Architecture
Architecture is probably the oldest of the fine arts. Certainly it is the most useful and in some respects is a prerequisite for the other arts. Most early sacred texts associate buildings with deities; architecture was not only considered the highest art form, to which other arts were adornments, but some buildings were viewed as representing another, higher realm. In medieval illuminated manuscripts, God was frequently shown armed with compasses and a mason's square, as Architect of the Universe.
Architecture can be defined in at least four ways, all valid, all interrelated, and none truly satisfactory. It is the art and method of erecting structures; it is a planned entity, the result of a conscious act; it is a body or corpus of work; it is a way to build. A good definition was provided by the Roman architect Vitruvius in the 1st century AD and was translated from the Latin into English during the 17th century by Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639). Vitruvius said that architecture was a building that incorporated utilitas, firmitas, and venustas, which Wotton translated as "commodotie, firmness, and delighte." This definition recognizes that architecture embraces functional, technological, and aesthetic requirements: it must have commodotie (utilitarian qualities), firmness (structural stability and sound construction), and delighte (attractive appearance). Because the history of architecture concerns buildings substantial enough to survive (at least in part) or important enough to be recorded in some way (by drawings or written description), in practice it has been the history of significant buildings, and major institutional monuments.
This discussion will concentrate on the development of Western architecture. Nonwestern architecture, as well as more detailed consideration of each epoch in Western architecture, are treated elsewhere in the encyclopedia and may be found by culture, by country, by style, by type, by architect, and by building or monument.
..Architects
Architects
Much more is known of ancient buildings than of the people who designed and built them. The names of a few Egyptian, Greek, and Roman architects have survived, but the identities of the great cathedral builders of the Middle Ages are mostly unknown. They are generally described as master masons, but they regarded themselves as architects and sometimes incorporated a labyrinth in their own memorial plaques to signify a link with Daedalus, the legendary first architect of the Greek world and the designer of the labyrinth of the Minotaur.
The names of architects first began to be known in Italy during the renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries. The idea of a professional architect with formal training and academic qualifications is a product of the 19th century. In 1819 architecture courses were instituted at the ecole des beaux- arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris; in 1847 a night school was established at the Architectural Association in London; courses in architecture were first offered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1868, at Cornell University in 1871, and at the University of Illinois in 1873. Until World War I, however, most architects were trained while working in the offices of practicing architects, and governments were slow to insist upon qualification tests. The state of Illinois passed the first licensing law for architects in 1897; Great Britain did not have such a law until 1931.
The Study of Architecture
Just as the architect as a professional is a recent phenomenon, so too is the evaluation of architecture itself. Not until the late 18th century did ancient Greek and Roman architecture cease to be regarded as an unassailable criterion of excellence throughout the Western world. Only when the hegemony of the classical styles began to be challenged did architects and scholars begin to consider the whole of the subject. The traditional approach was based on a closely observed study of architectural style, with considerable emphasis on the differences of detail treatment from one country to another.
An alternate approach based on determinism has been developed over many years by a group of German-speaking scholars (including Jakob Burckhardt, Siegfried Giedion, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, and Heinrich Wolfflin) who established an interpretation of architecture as an expression of the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the age. Burckhardt and Wolfflin introduced the Zeitgeist concept in their studies of the Italian Renaissance, but Giedion and Pevsner applied it to Modern Architecture, which they saw as expressing the spirit of a technological era. Another approach seeks to understand architecture in the same way as did the people who built it. During the 19th century this associative school of thought became central to architectural theory. Contemporary architects and scholars emphasize the influences of technology on the development of buildings. The use of iron and steel beams and columns released the wall from its traditional load-bearing function and allowed architects to incorporate enormous windows and wide, open-plan floors, two of the most significant characteristics of modern architecture. No large modern building, however, would be practicable without the parallel development of the elevator, central ventilation and heating, and electric lighting devices.
Architectural History
Architecture is most readily grasped by studying its development in successive historical periods, noting the general characteristic of each, the development of building techniques from one era to the next as well as from one culture to the next, and noting the evolution of each successive architectural style. Following are brief summaries of the ten major cultural epochs in Western architecture from ancient Egypt and the Near East to the present time.
Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern Architecture
The construction of the most famous Egyptian structures, the pyramids, began in the 3d and 4th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom (c.2686-2498 BC). Temples in stone were built during the Middle Kingdom (c.2133-1786 BC), but most of the surviving examples date from the New Kingdom (1570-1085 BC) and the Ptolemaic Period (323-30 BC). Permanent building in stone was restricted to the tomb, temple, and the associated statuary (obelisk and avenues of sphinx and lion), but the forms of these monumental stone structures seem to have been influenced by those of primitive Egyptian domestic architecture. Houses were formed of mud-brick walls with columns made from bundles of reeds lashed together. Thus, the walls of stone buildings were generally battered (thicker at the base and tapered), and the columns were short in proportion, seldom more than six times their diameters. The column heads or capitals were carved to represent lotus flowers or buds, palm leaves, and papyrus heads; the column shafts often had decorative bindings recalling the primitive lashed reeds.
