Stone, brick, tile, and timber are available in both China and Japan. The most characteristic architectural forms in both countries are based on timber framing. In China, the wooden post carried on its top an openwork timber structure, a kind of inverted pyramid formed of layers of horizontal beams connected and supported by brackets and short posts to support the rafters and beams of a steep and heavy tile roof. The eaves extended well beyond column lines on cantilevers. The resulting archetype is rectangular in plan, usually one story high, with a prominent roof. See Chinese Art and Architecture.
Japanese Architecture
The Japanese house developed differently. The Japanese express a deep poetic response to nature, and their houses are more concerned with achieving a satisfying relationship with earth, water, rocks, and trees than with establishing a social order. This approach is epitomized in the Katsura Detached Palace (1st half of the 17th century), designed and built by a master of the tea ceremony. Its constructions ramble in a seemingly casual way, but in reality constitute a carefully considered sequence always integrated with vistas to or from outdoor features.
Japan had already perfected timber prototypes early in its history. The Ise Shrine, on the coast southwest of Tokyo, dates from the 5th or 6th century; it is scrupulously rebuilt every 20 years. Its principal building, within a rectangular compound containing auxiliary structures, is a timber treasure house elevated on wooden posts buried in the ground and crowned by a massive roof of thatch. Lacking both bracketing and trussing, the ridge is supported by a beam or ridgepole held up by fat posts at the middle of each gabled end; the forked rafters, joining atop the ridgepole, exert no outward thrust. This tiny but beautifully proportioned and crafted monument is an excellent example of the understated subtlety of the art of Japan. See Japanese Art and Architecture.
Pre-Columbian Architecture
The nomadic North American tribes left little permanent building, but the Pueblos of Sonora, Mexico, and of Arizona and New Mexico did build in stone and adobe. These cultures were already in decline by AD 1300; a number of impressive cliff dwellings and other villages remain as significant monuments. See Native Americans.
The Spanish conquistador Hern?n Cort?s encountered the Aztecs in 1519 and within two years had destroyed their capital city, Tenochtitl?n, where Mexico City now stands. But he passed over the nearby center of the older Teotihuac?n culture (100 BC-AD 700), which has now been extensively restored and excavated. Teotihuac?n contains two immense pyramids-of the sun and of the moon-that recall those of Egypt. They are arranged, along with other monuments and plazas, on a north-south axis at least 3 km (2 mi) in length, and the complex is embedded in what was a vast city, laid out accurately in blocks. Monte Alb?n, near Oaxaca de Ju?rez, was the center of the Zapotec culture that flourished about the same time. Its imposing stone structures are set around a spacious plaza created by leveling the top of a mountain.
The Mayan civilization had existed for 2700 years when first confronted by the Spanish in the 17th century, but its greatest building periods fall within the 4th to the 11th century. The Maya occupied every part of the Yucat?n Peninsula, the principal sites, in roughly the order of their development, being Cop?n (Honduras), Tikal (Guatemala), Palenque, Uxmal, Chich?n Itz?, and Tulum (Mexico). The important ceremonial monuments found in these centers are of stone; although the enclosure of space has more emphasis than in other pre-Columbian cultures, the Mayans never mastered the true vault. Nevertheless, they created impressive structures through extensive earth moving and bold architectural sculpture either integral with the stone or as added stucco ornamentation. The so-called Governors’ Palace at Uxmal, sited on a great artificial terrace, is a long, horizontal building, the proportions and ornamentation of which suggest the eye and hand of a master designer.
The Incas’ thriving empire was centered high in the Andes of east-central Peru at Cuzco, which flourished from about 1200 to 1533, with other cities at nearby Sacsahuaman and Machu Picchu. Inca architecture lacks the sculptural genius of the Maya, but the masonry craftsmanship is unexcelled; enormous pieces of stone were transported over mountain terrain and fitted together with precision, in what is called cyclopean masonry. See Pre.Columbian Art and Architecture.
Classical Architecture
The building systems and forms of ancient Greece and Rome are called classical architecture. Greek contributions in architecture, as in so much else, defy summarization. The architecture of the Roman Empire has pervaded Western architecture for more than two millennia.
Aegean Architecture
The architecture that developed on mainland Greece (Helladic) and in the basin of the Aegean Sea (Minoan) belongs to the Greek cultures that preceded the arrival in about 1000 BC of the Ionians and the Dorians. The Minoan culture (3000-1200 BC) flourished on the island of Crete; its principal site is the multichambered Palace of Minos at Knossos, near present-day Ir?klion. On the Pelop?nnisos near Argos are the fortress-palaces of Mycenae and Tiryns, and in Asia Minor the city of Troy-all of them excavated by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the last quarter of the 19th century. Mycenae and Tiryns are believed to represent the Achaean culture, the subject of Homer’s epic Iliad and Odyssey. See Aegean Civilization.
