The
history of architecture traces the changes in
the
history of
architecture through various countries and
dates.
Ancient architecture
Prehistoric architecture
Neolithic architecture is the
architecture of the
Neolithic period. In Southwest
Asia, Neolithic
cultures appear
soon after 10000 BC, initially in the
Levant
(
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) and
from there spread eastwards and westwards. There are early
Neolithic cultures in Southeast Anatolia, Syria and Iraq by 8000
BC, and food-producing societies first appear in southeast Europe
by 7000 BC, and Central Europe by c. 5500 BC (of which the earliest
cultural complexes include the
Starčevo-Koros ,
Linearbandkeramic, and
Vinča).
With very small exceptions (a few copper
hatchets and spear
heads in the Great Lakes
region), the people of the Americas and the Pacific
remained at
the Neolithic level of technology up
until the time of European contact.
The
neolithic peoples in the Levant, Anatolia
, Syria
, northern
Mesopotamia and Central Asia were great builders, utilising
mud-brick to construct houses and
villages. At Çatalhöyük
, houses were plastered and painted with elaborate
scenes of humans and animals. The Mediterranean
neolithic cultures of Malta
worshiped in
megalithic
temples. In
Europe,
long houses built from
wattle and daub were constructed. Elaborate
tombs for the dead were also built.
These tombs are particularly numerous in
Ireland
, where there are many thousand still in
existence. Neolithic people in the British Isles built
long barrows and
chamber tombs for their dead and
causewayed camps,
henges flint mines and
cursus
monuments.
Ancient Egypt
In
Ancient Egypt and other early
societies, people believed in the
omnipotence of Gods, with many aspects of daily
life were carried out with respect to the idea of the divine or
supernatural and the way it was
manifest in the mortal cycles of generations, years, seasons, days
and nights.
Harvests for example were seen
as the benevolence of
fertility deities.
Thus, the founding and ordering of the
city and
her most important buildings (the
palace or
temple) were often executed by priests or
even the ruler himself and the construction was accompanied by
rituals intended to enter human activity
into continued divine
benediction.
Ancient architecture is characterised by this tension between the
divine and mortal world. Cities would mark a contained sacred space
over the wilderness of
nature outside, and
the temple or palace continued this order by acting as a house for
the Gods. The architect, be he
priest or
king, was not the sole important figure; he
was merely part of a continuing tradition
Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian architecture mainly consisted of
Mesoamerican architecture and
Incan architecture.
Mesoamerican architecture is the set of
architectural traditions produced by
pre-Columbian cultures and civilizations of
Mesoamerica, traditions which are best
known in the form of public, ceremonial and urban monumental
buildings and structures. The distinctive features of Mesoamerican
architecture encompass a number of different regional and
historical styles, which however are significantly interrelated.
These styles developed throughout the different phases of
Mesoamerican history as a result of
the intensive cultural exchange between the different cultures of
the Mesoamerican culture area through thousands of years.
Mesoamerican architecture is mostly noted for its
pyramids which are the largest such
structures outside of
Ancient
Egypt.
Incan architecture consists of
the major construction achievements developed by the
Incas. The Incas developed an extensive
road system spanning most of the western
length of the continent.
Inca rope
bridges could be considered the world's first suspension
bridges. Because the Incas used no wheels (the Inca, unlike many
other large empires, never discovered the wheel) or horses they
built their roads and bridges for foot and pack-
llama traffic.
Much of
present day architecture at the former Inca capital Cuzco
shows both
Incan and Spanish influences. The famous lost city
Machu Picchu is the best surviving example of
Incan architecture.
Another significant site is Ollantaytambo
. The Inca were sophisticated stone cutters
whose masonry used no mortar.
Ancient Greece
The architecture and urbanism of the
Greeks and
Romans
were very different from those of the
Egyptians or
Persians in that civic life gained
importance. During the time of the ancients, religious matters were
the preserve of the ruling order alone; by the time of the Greeks,
religious mystery had skipped the confines of the temple-palace
compounds and was the subject of the people or
polis.
Greek civic life was sustained by new, open spaces called the
agora which were surrounded by public
buildings, stores and temples. The
agora embodied the new
found respect for social justice received through open debate
rather than imperial mandate. Though divine wisdom still presided
over human affairs, the living rituals of ancient civilizations had
become inscribed in space, in the paths that wound towards the
acropolis for example. Each place
had its own nature, set within a world refracted through myth, thus
temples were sited atop mountains all the better to touch the
heavensThe Romans conquered the Greek cities in Italy around three
hundred years before
Christ and much of the
Western world after that.