Stone and timber were rare in the alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; so Mesopotamian Architecture was necessarily based on the use of clay brick with an outer skin of often highly colored glazed bricks, exemplified by the Ziggurat at Ur (c.2500 BC). Farther up the Mesopotamian rivers in Assyria, stone was available, but it was used primarily as a wall covering to be decorated with Bas-Relief sculpture and inscriptions, from which much of the knowledge of Assyrian history is derived. The architecture of both the Babylonian (c.1900-c.1550 BC) and the Assyrian empires (c.1100-612 BC) was based on massive brick platforms raised above the floodplain and often further terraced to give the characteristic ziggurat form. The ancient Persian Empire (538-333 BC) adopted these features and supplemented them with the extensive use of columns, as in the palaces at Persepolis (518-c.460 BC)
Greek Architecture
Any consideration of Greek architecture must begin with mention of Aegean Civilization, typified by the great Minoan palaces on the island of Crete, in particular the huge complex of Knossos and the magnificently sited structures at Phaistos (both c.1700 -c.1400 BC). Constructed of massive masonry, they were several stories high and incorporated large pillared halls, dozens of labyrinthine smaller rooms, sweeping terraces looking to the sea, and plumbing arrangements of astonishing modernity. The walls were decorated with brilliantly colored frescoes and stucco bas-reliefs. The Minoans were conquered by the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece, whose architecture was subsequently strongly influenced by Cretan prototypes.
This early Greek architecture (3000-700 BC) is characterized by the use of massive stone blocks for walls and by the occasional use of corbeled masonry to make primitive forms of vaults and domes, as in the Lion Gate and so-called Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae (1400-1200 BC). Columns sometimes were also used to frame doors and gateways and to provide internal colonnades for palaces, as in the courtyard at Tiryns. It was, however, the column and the beam--Post And Lintel--that formed the basis of classical Greek architecture and that give it the simple, straightforward character that, together with its details, has led many scholars to speculate on its origins in the construction of primitive wooden huts.
The Greeks developed a vocabulary of architectural detail in stone that was fundamental to European architecture for more than 2,000 years. The Greek "language of architecture" reached its zenith during the 5th century BC. Classical Greek architecture consisted of three orders--the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. Each represented the assembly of the basic components of a simple rectangular building with a pitched roof, that is, column, capital (or column head), entablature (the "beam" connecting the columns), and pediment the triangular gable of the roof). Different proportions and decorative conventions imparted a distinctive character to each order, regardless of the bright colors applied to the original buildings or the subject matter of the sculptured decoration along the frieze or in the triangular pediment (tympanum). The proportions of each order were fixed within narrow limits, and, strictly speaking, the components of each order could be correctly assembled in only one way. The Greeks never mixed different orders on the same building. This, and other rules, were modified in Roman architecture. The Romans created two additional orders, the Tuscan and the Composite, and employed all five orders as decoration for buildings constructed on principles different from those the Greeks used.
The basic building material of the classical period was marble, a strong stone that could be shaped to give great precision of line and detail. The basic temple form was also very simple: a rectangular chamber with a shallow-pitched gabled roof, surrounded by a row of columns (or fronted by a columned porch), standing on a podium of three steps. Given the simplicity of the construction system and the building form, the essential achievement of the Greeks was the refinement of the building and its components into an architectural system of proportion and decoration--exemplified by the buildings on the Athens Acropolis, in particular the Parthenon (447-32 BC)--that remained the basis of the Western European architectural tradition until the mid-19th century.
Roman Architecture
During the 2d century BC the Romans, in conquering North Africa, Greece, Anatolia, and Spain, absorbed the architectural traditions of those areas (most significantly that of Greece), to which they added the constructional skills of the Etruscans, their immediate neighbors in central Italy. The most significant achievements of the Romans were in their technology of building, their use of a much wider range of materials (including concrete, terra-cotta, and fired bricks), and their refinements of the arch and vault and the dome--all of which had been pioneered by the Etruscans. Roman temples generally remained modeled on those of Greece, with the common addition of a high plinth (base or platform) and the frequent omission of the side and rear columns, typified by the Maison Carre at Nimes, France.