Greek Architecture
The Greek temple emerged as the archetypal shrine of all time. Unlike the Egyptians, the Greeks put their walls inside to protect the cella and their columns on the outside, where they could articulate exterior space. Perhaps for the first time, the overriding concern is for the building seen as a beautiful object externally, while at the same time containing precious and sacred inner space. Greek architects have been praised for not crushing the viewer with overmonumentality; yet they found it appropriate to build temples on basically the same theme ranging in size from the tiny Temple of Nike Apteros (427-424 BC) of about 6 by 9 m (about 20 by 30 ft) on the Athens Acropolis to the gigantic Temple of Zeus (circa 500 BC) at Agrigento in Sicily, which covered more than 1 hectare (more than 2 acres). The Greeks seldom arranged their monuments hierarchically along an axis, preferring to site their temples to be seen from several viewpoints in order to display the relation of ends to sides.
In successive efforts during many centuries the Greeks modified their earlier models. Concern for the profile of the building in space spurred designers toward perfection in the articulation of parts, and these parts became intellectualized as stylobate, base, shaft, capital, architrave, frieze, cornice, and pediment, each representing metaphorically its structural purpose.
The Greek Orders
Two orders developed more or less concurrently. The Doric order predominated on the mainland and in the western colonies. The acknowledged Doric masterpiece is the Parthenon (448-432 BC) crowning the Athens Acropolis (see Parthenon).
The Ionic order originated in the cities on the islands and coasts of Asia Minor, which were more exposed to Asian and Egyptian influences; it featured capitals with spiral volutes, a more slender shaft with quite different fluting, and an elaborate and curvilinear base. Most of the early examples are gone, but Ionic was used inside the Propylaea (begun 437 BC) and in the Erechtheum (begun 421 BC), both on the Athens Acropolis.
The Corinthian order, a later development, introduced Ionic capitals elaborated with acanthus leaves. It has the advantage of facing equally in four directions and is therefore more adaptable than Ionic for corners.
City planning was stimulated by the need to rebuild Dorian cities after the end (466 BC) of the Persian Wars and again by the challenge of new cities established (beginning 333 BC) by Alexander the Great. The plan of Miletus in Asia Minor is an early example of the gridiron block, and it provides a prototype for the disposition of the central public areas, with the significant municipal buildings related to the major civic open spaces. A typical Greek agora included a temple, a council house (bouleuterion), a theater, and gymnasiums, as well as porticoes giving shape to the edges of the open space. Greek domestic architecture transformed the Mycenaean megaron (hearthroom) into the house with rooms disposed about a small open court, or atrium, a theme later elaborated in Italy, Spain, and North Africa. See Greek Art and Architecture; House.
Roman Architecture
Roman architecture continued the development now referred to as classical, but with quite different results. Unlike the tenuously allied Greek city-states, Rome became a powerful, well-organized empire that planted its constructions throughout the Mediterranean world, northward into Britain, and eastward into Asia Minor. Romans built great engineering works-roads, canals, bridges, and aqueducts. Their masonry was more varied; they used bricks and concrete freely, as well as stone, marble, and mosaic.
Use of the arch and vault introduced curved forms; curved walls produced a semicircular space, or apse, for terminating an axis. Cylindrical and spherical spaces became elements of design, well suited to the grandiose rooms appropriate to the Roman imperial scale.
The Dome
Barrel or tunnel vaults are inherently limited in span, and they exert lateral thrust. Two Roman inventions of enormous importance overcame this. First was the dome, inherently more stable than the barrel vault because it is doubly curved, but also limited because it thrusts outward circumferentially. It was possible for Hadrian to rebuild (AD 118-28) the Pantheon in Rome with a dome 43 m (142 ft) above the floor, but only by encircling it with a massive hollow ring wall 6 m (20 ft) thick that encloses eight segments of curved units. Thus, a dome provides for a one-room building but cannot easily be combined with other domes to make a larger space.
The Groin Vault
The second important invention was the groin vault, formed by the intersection of two identical barrel vaults over a square plan. They intersect along ellipses that go diagonally to the corners of the square. Because the curvature is in more than one direction, each barrel tends to reinforce the other. The great advantage of the groin vault is that it can be placed on four piers (built to receive 45? thrust), leaving the sides of the square for windows or for continuity with adjoining spaces.
In the great Roman thermae (baths) and basilicas (law courts and markets), rows of square groin-vaulted bays (or units) provided vast rooms lighted by clerestory windows high on the long sides under the vaults.
The Romans introduced the commemorative or triumphal arch and the colosseum or stadium. They further developed the Greek theater and the Greek house; many excellent examples of houses were unearthed in the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, towns that were buried in the violent eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
The Roman genius for grandiose urban design is seen in the plan of Rome, where each emperor left a new forum, complete with basilica, temple, and other features. Their plans are axially organized, but with greater complexity than heretofore seen. The most remarkable among the great complexes is Hadrian’s Villa (AD 125-32) near Tivoli, which abounds in richly inventive plan forms.
