U3- Architecture throughout history

• Australopithecus- 5000000 years ag
  • first humanoids appeared in Africa
  • fire and shelters weren´t used
  • evolve into Homo Habilis
• Homo Eructus- 1.600.000-200.0000 B.C.
  • learns how to make fire and invents "home" (including a fireplace)
  • Beginnings of architecture
    • made from a group of hunters
    • the architecture understood as the deliberate confirmation of a living environment
• Homo Neanderthalesis 100.000-40.000 B.C.
  • symbolic terms- life after death
  • community-oriented
  • North Africa, Europe, and the East
  • agriculture was develop
  • Architecture
    • burials were used
• Homo Sapiens 40,000 B.C.
  • sculptures and cave paintings found in caves and shelters
  • Architecture- dwellings
    • animal skins
    • bones
    • very large diameters (some up to 9m)
• 8.000-4.000 B.C
  • Agriculture firmly established and sedentary style
  • the social organization more complex
  • first Neolithic city up to 10,000 habitants
  • Architecture
    • different types of buildings (public and houses)
    • the city with a defensive wall
    • houses
      • houses separated by courtyards ( there weren't streets)
      • ground and first floor
      • no front door, ladders were used, due to the danger and fear
      • material: pressed adobe bricks and wood covered with rammed mud on vegetable mats.
• Protohistory 4000-3,000 B.C.
  • Mesopotamia
  • writing and pottery is developed
  • architecture
    • made with adobe or brick
    • Ziggurat
      • the core of raw, sun-dried adobe brick
      • temples built on top of natural or artificial platforms
      • aim: imitate the dwellings of Gods ( the mountains)
      • the structure resembles the pyramids of Egypt (but more similar to pyramids of Central America)
• The Egyptians 3,500 B.C
  • place: Nile River
  • survives almost 3,000 years
  • architecture for the god, not humans
    • temples
      • permanence and immutability
      • most important public building
      • the residence of the godor sanctuary
      • purpose: continuity and order
      • large masses and monotonous regularity expressed solidity as a symbol of durability
    • Pyramids
      • eternal constructions
      • change in funerary architecture by the invention of the stepped stone pyramid
      • materials: limestone masonry
• The Greeks 1,200-146 B.C
  • learned from Egyptian architecture and sculpture
  • Architecture
    • expresses the search for equilibrium between vertical and horizontal loadbearing elements
    • The Polis:
      • the first idea of the city
      • included the city and surrounding farms
      • the Agora: was the center of the Greek community life
      • Stoas: large and elongated buildings to encourage meetings
    • Temples
      • most important building- dedicated to divinity
      • the interior was very simple and not accessible to the public
      • technical perfection, avoiding deformations to achieve harmony
    • Theater and Stadium
      • largest open-air buildings
      • important for the culture
      • excellent acoustics and great capacity
    • HOUSES: similar to the Roman period
      • close to the outside because there were no windows due to the danger that someone could get in- open air inside the building- a central courtyard
      • simple
• ROMANS- 1,100 B.C
  • Mediterranean basin and Europe (center east)
  • architecture- universal, embodying the essence of the " romanitas"
    • interior closed space
    • discovery of concrete- long-lasting
    • great engineering works (roads, highways, bridges...)
    • CIVIL WORKS
      • specialists in the design of infrastructure
      • Sewage networks (cloaca)
      • aqueducts for water supply to cities
      • roads- army could march quicker than walking in the wildness
      • bridges
      • walls- not very high
      • Commemorative buildings: the triumphal arches
    • PUBLIC BUILDINGS:
      • thermal baths: key building, a meeting point for discussions and agreements (political or commercial)
      • Theatres
        • didn't use a slope
        • open-air
        • semicircular
      • Circus
        • 1OOO spectators
      • Basilica
        • not religious, the port of justice
      • amphitheatres
        • main innovation
      • naumachia
    • CITIES
      • structure of the military camps
      • forum: the heart of the city, a similar function to the Greek Agora
      • two orthogonal roads (Cardo and Decumanus)
    • Religious building
      • 5 columns (the three greeks and Tuscan and Composite)
      • discover domes to cover buildings solving the technical problems of the greeks
      • The Pantheon of Rome is the religious building that best represents Rome´s achievements.
    • the Domus
      • the habitual dwelling of the richest families
      • they had water, drainage, and heating installations
    • the Insulae
      • dwellings of the plebeians who constituted the most numerous part of the population
      • three or four floors
      • low-quality materials
      • occupied by several families at the same time
• The Middle Ages
  • The Roman empire disintegrated due to the pressure of the barbarian tribes on the frontiers
  • Churches and other religious buildings became the most important in architecture.
  • a new Christian empire was established in the East
  • pictorial, sculptural, and constructive techniques were lost

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