Roman civic monuments included a number of building types of unprecedented size and complexity, which could not have been built using the Greek beam-and-column construction system. The Aqueduct, thermae (such as the Baths of Caracalla), Basilica (law court), theater, Triumphal Arch, amphitheater (such as the Colosseum), circuses, and palaces involved enclosing much larger spaces or bridging much greater distances than could be achieved by the use of timber or stone beams. The Roman use of domed construction in mass concrete is best represented by the well-preserved Pantheon in Rome (constructed AD 120-24), which subsequently became a Christian church. Later Roman or Early Christian churches, however, generally took their form from the basilica, whose central nave, side aisles, triforium, and apse became characteristic features of the Romanesque and Gothic church. Emperor Constantine I built huge basilican churches at all the major Christian sites in the Roman Empire in the 4th century, thus firmly establishing the basilica as the predominant form of Christian church architecture.
Byzantine Architecture
Byzantine architecture developed in the Byzantine Empire founded by Constantine I when he moved the capital from Rome to Byzantium (subsequently Constantinople--present-day Istanbul) in the 4th century. In southern and eastern Europe, in particular in those parts of Italy, Greece, and Anatolia that remained under the sway of the Byzantine Empire, the continuity of Roman plans and techniques was strong. Only slightly modified Roman basilican plans were used for such Italian churches as Sant' Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna (534-39); in Constantinople itself huge domed churches, such as Hagia Sophia (532-37), were built on a scale far larger than anything achieved by the Western Roman Empire.
Romanesque Architecture
In northern Europe, where Roman remains were less frequently encountered, greater freedom of experiment existed in Merovingian, Carolingian, and Ottonian architecture, as the early periods are known. From the mid-10th to the mid-12th century greater progress was made toward the development of a successor style--the Gothic. The primary characteristics of Romanesque architecture (or Norman architecture, as northern Romanesque is often known) were Roman in origin, however: large internal spaces were spanned by barrel vaults on thick, squat columns and piers, windows and doors had round-headed arches, and most of the major churches were laid out on the basilican plan, modified by the addition of the buttress, transept, and tower. The buildings are solid, heavy, and, because of the comparatively small windows, dimly lighted, exemplified by Durham Cathedral (begun 1023) in England. Portals, capitals, and altars are embellished with sculpture of superlative skill and powerful effect; stained glass first appeared in Europe, but on a limited scale, because of the restricted size of window openings.
Gothic Architecture
From the mid-12th century to the 16th century northern European architecture was characterized by the use of flying buttresses, pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and traceried windows. The thin walls, slender columns, and the very large areas of glass in Gothic buildings gave an impression of lightness that contrasted markedly with the Romanesque. Gothic architecture originated at the royal abbey church of St. Denis, built by Abbot Suger between 1137 and 1144. It was refined in the great churches of northern and central France, such as Amiens Cathedral (1220-70), notable for its great height and the slenderness of its columns, and the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1247-48), in which exceptionally large wall areas were filled with glass and tracery. Indeed, Gothic architecture was most fully developed in France and England, where the style spread in the late 12th century. The spread of Gothic to Germany was delayed until the mid-13th century, and in this country only a few cathedrals, such as the one in Cologne (begun 1248), approached the size and quality of the northern French prototypes. The most thorough application of northern Gothic to Italy was in the Milan Cathedral, built at the end of the 14th century by French and German masons. In general, the Italians tended to use Gothic as a decorative feature rather than as a total building system.
Many Gothic secular buildings survive, some of the finest examples being the Bruges Town Hall (1376-1420) in Belgium, the Palazzo Pubblico (begun 1298) in Siena, Italy, and the Pont Valentre (early 14th century) in Cahors, France. The greatest concentration of Gothic secular buildings is in Belgium, in what was then the most prosperous part of northwest Europe.
Renaissance Architecture
During the early 15th century, European culture became inspired by the rediscovery, known as the Renaissance, of classical literature, art, and architecture. Italy was the center of this rebirth, and in Florence, where the movement started, architecture was influenced by the use of the orders, the round arch, the barrel vault, and the dome--all Roman features. In northern Europe, where Gothic continued to flourish well into the 16th century, the Renaissance at first made only a superficial impact and was for a much longer time confined to decorative changes. In both France and England a truly classical style was not established until the first half of the 17th century: in France by Francois Mansart and in England by Inigo Jones.
The Florentine Renaissance did not initially mean the complete break with traditional practice that was implied in the Gothic north. For the church of Santo Spirito (begun c.1436), Filippo Brunelleschi used a basilican plan, round arches, and a flat ceiling; but these traditional Italian Romanesque elements were combined with a new sense of proportion, the use of Corinthian columns, and a dome over the crossing of nave and transepts. Brunelleschi's later design for the vast, still unfinished cathedral of Santa Maria degli Angeli (also called the Duomo of Florence) took the form of a domed octagon with eight radiating chapels, a centralized plan that became the ideal among his contemporaries in Florence (Leon Battista Alberti and Michelozzo) and his followers in Rome.
