CST SABE A.A. 2018/19 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE_I Dr. Manlio MICHIELETTO 1
Column base, Basilique Notre-Dame de la Paix, 1986 2
INDEX 1. Geography 04 05 3
1. Geography 4
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THE MINOANS Historians recognize two separate civilizations in the Aegean during the second millennium: that of the Minoans, based on Crete, and that of the Mycenaeans, established at several sites on the mainland of Greece. They shares some artistic and cultural traits, including a reliance on the trade with other communities in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Cyprus. 7
THE MINOANS The civilization is named for Minos, which might be the name of an early king or simply the title (like pharaoh) that denoted the ruler; the main site on Crete is Knossos. 8
THE MINOANS The plan of Knossos s Palace is organized around an open rectangular courtyard, off which major reception rooms open. 9
THE MINOANS While parts of the lower levels of the buildings were built in ashlar masonry, most of the upper floors were supported on walls built of rubble contained within squared timbers, wooden columns, and large wooden beams. 10
THE MINOANS The minoans columns: a downward-tapering shaft with a bulbous torus ring and abacus block capital. 11
THE MYCENAEANS Mycenaean civilization takes its name from Mycenae the largest but not the only citadel in a trading society that appears to have been led by worrior-kings. Mycenae reached its period of greatness after about 1450 BCE, perhaps invigorated by contact with the more sophistocated Minoan culture. 12
THE MYCENAEANS The citadel at Mycenae was built with a strong concern for defense. 13
THE MYCENAEANS Entrance to Mycenae was through the Lion Gate, which was added when the citadel was enlarged in about 1300. 14
THE MYCENAEANS 15
THE MYCENAEANS Single upright stones support a fourteen-ton lintel across the opening, above which is a corbeled arch. The space of the arch is filled by a triangular stone with relief sculpture of two lions with their forefeet on an altar bearing a column of the tree cult. (Mesopotamia had a tradition of venerating trees.) The Lion Gate indicates contact by its creators with the Minoan world, for the column of the tree cult is unmistakably the same as the columns used at Knossos. 16
THE MYCENAEANS The administrative and cerimonial spaces that lay beyond exist only as ruins, but from remaining foundations it appears that the palace at the highest elevation of the hill had many features derived from Crete, including a megaron as the major ceremonial space. 17
THE MYCENAEANS 18
THE MYCENAEANS In architectural usage, the word megaron is generally reserved to describe a simple rectangular space (domos) having solid long walls without openings and an entrance in the center of the short side, generally with an attached anteroom (prodomos) preceded by a court. 19
THE MYCENAEANS The citadel at Mycenae was surrounded by smaller settlements, perhaps comprised of extended family groups who lives in houses associated closely with tombs of their ancestors. Nine of these tombs in circular form (tholoi) have been found in the neighborhood of Mycenae: of these, the largest and best preserved in the tholos or beehive tomb commonly called the Treasury of Atreus (ca. 1330 BCE). 20
THE MYCENAEANS 21
THE MYCENAEANS 22
THE MYCENAEANS 23
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD In addition to grid-plan towns, the major contribution to architectural history made by Greek architects and builders during the Archaic period (ca. 700-500 BCE) was the temple, which originated as a home for the gods and was based on the design of the houses of the Greeks themselves. 24
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD From what we know from surviving small clay models, the early temples were simple one-room structures, built to accomodate a statue of the deity. They had a covered portico or porch at the entrance; walls were mud-brick, and the roof was thatch. 25
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD In the eight century BCE, the small Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was constructed with a row of wooden columns surrounding the temple chamber, giving it additional distinction. 26
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD The transition to stone contruction appears to have been gradual process, doubtless influenced by Egyptian precedent and technology. 27
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD Stone columns in Greek architecture are characteristically fluted (incised with concave grooves) in a manner similar to Hatshepsut s mortuary temple at Deir-el-Bahari. 28
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD The Greeks also developed a highly stylized treatment for columns, capitals, and the supported members, the entablature: the orders. 29
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD Vitruvius, the Roman architect whose first-century BCE treatise was based in part on earlier now-last Greek texts, names three such orders: the Doric, the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric originated on the Aegean and the coast of Asia Minor. The Corinthian order only appeared later. 30
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD Each order has its own particular combination of elements. The Doric column has no base and has the simplest capital atop the fluted shaft of the column; its entablature consists of a plain architrave and alternating metopes and triglyphs in the frieze, which is crowned with a cornice. 31
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD The Ionic has a base supporting its fluted column shaft and a capital with volutes (scrolls). Its entablature is also composed of an architrave and frieze. 32
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD In the Greek Corinthian order, the columns were thin and fluted. The most striking element of the Corinthian order was its very decorative capital with a design of scrolls and unfurled acanthus leaves. 33
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD Builders of the early Doric temples made use of locally available material, most often limestone. This imposed structural limitations on the length of span for lintels and the diameter of columns needed to support the heavy tile roof. 34
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD 35
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD Athens emerges as the leading city of the Empire. A large number of Temples are built and the largest and most famous of these was the Parthenon (448-432 BCE), a great temple to Athena, patron goddess of the city. 36
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD The new temple, designed by the architects Iktinos and Kallikrates and built of the finest marble from Mount Pentelicus, was erected in the same site of an old one, with enlargements, and probably made use of column drums and metopes carved for the older temple. 37
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 38
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD It is a doric temple, eight columns wide by seventeen deep, but it incorporates Ionic, including slender column proportions, a continuous frieze around the exterior of the cella wall, and actual use of the Ionic order in the western opisthodomos (back room), that housed the Delian League treasury, where four Ionic columns support the roof. 39
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 40
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD ENTASIS Minute adjustments in the horizontal and vertical lines of the structure enhance the perception of orthogonal geometry: the stylobate (the platform from which the column rises) is actually convex; the columns incline imperceptibly away from the viewer; and the central axis of each column is not vertical. Thecolumnsarenotthesamediamters theendonesare larger nor are they equidistantly spaced: the corner ones are closer together. 41
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD ENTASIS 42
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD ACROPOLIS 43
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD ACROPOLIS The other buildings on the Athenian Acropolis are disposed in a manner that seems almost random yet is actually carefully planned to respond to particular qualities of the site when experienced on foot. In the case of the Acropolis, the site is a plateau rising abruptly above the plain of the city below. 44
GREECE: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD The Propylaea is essentially a Doric portico flanked by projecting wings. 45
GREECE: THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD The son of Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great signed the end of the Classical age in Greece. The term «Hellenistic» is applied to the art and architecture associated with the extended empire of Alexander and his successors. 46
GREECE: THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD During the Hellenistic period, permanent buildings for theatrical performances were constructed in many of the outlying cities. 47
GREECE: THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD The Theater was normally built using the rising embankment to provide support for a concentric seating focused on the circular orchestra, a flat area for dancing. 48
GREECE: THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD Behind the orchestra was a backdrop structure, the skene, and the area directly in front, the proskenion, was a raised platform from which actors declaimed their lines. 49
GREEK CITY PLANNING: The Athenian Agora The Agora is the civic and commercial heart of the city. 50
GREEK CITY PLANNING: The Hellenistic City The Greeks developed regular, orthogonal town plans and frequently emplyed them for colonial cities. Such was the case in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, when a number of towns were provided with grid blocks and carefully considered open spaces according to the theories of the fifthcentury pupil of Pythagoras, Hippodamus of Miletus, who is often regarded as the father of the city planning. 51
GREEK CITY PLANNING: The Hellenistic City 52
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