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