The Greek orders (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian) were widely adopted and further elaborated. But the Romans ultimately trivialized them by applying them indiscriminately, usually in the form of engaged columns or pilasters with accompanying cornices, to both interior and exterior walls as a form of ornamentation. They lost in the process the orders’ capacity to evoke a sense of the loads being sustained in post-and-lintel construction. See Roman Art and Architecture.
The Medieval World
Two major architectural developments were initiated by historic religious events. The first occurred in 312, when the Roman emperor Constantine the Great conferred recognition on Christianity, which led to the development of Christian architecture. The second, the promulgation of Islam in about 610 by the Prophet Muhammad, spawned Islamic architecture.
The Architecture of Christianity
Constantine the Great’s removal in 330 of the imperial capital to Byzantium, which became Constantinople (modern Istanbul), separated the Christian church into East and West and set in motion two divergent architectural developments-Early Christian and Byzantine-each taking as its point of departure a different Roman prototype.
Early Christian Architecture
The term Early Christian is given to the basilican architecture of the church prior to the reintroduction of vaulting about the year 1000. The surviving churches in Rome that most clearly evoke the Early Christian character are San Clemente (with its 4th-century choir furnishings), Sant’ Agnese Fuori le Mura (rebuilt 630 and later), and Santa Sabina (422-32). While Byzantine architecture developed on the concept called the central church, assembled around a central dome like the Pantheon, the Western or Roman church-more concerned with congregational participation in the Mass-preferred the Roman basilica. Early models resembled large barns, with stone walls and timber roofs. The central part (nave) of this rectangular structure was supported on columns opening toward single or double flanking aisles of lower height. The difference in roof height permitted high windows, called clerestory windows, in the nave walls; at the end of the nave, opposite the entrance, was placed the altar, backed by a large apse (also borrowed from Rome), in which the officiating clergy were seated.
The Eastern emperor Justinian I was in control of Ravenna during his reign (527-65). Some of the constructions there can be considered Byzantine, as they featured mosaic mural compositions in Byzantine style. Two of Ravenna’s great churches, however-Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo (circa 520) and Sant’ Apollinare in Classe (circa 530-49)-are basilican in plan. See Early Christian Art and Architecture.
Byzantine Architecture
Byzantine architecture has its early prototypes in San Vitale (526-47) in Ravenna and in Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus (527) in Constantinople, both domed churches on an octagonal plan with surrounding aisles. But it was Justinian’s great church at Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, or the Church of the Holy Wisdom (532-37), that demonstrated how to place a vast dome over a square plan. The solution was to place the dome on pendentives, or spherical triangles, that make a circle out of the square by rounding its corners.
The pendentive can be understood by visualizing its geometry. A square drawn on the ground has two circles, one circumscribed around it, the other inscribed within it. A hemisphere set on the larger circle is intersected by vertical planes rising from the sides of the square, forming four arches. A horizontal plane is then passed through the hemisphere at the tops of these arches, providing a ring on which is built the dome, which has a diameter equal to the circle inscribed within the square. The pendentives are spherical triangles, the remaining portions of the first, or outer, hemisphere.
At Hagia Sophia, two opposing arches on the central square open into semidomes, each pierced by three smaller radial semidomes, forming an oblong volume 31 m (100 ft) wide by 80 m (260 ft) long. The central dome rises out of this series of smaller spherical surfaces. An abundance of small windows, including a circle of them at the rim of the dome, provides a diffused light.
Byzantine figurative art developed a characteristic style; its architectural application took the form of mosaics, great mural compositions executed in tiny pieces (tesserae) of colored marble and gilded glass, a technique presumed to have been borrowed from Persia.
Byzantine churches, each with a central dome opening into surrounding semidomes and other vault forms, and accompanied by the characteristic iconography, proliferated throughout the Byzantine Empire-Greece, the Balkans, Asia Minor, and parts of North Africa and Italy-and also influenced the design of churches in Western Christendom. Later churches are often miniaturizations of the original grandiose concept; their proportions emphasize vertical space, and the domes themselves become smaller. When Moscow became Christian, Europe was already into the Renaissance, but Moscow’s Saint Basil’s Cathedral (1500-60) shows how Byzantine domes finally became onion-shaped tops of towers, no longer relevant to interior space making. See Byzantine Art and Architecture.
Romanesque Architecture
A plan drawn on parchment of a now-vanished monastery in Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, shows that by the time of Charlemagne (742-814) the Benedictine monastic order had become a big departmentalized institution, but not until almost 1000 did church building come to life throughout the West. At first, the architects were all monks, for the monasteries supplied not only the material wealth but also the aggregated learning that made the new initiative possible.