Ancient ArchitectureInterior Design II

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.

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 it’s taken down

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

Mesopotamia

Saddam’s Palace

Ishtar Gate

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

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.

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.

Etruscans700 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.

Etruscan

Etruscans are credited with the true stone arch

Etruscan architecture was really the beginning of Roman architecture.

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.

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.

Roman

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

Roman

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

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.

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

Byzantine

A continuation of Roman and early Christian architecture.

Eventually combined architecture of the near east, with the Greek cross plan for the churches.

Byzantine

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

Ancient America - Mayan

Monumental construction

Buildings erected on platforms

Upper walls decorated with continuous frieze

Lime stucco painted vivid colors

Mayan

Every day dwellings were rectangular Two doorways were placed directly opposite

each other to allow for the free flow of air.

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.

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.

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.

Gothic There is no fixed set

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

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

Renaissance

Rebirth of classical art and learning

Classical orders, round arches, and symmetrical composition

The golden mean

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.

Chinese

Simple, rectangular, low-silhouetted buildings

Stone and brick for permanent structures

Wooden frameworks on platforms with nonbearing screen walls

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

Japanese Exclusively timber Strong Chinese

influence Pavilion structures

with nonbearing walls Tiled, hipped roofs are

widely projecting and upward turning.

Garden

References: http://architecture.about.com/library/bl-babylon.htm http://archnet.org/library/sites/ www.earchinfo.com/architecture/egyptian.htm http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761554529/Renaissance_Art_and_A

rchitecture.html http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/meso/meso.htm http://www.greatbuildings.com/ http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/architecture/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