The Roman problem of rulership involved the
unity of disparity — from Spanish
to Greek
, Macedonian to Carthaginian
— Roman rule had extended itself across the breadth
of the known world and the myriad pacified cultures forming this
ecumene presented a new challenge for justice. One
way to look at the unity of Roman architecture is through a
new-found realisation of theory derived from practice, and embodied
spatially. Civically we find this happening in the Roman
forum (sibling of the Greek
agora), where public participation is increasingly removed from the
concrete performance of rituals and represented in the decor of the
architecture. Thus we finally see the beginnings of the
contemporary public square in the Forum Iulium, begun by
Julius Caesar, where the buildings present
themselves through their facades as representations within the
space. As the Romans chose representations of sanctity over actual
sacred spaces to participate in society, so the communicative
nature of space was opened to human manipulation. None of which
would have been possible without the advances of Roman
engineering and construction or the newly found
marble quarries which were the spoils of war;
inventions like the
arch and
concrete gave a whole new form to Roman
architecture, fluidly enclosing space in taut
domes and
colonnades, clothing
the grounds for imperial rulership and civic order.
This was
also a response to the changing social climate which demanded new
buildings of increasing complexity — the coliseum
, the residential block, bigger hospitals and academies. General civil
construction such as roads and bridges began to be built.
Roman architecture
The Romans widely employed, and further developed, the
arch,
vault and
dome (see the
Roman Architectural
Revolution), all of which were little used before, particularly
in Europe.
The Romans were the first builders in Europe,
perhaps the first in the world, fully to appreciate the advantages
of the arch, the vault and the dome.(Robertson, D.S.: Greek
and Roman Architecture, 2nd edn., Cambridge 1943, p.231) Their
innovative use of Roman concrete
facilitated the building of the many public buildings of often unprecedented
size throughout the empire.
These
include Roman temples, Roman baths, Roman
bridges, Roman aqueducts,
Roman harbours, triumphal arches,
Roman
amphitheatres
, Roman circuses
palaces, mausolea
and in the late empire also church.
Roman domes permitted construction of
vaulted ceilings and enabled huge covered public spaces such as the
public baths like Baths of Diocletian or the monumental
Pantheon
in the city of Rome.
Art
historians such as Gottfried Richter in the 20's identified the
Roman architectural innovation as being the Triumphal
Arch
and it is poignant to see how this symbol of power
on earth was transformed and utilised within the Christian
basilicas when the Roman Empire of the West was on its last legs:
The arch was set before the altar to symbolize the triumph of
Christ and the after life. It is in their impressive aqueducts that we see the arch triumphant,
especially in the many surviving examples, such as the Pont du Gard
, the aqueduct at Segovia
and the remains of the Aqueducts of Rome itself. Their
survival is testimony to the durability of their materials and
design.
Asia
Persian
The pre-Islamic styles draw on 3-4 thousand years of architectural
development from various civilizations of the Iranian plateau. The
post-Islamic architecture of Iran in turn, draws ideas from its
pre-Islamic predecessor, and has geometrical and repetitive forms,
as well as surfaces that are richly decorated with glazed tiles,
carved stucco, patterned brickwork, floral motifs, and
calligraphy.As such, Iran ranks seventh in the world in terms of
possessing historical monuments, museums, and other cultural
attractions and is recognized by UNESCO as being one of the cradles
of civilization.
Each of
the periods of Elamites
, Achaemenids, Parthia, and Sassanids were creators of great architecture that
over the ages has spread wide and far to other cultures being
adopted. Although Iran has suffered its share of
destruction, including Alexander The
Great's decision to burn Persepolis
, there are sufficient remains to form a picture of
its classical architecture.[[Image:Ctesiphon, Iraq
(2117465493).jpg|thumb|280px|The ruins of Taq-i Kisra
at Ctesiphon
(in today iraq
) - an
example of Persian
architecture during Sassanid
period.]]The Achaemenids built on
a grand scale. The artists and materials they used were brought in
from practically all territories of what was then the largest state
in the world. Pasargadae
set the standard: its city was laid out in an
extensive park with bridges, gardens, colonnaded palaces and open column
pavilions. Pasargadae along with Susa and Persepolis
expressed the authority of The King of Kings, the staircases of the
latter recording in relief sculpture the vast extent of the
imperial frontier.
