are made of a type of sandstone called sarsen, which is a dense and durable rock.
    • The sarsen stones were carefully shaped and dressed to fit together using mortise and tenon joints.
  • Bluestones
    • Due to their blue-green hue when freshly broken or wet
    • Brought to Stonehenge from a more distant location, the Preseli Hills in Wales, which is around 150 miles (240 kilometers) away.

3. Burial Mounds

  • Tumuli
  • TUMULI or "Barrows" - earthen mounds use for burials of several to couple hundred of ordinary persons. Prototypes of pyramids in Egypt also of the "beehive huts".
  • An artificial mound of earth or stone, especially over an ancient grave. Also called barrow.
  • Examples: Estruscan Necropolis of Banditaccia at Cerveteri
  • Newgrange, IRELAND
    • NEWGRANGE is a passage tomb located in the Boyne Valley in Ireland's Ancient East.
    • A passage measuring 19m (62ft) leads into a chamber with 3 alcoves.
    • The passage and chamber are aligned with the rising sun on the mornings around the Winter Solstice.

Prehistoric Cities: Early Cities

  • From the Ice Age to the Neolithic Age; the earth's climate warmed up.
  • As settlements became more permanent, hunters started farming communities.
  • New architecture was also developed to represent communal and spiritual values.
  • The Fertile Crescent is an agricultural region that runs along the foot of the Taurus and Zagros mountains in a broad arc from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean to present-day Iraq.

Neolithic -New Stone Age Çatalhöyük

  • An ancient Neolithic settlement located in the Konya Plain of central Anatolia
  • The site is composed of multiple levels, with successive building layers constructed on top of one another over time.

Jericho

  • One of the world's oldest continually-inhabited city
  • A hilltop city; citizens lived in stone houses with plaster floors surrounded by high walls and towers.