Architecture 200 :: History of Ideas in Architecture I

Study Guide :: Unit 2

Learning to See: The Rationalism of the Greeks and Sculptured Space, 1500 BCE–100 BCE

In this unit we trace some innovative developments in Greek architecture, not so much in technology, but rather in design—indeed, the idea of design.

In the world at large at this time we note the realization that built form reflects a general belief in sustaining “the rightness of things.” There is a proper place and function for everything on earth and in the heavens. Invention and innovation are discouraged; predictability, stability, and permanence are highly valued. Dynasties must go on and court life is ritualized in monumental palace complexes, often replicating in permanent form and on a grand scale the primeval family homestead. Temples, the special preserve of a select cult of priests and clergy, assure numinous powers are propitiated and kept onside.

But against this backdrop in the 6th and 7th centuries BCE the Greeks make marked advances in the sciences; in India, meditative religions emerge (Buddhism, Mahendra); and states become organized on the basis of formalized popular religions—Zarathustra in Persia, Confucius and Lao-tzu in China; Jewish tribes assemble a narrative history (the Bible). These evince a new understanding of the relationship of parts to the whole. Personal morality includes an individualized relationship to deities and ethics an individual relationship one-to-another, or community. This is expressed most dramatically in the proportional geometry (based on fractional mathematics) in Greek temple architecture. Here measurements relate not only one element to another, but also elements to the individual viewer (entasis), as in, for instance, pillars expressing thrust via a sequential articulation of component parts.

Learning Objectives

• Develop an understanding of palace and temple building as it developed in the period ca. 1500 BCE to ca. 100 BCE with a particular focus on the Mediterranean cultures and India.
• Appreciate the basic change in approaches to the design and construction of architectural forms and space, in particular the ability to abstract the relationship between the viewer and the structure.
• Understand how shape and form acquire meaning over time and in social contexts.

Learning Activities

• Recommended time to complete this unit: 2 weeks.
• Access the course home page for news and updates.
• Access and review the course-support websites.
• Check in with your Academic Expert.
• Read the Study Guide case studies for this unit; check the recommended online links and read the assigned readings from the textbooks.
• Continue to build your Journal.
• Read your textbook: A Global History of Architecture, “1500 BCE,” “800 BCE,” and “400 BCE.”.
• Answer five of the study questions at the end of this unit.
• Complete and submit Assignment 2: Research Plan and Preliminary Bibliography.

Case Study 1

Temple of Amun-Re, Luxor, Karnak, Egypt

Near Luxor (ancient Thebes), 320km south of Giza, view in the hypostyle (Greek, many-columned) Hall of Appearances. Huge columns (21m high, 4m in diameter) mimetically perpetuate the shape of bundled papyrus stalks. The columns were originally painted white, with inscriptions incised and brightly painted. The temple was begun ca. 2000 BCE and was actively under construction during the reign of successive pharaohs, ca. 1500–1150 BCE. Amun-Re was the all-encompassing god of creation, the god of the sun and of heaven, and the omnipresent Father of the Kings, who guaranteed the world order.

Case Study 2

Palace of Minos, Knossos, Crete

Knosssos was at its most prosperous phase ca. 1500 BCE. The first palace here seems to have been built ca. 2000 BCE; there were a succession of others. The Minoans did not build temples but rather palaces, the largest of which was at Knossos. It was part palace, part warehouse, part factory, and part religious centre. At the centre of the palace and key to its communal life was a large rectangular courtyard laid out on an almost perfect north–south axis, with several entrances converging on it. The courtyard was surrounded by verandas at the upper levels, allowing views into its interior space. Because of the verandas, windows, porches, steps, and doors that folded open into the sides of the walls, the visual interrelationship between inner and outer space is particularly intricate, more so than in any other palace architecture of this period.

Case Study 3

Temple at Abu Simbel, Built for Ramses II near Philae, Egypt

Completed 1260 BCE, the temple represents the pinnacle of Egyptian rock-cut temples. The sphere of Egyptian influence extended from the upper valleys of the Euphrates to the fourth cataract of the Nile. To protect trade routes, Ramses II built a series of temple outposts that also served to spread the Egyptian cosmological beliefs. His most ambitious undertaking was the founding of the city of Ramses. Here, the pharaoh re-established conventional Egyptian practices, which had been interrupted by the heretical Akhenaten.

Case Study 4

Temples on Jerusalem Mount, Jerusalem

(In Hebrew = Har haBáyith; in Arabic = the Haram Ash-Sharif)

Jerusalem Mount is a sacred precinct of Judah in Jerusalem where Solomon’s temple, was built ca. 950 BCE, and destroyed 586 BCE by the Baylonians. The second temple, supposed to be a small-scale rebuilding of the first temple begun ca. 520–515 BCE. The second temple was completed under Nehemiah and Ezra with the support of the Persian king Artaxerxes I. It in turn was destroyed 70 CE.