With the emergence of the Parthians and
Sassanids there was an appearance of new
forms. Parthian innovations fully flowered during the Sassanid
period with massive barrel-vaulted
chambers, solid masonry domes, and tall columns. This influence was
to remain for years to come.The roundness of the city of Baghdad
in the Abbasid era for
example, points to its Persian precedents such as Firouzabad
in Fars
. The
two designers who were hired by al-Mansur
to plan the city's design were Naubakht, a
former Persian Zoroastrian who also determined that the date of the
foundation of the city would be astrologically auspicious, and
Mashallah, a former Jew from Khorasan.The ruins of Persepolis, Ctesiphon, Jiroft,
Sialk
, Pasargadae, Firouzabad, Arg-é
Bam
, and thousands of other ruins may give us merely a
distant glimpse of what contribution Persians made to the art of
building.
The fall of the Sassanid Empire to invading Islamic forces
ironically led to the creation of remarkable religious buildings in
Iran. Arts such as calligraphy, stucco work, mirror work, and
mosaic work, became closely tied with architecture in Iran
in the new
era. Archaeological excavations have provided sufficient
documents in support of the impacts of Sasanian architecture on the
architecture of the Islamic world.Many experts believe the period
of Persian architecture from the 15th through 17th Centuries to be
the most brilliant of the post-Islamic era. Various structures such
as mosques, mausoleums, bazaars, bridges, and different palaces
have mainly survived from this period.
Interior spaces in Persian architecture make optimal use of
techniques for regulating light, temperature, and heat by usage of
appropriate design and materials.
Safavi Isfahan
tried to achieve grandeur in scale (Isfahan's
Naghsh-i
Jahan Square
is the 6th largest square worldwide)
knowledge about building tall buildings with vast inner
spaces. However, the quality of ornaments was decreased in
comparison with those of the 14th and 15th centuries.In the old
Persian architecture, semi-circular and oval-shaped vaults were of
great interest, leading Safavi architects to display their
extraordinary skills in making massive domes. Domes can be seen
frequently in the structurae of bazaars and mosques, particularly
during the Safavi period in Isfahan. Iranian domes are
distinguished for their height, proportion of elements, beauty of
form, and roundness of the dome stem. The outer surfaces of the
domes are mostly mosaic faced, and create a magical view. In the
words of D. Huff, a German archaeologist, the dome is the dominant
element in Persian architecture.Another aspect of this architecture
was the harmony it presented and manifested with the people, their
environment, and their beliefs. At the same time no strict rules
were applied to govern this form of Islamic architecture.
The great
mosques of Khorasan, Isfahan
, and Tabriz
each used
local geometry, local materials, and local building methods to
express in their own ways the order, harmony, and unity of Islamic
architecture. And thus when the major monuments of Islamic
Persian architecture are examined, they reveal complex geometrical
relationships, a studied hierarchy of form and ornament, and great
depths of symbolic meaning. In the words of Arthur U. Pope, who
carried out extensive studies in ancient Persian and Islamic
buildings.
Indian
India's
urban civilization is traceable to Mohenjodaro
and Harappa
, now in Pakistan
. From then on, Indian architecture and civil engineering continued to develop,
and was manifestated temples, palaces and forts across the
Indian subcontinent and
neighbouring regions. Architecture and civil engineering was known
as sthapatya-kala, literally "the art of
constructing".
According to J.J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson, the Sulbasutras were appendices to the Vedas giving rules for constructing altars.
"They contained quite an amount of geometrical knowledge, but the
mathematics was being developed, not for its own sake, but purely
for practical religious purposes."
During
the Kushan Empire and Mauryan Empire, Indian architecture and civil
engineering reached regions like Baluchistan and Afghanistan
. Statues of Buddha were cut out, covering entire mountain
cliffs, like in Buddhas
of Bamyan
, Afghanistan. Over a period of time, ancient
Indian art of construction blended with Greek styles and spread to
Central Asia.
Indian architecture encompasses
a wide variety of geographically and historically spread
structures, and was transformed by the history of the Indian subcontinent. The result is an
evolving range of architectural production that, although it is
difficult to identify a single representative style, nonetheless
retains a certain amount of continuity across history. The
diversity of Indian culture is represented in its architecture. It
is a blend of ancient and varied native traditions, with building
types, forms and technologies from West and Central Asia, as well
as Europe. It includes the architecture of various dynasties, such
as Hoysala architecture,
Vijayanagara Architecture
and Western Chalukya
Architecture.
Architectural styles range from Hindu temple architecture to
Islamic architecture to western
classical architecture to
modern and post-modern architecture.
