Ancient Architecture

Ø      Architecture is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings and other structures.

Ø      Architectural projects are a collaborative process, with many people working together, facing challenges such as aesthetics, structural integrity, social function, light & shadow, and costs.

Ø      Our greatest buildings are often perceived as cultural symbols and works of art.

Ø      The first book on architecture was written by the Roman Vitruvius in the 1^st century AD. According to Vitruvius, a good building should satisfy three core principles: durability, utility, and beauty.

 

Mesopotamian architects, including Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, developed the first urban planning, with markets, temples, canals, and gardens.

Artist Rendering of the ancient city of Uruk, which flourished from 4000-700 BC

Residential areas were grouped by profession. They built forts, towers, and palaces.

Ruined palace of Uruk

They designed the first known courtyard houses, and large temples called ziggurats.

Ziggurat of Ur, build around 2100 BC

They developed buttresses and columns to support their walls. Windows and doors were supported using a post and lintel system:

Stonehenge in Britain is an example of the post & lintel system

They also created pilasters, enameled tiles, mosaics, bas-relief, and frescoes to decorate them. They made doors with hinges, locks, and keys. Their houses had no windows facing the street, strictly separating public and private life. Their materials were mostly mudbrick and wood, although the Assyrians also used stone.

 

Egyptian architects are most famous for the pyramids, the Sphinx,

The Sphynx, 2558-2532 BC

 the Necropolis in the Valley of the Dead, the temple complex at Karnak, and for burial tombs called mastabas.

an Egyptian mastaba - burial tomb

Egyptians also designed the world’s first palaces, at Thebes. Many towns from ancient Egypt were washed away by Nile floods, so most of what’s left are their temples and monuments. They used mudbrick, but their most ambitious projects used limestone, sandstone, and granite. Like Mesopotamia, all of their monuments were post and lintel constructions, with many interior columns. All exterior and interior walls and columns were painted with hieroglyphic frescoes.

Egypt is famous for having one of the earliest known architects, Imhotep, who designed Djoser’s step pyramid, and was one of the only Egyptian commoners to earn divine status. He may have been the first architect to use columns.

statue of Imhotep, from around 2,650 BC

 

Greek architects are famous for temples, open-air amphitheatres, gateways, squares, town council buildings, mausoleums, and stadiums. Greek towns had paved streets with gutters, public fountains, and markets surrounded by a colonnade with shops. They also had gymnasiums (fitness centers, not schools) for men to exercise. Temples were post & lintel designs, like the Egyptians, and were more like treasuries, holding all the gifts that people offered to the Gods. Greeks were also famous for the acropolis, a defensive citadel on a hill with cliffs on most sides.

The Acropolis in Athens, with the Parthenon on top

The most famous is in Athens where the Parthenon sits, but there are others in Assos, Pergamon, Argos, Greek Thebes, and Corinth. Greek architecture can be divided into three orders of design: Doric, Iambic, and Corinthian, which you can identify most by the capitals of the columns.

The three Greek Orders: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian

Major building materials were limestone, marble, and clay. What makes Greek architecture so special is their obsession with proportions. The lines of their buildings are rarely straight. Every line is slightly curved to make it look better, like the columns that swell in the middle, like muscular arms. Greek architecture has been extremely influential in later periods, up to the present.

 

Roman architects learned from the Greeks and from the Etruscans, a civilization that had lived in Italy before them. So, Roman architecture looks very similar. The Empire lasted from about 500 BC to 500 AD. In this time, they developed arches, which are superior to the post & lintel system, because they bear the weight evenly.

This shows the limitations of post & lintel construction

Arches can hold heavier loads

By joining two arches together, the Romans developed vaults.

 

Putting vaults together (ribbed vaults) created large, open, interior spaces, an innovation used for thousand of years in cathedrals and palaces. 

 

Arches allowed the Romans to design vaulted ceilings, domes, arched bridges, and aquaducts that carried water for hundreds of miles to their cities.

Pont du Gard, the aquaduct of Nîmes, France, 40-60 AD

Famous buildings include the Colloseum, the Pantheon,

The Pantheon in Rome, 126 AD

the Baths of Diocletian and of Caracalla, the aquaducts of Rome, and many basilicas - public court buildings. Romans developed ways to improve their homes and hygiene, with baths, latrines, heated floors, and hot & cold running water. They also developed concrete, a strong, new building material.