There, during the 16th century, a more monumental version of the style was developed by Donato Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo, as in their various plans for Saint Peter's Basilica.
Baroque and Rococo Architecture
In the 15th century Florentine architecture relied for effect upon proportion, simple straight lines, and the correct use of classical details. During the 16th century, however, architects such as Michelangelo and Giulio Romano abandoned this restraint for a more exciting, idiosyncratic version of the style, now called Mannerism, in which the classical rules were deliberately flouted for effect. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini further developed the style by introducing curvilinear forms and by incorporating sculpture and painting in their buildings to give a rich and dynamic version, known as Baroque, which spread during the 17th and 18th centuries from Rome to much of southern Europe and to South America. In northern Europe, especially in Austria and Germany, baroque architecture achieved an exuberance and freedom unmatched elsewhere, climaxing in the Rococo, as in the Wurzburg Residenz in West Germany. In France baroque and rococo were tempered by Neoclassicism, with a resultant elegance and refinement in both architecture and decoration, exemplified by the 18th-century sections of the palace of Versailles. The spread of neoclassical architecture during the 17th and 18th centuries was due in no small measure to the illustrated books that brought it to the attention of educated patrons. Although fine architecture has never been created by untalented architects, the rules of the classical orders enforced systematic convention in design that enabled many moderately competent architects to produce well-proportioned and finely detailed buildings. In part this explains the extraordinary success of the Palladian interpretation of Romanized Greek architecture. It was, for example, the source of almost all country-house building in England during the 18th century, as well as of numerous mansions, courthouses, state capitols, and universities along the eastern seaboard of North America.
The Age of Revivals
During the late 18th and 19th centuries, Europe and America witnessed a series of stylistic revivals. The period was dominated by the proponents of the classical (themselves split between "Greeks" and "Romans") and the northern Gothic. Buildings were also designed in self-conscious imitation of Byzantine, Oriental, Egyptian, Venetian Gothic, and Florentine Renaissance architecture, however. This was not, of course, the first time that ancient styles had been revived; the Italians of the 15th century and the architects of Charlemagne's court in the 9th century had incorporated classical motifs in their buildings. Both the revived classical and the Gothic Revival, however, were essentially different from the architecture that inspired them.
The country mansion of England and colonial America bore a classical portico, but it was attached to a type of building never seen in ancient Rome or Greece. The revived Gothic applied during the 19th century to private houses, office buildings, railroad stations, hospitals, and waterworks was by no means the same as the Gothic architecture of the northern medieval cathedrals. New engineering techniques and modern materials--in particular in cast-iron architecture--removed many of the age-old practical constraints on building design. Rapid urban growth during the 19th century produced a great many fine and essentially original buildings, the quality of which is only beginning to be appreciated.
Modern Architecture
Contemporary architecture takes a bewildering variety of forms and makes use of a far wider range of materials than ever before. The International Style, promulgated by Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in theory and practice, has dominated architecture in this century until very recently. Most of the earlier buildings by these architects were small private houses, usually rectangular, with undecorated walls, flat roofs, and large areas of glass set in metal frames. Conscious avoidance of any previous styles or recognizable antecedents was combined with highly sophisticated proportioning to achieve sleek, elegant structures, such as Mies's German Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona Exhibition. To the dismay of its originators, the International Style was enthusiastically adopted by far lesser talents and profit- minded builders to produce numerous "modern" office buildings, apartment complexes, hospitals, and motels all over the world.
Not all contemporary architects subscribed to Mies's dictum of "less is more," and hence their work is difficult to classify as "modern."
Frank Lloyd Wright, probably the outstanding native American architect of this century, Kenzo Tange of Japan, Alvar Aalto of Finland, and the Finnish-Americans Eliel and Eero Saarinen produced many buildings of great beauty and originality.
Although some of their work does reflect the International Style, most of their buildings are instantly recognizable in their individuality, as were the great buildings of the past. In short, these architects and others like them seem to be part of a continuing architectural tradition rejected by the practitioners of the International Style.
The social turmoil of the 1960s was
emphatically reflected in architecture. Complexity and Contradiction in
Modern Architecture (1968) by the architect Robert Venturi was a revolt
against the ubiquitous glass boxes of the modernists, and it signaled the
emergence of Postmodern Architecture. Since that time, architects have found
new strength in the traditions of the past, as well as in the vernacular
architecture seen all about them.
Note: the following has been
abstracted from the Grolier Encyclopedia.
Information provided by: http://acnet.pratt.edu