The
temples of Aihole
and
Pattadakal
are the earliest known examples of Hindu temples. There are numerous Hindu
as well as Buddhist temples that are known as excellent examples of
Indian rock-cut
architecture. The Church of St. Anne which is
cast in the Indian Baroque Architectural
style under the expert orientation of the most eminent architects
of the time. It is a prime example of the blending of traditional
Indian styles with western European architectural styles.
Chinese
From the
Neolithic era Longshan Culture and Bronze Age era Erlitou culture
, the earliest rammed
earth fortifications exist, with evidence that timber architecture. The subterranean
ruins of the palace at Yinxu
dates back
to the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600
BC–1046 BC). In historic China, architectural emphasis was laid
upon the horizontal axis, in particular the construction of a heavy
platform and a large roof that floats over this base, with the
vertical walls not as well emphasized. This contrasts Western
architecture, which tends to grow in height and depth. Chinese
architecture stresses the visual impact of the width of the
buildings. The deviation from this standard is the
tower architecture of the Chinese tradition, which began as a
native tradition and was eventually influenced by the Buddhist building for housing religious sutras — the stupa — which came
from India
.
Ancient Chinese tomb model representations of multiple story
residential towers and watchtowers date to the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD). However, the earliest
extant Buddhist Chinese pagoda is the
Songyue Pagoda, a 40 m (131 ft) tall
circular-based brick tower built in Henan
province in
the year 523 AD. From the 6th century onwards, stone-based
structures become more common, while the earliest are from stone
and brick arches found in Han Dynasty tombs. The Zhaozhou
Bridge
built from 595 to 605 AD is China's oldest extant
stone bridge, as well as the world's oldest fully stone open-spandrel segmental arch
bridge.
The vocational trade of architect, craftsman, and engineer was not
as highly respected in premodern Chinese society as the scholar-bureaucrats who were drafted
into the government by the civil
service examination system. Much of the knowledge about early
Chinese architecture was passed on from one tradesman to his son or
associative apprentice. However, there were several early treatises
on architecture in China, with encyclopedic information on
architecture dating back to the Han Dynasty. The height of the
classical Chinese architectural tradition in writing and
illustration can be found in the Yingzao Fashi, a building manual written
by 1100 and published by Lie Jie (1065–1110) in 1103. In it there
are numerous and meticulous illustrations and diagrams showing the
assembly of halls and building components, as well as classifying
structure types and building components.
There were certain architectural features that were reserved solely
for buildings built for the Emperor of China. One example is the
use of yellow roof tiles; yellow having been the Imperial color,
yellow roof tiles still adorn most of the buildings within the
Forbidden
City
. The Temple of Heaven
, however, uses blue roof tiles to symbolize the
sky. The roofs are almost invariably supported by brackets,
a feature shared only with the largest of religious buildings. The
wooden columns of the buildings, as well as the surface of the
walls, tend to be red in colour.
Many current Chinese architectural designs follow post-modern and western styles.
Japanese architecture
Japanese architecture has as long a history as any other aspect of
Japanese culture. Influenced heavily by Chinese architecture, it
also shows a number of important differences and aspects which are
uniquely Japanese.
Two new forms of architecture were developed in medieval Japan in
response to the militaristic climate of the times: the castle, a defensive structure built to house a feudal
lord and his soldiers in times of trouble; and the shoin,
a reception hall and private study area designed to reflect the
relationships of lord and vassal within a feudal society.
Because
of the need to rebuild Japan
after
World War II, major Japanese cities
contain numerous examples of modern architecture. Japan
played some role in modern skyscraper
design, because of its long familiarity with the cantilever
principle to support the weight of heavy tiled temple roofs. New
city planning ideas based on the
principle of layering or cocooning around an inner space (oku), a
Japanese spatial concept that was adapted to urban needs, were
adapted during reconstruction. Modernism
became increasingly popular in architecture in Japan starting in
the 1970s.
Islamic architecture
Islamic architecture has
encompassed a wide range of both secular and religious architecture
styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing
the design and construction of buildings and structures within the
sphere of Islamic culture. Some distinctive structures in Islamic
architecture are mosques, tombs
, palaces and forts, although
Islamic architects have of course also applied their distinctive
design precepts to domestic architecture.