Case Study 5

Persepolis, Iran

[Takht-e Jamshid or Chehel Minar (Wikipedia])

Persepolis (= Parsa, City of the Persians) was at its height in 330 BCE, just before Alexander of Macedon destroyed it. It was founded in 522 BCE by Darius I, with the most active construction period being 470–400 BCE. The principal buildings were: Apadana, (the throne room) and the Hall of a Hundred Columns, or the People’s Audience Hall. The collapse of the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian empires allowed Persia to extend its reach from northern India to Greece, which it unsuccessfully attempted to conquer. The Persians created new architectural forms in their expansive capitals of Pasargadae and Persepolis. Sculptural elements and reliefs that have been preserved emphasize the formal and the grand, in contrast to the lively movement and zest of Assyrian and neo-Babylonian art. This formalizing style influenced the early art of India.

Case Study 6

The Parthenon (Temple of Athena the Virgin), The Acropolis, Athens, Greece

Construction of the Parthenon began in 449 BCE; it was based on designs by Iktinos, and was commissioned by Perikles. The Parthenon was meant to be an enlargement of an earlier temple that had been commissioned by Kimon and built under Kallicrates, ca. 468–465 BCE. There had been an ever earlier temple there, begun in 490 BCE and destroyed by invading Persians in 480 BCE. The Parthenon was completed structurally in 438 BCE and sculpturally in 432 BCE. The Parthenon stands as a monument and votive to Athena, the city of Athens’s patron deity. Greek and Roman temples are described according to the number of columns on the entrance, as well as by the type of colonnade and type of portico. The east and west facades of the Parthenon were each lined with eight towering Doric columns, making the Parthenon the only octastyle, peripteral temple built in ancient Greece; the whole design was corrected for perspective vision using a compensating linear entasis.

Case Study 7

Erechtheum and Propylaea, The Acropolis, Athens, Greece

The temple to local deity Erechtheus, on the Athenian Acropolis, was built over the years 421–405 BCE (construction was interrupted by the Peloponnesian War). The Erechtheum, with its iconic caryatid porch columns, rises against the hillside in two levels and contains a sophisticated architectural narrative referencing the legend of Poseidon and Athena, arbitrated by Zeus, battling to be honoured by the Attic city. The Propylaea (437–432 BCE), approached by a processional ramp, is marked by its Doric portico. It contained a banquet hall and related ritual spaces. These temples and The Parthenon are expressions of the rationalism of the Greeks at the height of their cultural and intellectual period.

Case Study 8

Xianyang Palace, Shaanxi, China

The palace was built by the Zhou king to impress delegations of vassal kings; the Zhou kings asserted their claim to real imperial authority by visible presence. This imposing complex of terraced pavilions, first built during the Warring States period (481–221 BCE), was intended to strike awe in visitors. The building also marks a transition from temple-palace complexes to a more secular, defensive palace type, marking the establishment of state capitals.

Case Study 9

Great Caitya (Chaitya), Karli, India

This is the most impressive of a series of cave shrines cut out of rock in the western Deccan, some 300km from Bombay. Carved in 120 CE, it is 38m (or 46m, depending on reckoning) long and 14m wide; the vault rises about 14m from the floor. The hall is an essay in coherent space: a subtractive, rather than additive, construction method. It summarizes and confirms Buddhist beliefs—that is, the pilgrimage of life, from darkness to enlightenment.

Study Questions

Choose five of the study questions to answer.

1. Choose two case studies from the Study Guide for this unit. Find their sections in A Global History of Architecture, and then examine two online resources covering each of these cases. What is the difference in the organization of information, point of view, analysis, emphasis, visualization, and use of sources between your print textbook and the online media?
2. This unit notes a transition to the Bronze Age in the Americas, and the Iron Age in the West (forged iron) and in the East (cast iron). How did the development of these different metals impact societies and building technologies?
3. Religion and governance in this period undergo a profound change from elitist to what might be described as popularist. Give examples from Egypt, Greece, and China of how this shift affected architecture.
4. Sketch the plan and elevation of an Ionic-style Greek temple. Label its component parts. Note the proportional systems (e.g., entasis) that were developed for relating the individual parts one to another, to the whole, and to the observer.
5. Forms and shapes in architecture serve as reminders of meaningful forms and shapes from the past. Using drawings, trace the Greek temple form and the use of the sacrificial altar from its earliest roots and explain the meaning of the main structural elements as symbols of the sacred.
6. Compare and contrast the development of the pillar in Egyptian and in Greek architecture. How does it reference earlier building traditions and what are its symbolic associations?
7. Explain the role of commerce, governance, ritual, and abstract planning techniques in shaping cities, citing as examples the Olmec in San Lorenzo, South America; the Babylonians; the Mesopotamians; and the Minoans at Knossos.
8. Many societies during this period carried out dramatic experiments in negative space, evident in rock-cut structures, for example, the Egyptian rock-cut temple at Abu Simbel or the Caitya Hall (cave shrine) at Karli, India. What decisions did the builders make in the process of removing rock to allow the performace of ritual and to express religious belief?
9. What is the fundamental difference between temple (e.g., Amun-Re, Solomon, Poseidon) and palace architecture (e.g., Persepolis, Babylon, Knossos)? How is this expressed in structural form, ritual use, and symbolic expression?

Assignment for Credit

Complete Assignment 2 before proceeding to Unit 3.