The wide spread and long history of Islam has given rise to many
local architectural styles, including Persian, Moorish, Timurid, Ottoman, Fatimid, Mamluk, Mughal, Indo-Islamic, Sino-Islamic and Afro-Islamic architecture. Notable
Islamic architectural types include the early Abbasid buildings,
T-type mosques, and the central-dome mosques of Anatolia.
Africa
[[Image:Great-Zimbabwe-2.jpg|225px|thumb|left|The conical tower
inside the Great Enclosurein Great Zimbabwe
, a medieval city built by a prosperous
culture.]]Early African architecture consisted of the
achievements of the Ancient
Egyptians. Great Zimbabwe is the largest medieval city in sub-Saharan
Africa. By the late nineteenth century, most buildings
reflected the fashionable European eclecticism and pastisched Mediterranean, or
even Northern European, styles. In the Western Sahel region, Islamic influence was a major
contributing factor to architectural development from the time of
the Kingdom of Ghana. At Kumbi Saleh
, locals lived in domed-shaped dwellings in the
king's section of the city, surrounded by a great enclosure.
Traders lived in stone houses in a section which possessed 12
beautiful mosques, as described by al-bakri, with one centered on
Friday prayer. The king is said to
have owned several mansions, one of which was sixty-six feet long,
forty-two feet wide, contained seven rooms, was two stories high,
and had a staircase; with the walls and chambers filled with
sculpture and painting. Sahelian
architecture initially grew from the two cities of Djenné
and Timbuktu
. The Sankore Mosque in
Timbuktu, constructed from mud on timber, was similar in
style to the Great Mosque of Djenné
. The rise of kingdoms in the West
African coastal region produced architecture which drew on
indigenous traditions, utilizing wood. The famed Benin City
, destroyed by the Punitive Expedition, was a large complex
of homes in coursed mud, with hipped roofs of shingles or palm leaves. The Palace had
a sequence of ceremonial rooms, and was decorated with brass plaques.
Europe
Medieval architecture
Western European architecture in the Early Middle Ages may be divided into
Early Christian
and Pre-Romanesque,
including Merovingian, Carolingian, Ottonian, and Asturian. While these terms
are problematic, they nonetheless serve adequately as entries into
the era. Considerations that enter into histories of each period
include Trachtenberg's "historicising"
and "modernising" elements, Italian versus northern, Spanish, and
Byzantine elements, and especially the religious and political
maneuverings between kings, popes, and various ecclesiastic
officials.
Surviving examples of medieval secular architecture mainly served
for defense. Castles and fortified walls provide the most notable
remaining non-religious examples of medieval architecture. Windows
gained a cross-shape for more than decorative purposes: they
provided a perfect fit for a crossbowman to
safely shoot at invaders from inside. Crenelated walls (battlements) provided shelters for archers on the
roofs to hide behind when not shooting.
Renaissance architecture
The Renaissance often refers to the
Italian Renaissance that began
in the 14th century, but recent research has revealed the existence
of similar movements around Europe before the
15th century; consequently, the term "Early
Modern" has gained popularity in describing this cultural
movement. This period of cultural rebirth is often credited with
the restoration of scholarship in the Classical Antiquities and the
absorption of new scientific and philosophical knowledge that fed
the arts.
The development from Medieval architecture
concerned the way geometry mediated between
the intangibility of light and the tangibility of the material as a
way of relating divine creation to mortal existence. This
relationship was changed in some measure by the invention of
Perspective which brought a
sense of infinity into the realm of human comprehension through the
new representations of the horizon, evidenced in the expanses of
space opened up in Renaissance painting, and helped shape new
humanist thought.
Perspective represented a new understanding of space as a
universal, a
priori fact, understood and controllable through human
reason. Renaissance buildings therefore show a different sense of
conceptual clarity, where spaces were designed to be understood in
their entirety from a specific fixed viewpoint. The power of
Perspective to universally represent reality was not limited to
describing experiences, but also allowed it to anticipate
experience itself by projecting the image back into reality.
Donato Bramante's Cortile del
Belvedere
project is one such instance where spaces were
pictured/designed together before being built. Such a space
was only possible due to the powers of abstraction, offered by
perspective, that allowed the composition of heterogeneous
activities into a metaphor for the legitimacy of current rule. The
commission was set by Pope Julius II
to connect an ancient pontifical palace on the right of St Peter's
with the palace, built by Pollaiolo for Innocent VIII. In doing so
Bramante organised the ascent through three courts that sees the
lower, theatrical level move into the upper level through
increasingly planned gardens thereby creating a tension between the
human realm and an idealised vision of the "ideal city", Jerusalem,
this is explicitly shown in Bramante's depiction of the ascent from
the perspective of Pope Julius's bedroom window.
The
Renaissance spread to France
in the
late 15th century, when Charles
VIII returned in 1496 with several Italian artists from his
conquest of Naples. Renaissance chateaux were built in the Loire
Valley, the earliest example being the Château
d'Amboise
, and the style became dominant under Francis I(1515-47). (See Châteaux of the Loire
Valley). The Château de Chambord
) is a combination of Gothic structure and
Italianate ornament, a style which progressed under architects such
as Sebastiano Serlio, who was engaged after 1540 in work at the
Château de
Fontainebleau
. At Fontainebleau Italian artists such as
Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio, and Niccolo dell' Abbate formed the First
School of
Fontainebleau.
Architects such as Philibert
Delorme, Androuet du
Cerceau, Giacomo Vignola, and
Pierre Lescot, were inspired by the
new ideas. The southwest interior facade of the Cour
Carree of the Louvre
in Paris
was designed by Lescot and covered with exterior carvings by
Jean Goujon. Architecture
continued to thrive in the reigns of Henri II and Henri III.
In
England
the first great exponent of Renaissance
architecture was Inigo Jones (1573 –
1652), who had studied architecture in Italy where the influence of
Palladio was very strong.
Jones
returned to England full of enthusiasm for the new movement and
immediately began to design such buildings as the Queen's House
at Greenwich in 1616 and the Banqueting House at
Whitehall
three years later. These works with their
clean lines and symmetry, were revolutionary in a country still
enamoured with mullion windows, crenelations and turrets.
Baroque architecture
If Renaissance architecture announced a rebirth of human culture,
the periods of Mannerism and the Baroque that followed signalled an increasing
anxiety over meaning and representation. Important developments in
science and philosophy had separated mathematical representations
of reality from the rest of culture, fundamentally changing the way
humans related to their world through architecture.
The Age of Enlightenment
Rationality and the universals lead to
the emancipation of history, Gottfried
Semper leads the fray, filleting of "beauty" leads to
contemporary notions of form, the seed of Modernity.
Beaux-Arts architecture
"What Style Shall We Build In?" [Heinrich Huebsch])
Beaux-Arts architecture denotes the academic
classical architectural style
that was taught at the École
des Beaux Arts in Paris
.
The style "Beaux-Arts" is above all the cumulative product
of two and a half centuries of instruction under the authority,
first of the Académie royale d'architecture, then, following the
Revolution, of the Architecture section of the Académie des
Beaux-Arts. The organization under the Ancien Régime of the
competition for the Grand Prix de Rome in architecture, offering a
chance to study in Rome, imprinted its codes and esthetic on the
course of instruction, which culminated during the Second Empire
(1850-1870) and the Third Republic that followed. The style of
instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without
a major renovation until 1968.
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is a term given to a number of building styles
with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form
and the elimination of ornament, that first arose around
1900. By the 1940s these styles had been consolidated and
identified as the International Style and
became the dominant architectural style, particularly for
institutional and corporate building, for several decades in the
twentieth century.
The exact characteristics and origins of modern architecture are
still open to interpretation and debate.
The instrumentalisation of Architecture as argued under the
maxim "form follows function".
Functionalism
Functionalism, in architecture, is the principle that architects
should design a building based on the purpose of that building.
This statement is less self-evident than it first appears, and is a
matter of confusion and controversy within the profession,
particularly in regard to modern
architecture.
The place of functionalism in building can be traced back to the
Vitruvian triad, where 'utilitas'
(variously translated as 'commodity', 'convenience', or 'utility')
stands alongside 'venustas' (beauty) and 'firmitas' (firmness) as
one of three classic goals of architecture.
Futurist architecture
Futurist architecture began as an early-20th century form of
architecture characterized by anti-historicism and long horizontal
lines suggesting speed, motion and urgency. Technology and even
violence were among the themes of the Futurists. The movement was
founded by the poet Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti, who produced its first manifesto, the
Manifesto of Futurism in 1909). The movement attracted not
only poets, musicians, artist (such as Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Fortunato Depero, and Enrico Prampolini) but also a number of
architects. Among the latter there was Antonio Sant'Elia, who, though he built
little, translated the Futurist vision into bold urban form.
Expressionist architecture
Expressionist architecture was an architectural movement that
developed in Northern Europe during the first decades of the 20th
century in parallel with the expressionist visual and performing
arts.
The style was characterised by an early-modernist adoption of novel
materials, formal innovation, and very unusual massing, sometimes
inspired by natural biomorphic forms, sometimes by the new
technical possibilities offered by the mass production of brick,
steel and especially glass. Many expressionist architects fought in
World War I and their experiences,
combined with the political turmoil and social upheaval that
followed the German Revolution of
1919, resulted in a utopian outlook and a romantic socialist
agenda. Economic conditions severely limited the number of built
commissions between 1914 and the mid 1920s, resulting in many of
the most important expressionist works remaining as projects on
paper, such as Bruno Taut's Alpine
Architecture and Hermann
Finsterlin's Formspiels. Ephemeral exhibition
buildings were numerous and highly significant during this period.
Scenography for theatre and films
provided another outlet for the expressionist imagination, and
provided supplemental incomes for designers attempting to challenge
conventions in a harsh economic climate.
International Style
The International style was a major architectural trend of the 1920s and
1930s. The term usually refers to the buildings and architects of
the formative decades of modernism, before World War II. The term had its origin from the
name of a book by Henry-Russell
Hitchcock and Philip Johnson
which identified, categorised and expanded upon characteristics
common to modernism across the world. As a result, the focus was
more on the stylistic aspects of modernism. The basic design
principles of the international style thus constitute part of
modernism.
Around 1900 a number of architects around the world began
developing new architectural solutions to integrate traditional
precedents with new social demands and technological possibilities.
The work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde in Brussels, Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, Otto Wagner in Vienna and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in
Glasgow, among many others, can be seen as a common struggle
between old and new.
Tube architecture
Since 1963, a new structural system of framed tubes appeared in
skyscraper design and
construction. The Bangladeshi
engineer Fazlur Khan
defined the framed tube structure as "a three dimensional space
structure composed of three, four, or possibly more frames, braced
frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form a
vertical tube-like structural system capable of resisting lateral
forces in any direction by cantilevering from the
foundation." Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns
form the tube. Horizontal loads, for example wind, are supported by
the structure as a whole. About half the exterior surface is
available for windows. Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns,
and so create more usable floor space. Where larger openings like
garage doors are required, the tube frame must be interrupted, with
transfer girders used to maintain structural integrity.
The first
building to apply the tube-frame construction was the
DeWitt-Chestnut apartment building which Khan designed and was
completed in Chicago
by 1963. This laid the foundations for the tube
structures of many other later skyscrapers, including his own
John Hancock
Center
and Sears Tower
, and can been seen in the construction of the World
Trade Center, Petronas
Towers
, Jin Mao
Building
, and most other supertall
skyscrapers since the 1960s. The architecture of Chicago employing
the ideas developed by Khan is often known as the "Second Chicago School".
Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture is an international style whose first
examples are generally cited as being from the 1950s, and which
continues to influence present-day architecture. Postmodernity in architecture is generally
thought to be heralded by the return of "wit, ornament and
reference" to architecture in response to the formalism of the
International
Style of modernism. As with many cultural movements, some of
postmodernism's most pronounced and visible ideas can be seen in
architecture. The functional and formalized
shapes and spaces of the modernist
movement are replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics: styles collide, form is adopted for
its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space
abound.
Classic
examples of modern architecture
are the Lever
House
and the Seagram Building
in commercial space, and the architecture of
Frank Lloyd Wright or the
Bauhaus movement in private or communal
spaces. Transitional examples of postmodern
architecture are the Portland Building
in Portland
and the Sony Building 
(originally AT&T Building) in New York City
, which borrows elements and references from the
past and reintroduces color and symbolism to architecture.
A prime
example of inspiration for postmodern architecture lies along the
Las Vegas
Strip
, which was studied by Robert Venturi in his 1972 book Learning
from Las Vegas celebrating the strip's ordinary and common
architecture. Venturi opined that "Less is a bore",
inverting Mies Van Der Rohe's
dictum that "Less is more".
Googie architecture
Googie architecture is a subdivision of expressionist, or futurist architecture influenced by
car culture the Space Age, originating from southern California in the late 1940s
and continuing approximately into the mid-1960s. With upswept roofs
and, often, curvaceous, geometric shapes,
and bold use of glass, steel and neon, it decorated many
a motel, coffee
house and bowling alley in the
1950s and 1960s. It epitomizes the spirit a generation demanded,
looking excitedly towards a bright, technological and futuristic age.
As it became clear that the future would not look like The Jetsons, the style came to be timeless
rather than futuristic. As with the art
deco style of the 1930s, it has remained undervalued until many
of its finest examples had been destroyed. The style is related to
and sometimes synonymous with the Raygun
Gothic style as coined by writer William Gibson.
Deconstructivist architecture
Deconstructivism in architecture is a development of postmodern architecture that began
in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation,
non-linear processes of design, an
interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin,
and apparent non-Euclidean
geometry, (i.e., non-rectilinear
shapes) which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of architecture,
such as structure and envelope.
The finished visual appearance of buildings that exhibit the many
deconstructivist "styles" is characterised by a stimulating
unpredictability and a controlled chaos.
Important
events in the history of the deconstructivist movement include the
1982 Parc de la
Villette
architectural design
competition (especially the entry from Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi's winning entry), the
Museum of
Modern Art
's 1988 Deconstructivist Architecture
exhibition in New York, organized by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley, and the 1989 opening of the
Wexner
Center for the Arts
in Columbus
, designed by Peter Eisenman. The New York
exhibition featured works by Frank
Gehry, Daniel Libeskind,
Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Zaha
Hadid, Coop Himmelblau, and
Bernard Tschumi. Since the
exhibition, many of the architects who were associated with
Deconstructivism have distanced themselves from the term.
Nonetheless, the term has stuck and has now, in fact, come to
embrace a general trend within contemporary architecture.
Critical regionalism
Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter the
placelessness and lack of meaning in Modern Architecture by using contextual
forces to give a sense of place and meaning. The term critical
regionalism was first used by Alexander
Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre and
later more famously by Kenneth
Frampton.
Frampton put forth his views in "Towards a Critical
Regionalism: Six points of an architecture of resistance." He
evokes Paul Ricoeur's question of "how
to become modern and to return to sources; how to revive an old,
dormant civilization and take part in universal civilization".
According to Frampton, critical regionalism should adopt modern
architecture critically for its universal progressive qualities but
at the same time should value responses particular to the context.
Emphasis should be on topography, climate, light, tectonic form
rather than scenography and the tactile sense rather than the
visual. Frampton draws from phenomenology to supplement his
arguments.
See also
Notes
- Virtual Conference
- http://www.iran-daily.com/1385/2631/pdf/i12.pdf
- Islam Art and Architecture. Markus Hattstein, Peter Delius.
2000. p96. ISBN 3-8290-2558-0
- Discovery of brick tablet in Jiroft proves 3rd millennium
BC civilization
- O'Connor, J. J. and E. F. Robertson, Overview of Indian Mathematics, School
of Mathematics, University of St Andrew, Scotland.
- Historical Society of Ghana. Transactions of the Historical
Society of Ghana, The Society, 1957, pp81
- Davidson, Basil. The Lost Cities of Africa. Boston: Little
Brown, 1959, pp86
- The phrase Beaux Arts is usually translated as
"Fine Arts" in
non-architectural English contexts.
- Robin Middleton, Editor. The Beaux-Arts and
Nineteenth-century French Architecture. (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1982).
- Jencks, p.59
- Sharp, p.68
- Pehnt, p.163
- Husserl, Origins of Geometry, Introduction by Jacques
Derrida
- Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, Chora L Works (New
York: Monacelli Press, 1997)
References
- Braun, Hugh, An Introduction to English Mediaeval
Architecture, London: Faber and Faber, 1951.
- Francis Ching, Mark Jarzombek,
Vikram Prakash, A Global History of Architecture, Wiley,
2006.
- Copplestone, Trewin. (ed). (1963). World architecture - An
illustrated history. Hamlyn, London.
- Hitchcock,
Henry-Russell, The Pelican History of Art: Architecture :
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Penguin Books, 1958.
- Nuttgens, Patrick (1983), The Story of Architecture,
Prentice Hall, ISBN
- Watkin, David (Sep 2005), A History of Western
Architecture, Hali Publications, ISBN
Modernism
- Banham, Reyner, (1 Dec 1980) Theory and Design in the First
Machine Age Architectural Press.
- Curtis, William J. R. (1987), Modern Architecture Since
1900, Phaidon Press, ISBN-X
- Frampton, Kenneth (1992). Modern Architecture, a critical
history. Thames & Hudson- Third Edition. ISBN
- Jencks, Charles, (1993) Modern Movements in
Architecture. Penguin Books Ltd - second edition. ISBN-X
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, (28 Mar 1991) Pioneers of Modern Design:
From William Morris to Walter Gropius, Penguin Books Ltd.
ISBN
v!ctor,was.here
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