History of Architecture Project

The History of Architecture

1

Table of Contents: Ancient Civilisations

4-5

Ancient Egypt architecture

6 - 21

Ancient Greek architecture

22 -39

Ancient Roman architecture

40 - 53

Local Architecture and Historical Values Fullerton Hotel Non - European Civilization China Evolution of Architecture Goth 20th Century Architects Frank Lloyd Wright

64 - 89

90 - 103

104 - 121

54 - 63

Preface Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC. This is the beginning of history, as opposed to prehistory, according to the definition used by most historians.

The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. People have constructed buildings and other structures since prehistory, including bridges, amphitheatres, dams, electricity pylons, roads and canals. Building materials in present use have a long history and some of the structures built thousands of years ago can still be regarded as remarkable. The history of architecture overlaps that of structural engineering. To understand why things were constructed the way they were, we also need to rely on archaeology to record the form of the parts that survive and the tools used, and other branches of history and architecture to investigate how the builders lived and recorded their accomplishments

The Architect’s Dream, 1840, by Thomas Cole 3

Ancient Civilisations The term classical antiquity is often used to refer to ancient history in the Old World since the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC (First Olympiad).

This roughly coincides with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome, and the beginning of the Archaic period in Ancient Greece. Although the ending date of ancient history is disputed, some Western scholars use the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, the closure of the Platonic Academy in 529 AD, the death of the emperor Justinian I, the coming of Islam or the rise of Charlemagne as the end of ancient and Classical European history. In India, the period includes the early period of the Middle Kingdoms and in China, the time up to the Qin Dynasty is included.

Historical ages

A map showing the maximum territorial extent of the New Kingdom of Egypt, ca. 1450 BC.

The Mediterranean in ca. the 6th century BC. Phoenician cities are labelled in yellow, Greek cities in red, and other cities in grey.

A fundamental difficulty of studying ancient history is that recorded histories cannot document the entirety of human events, and only a fraction of those documents have survived into the present day. Of those that have, the reliability of the information obtained from these records must be considered Few people were capable of writing histories, as literacy was not widespread in almost any culture until long after the end of ancient history.

The Roman Empire was one of the ancient world’s most literate cultures, but many works by its most widely read historians are lost. For example, Livy, a Roman historian who lived in the 1st century BC, wrote a history of Rome called Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City) in 144 volumes; only 35 volumes still exist, although short summaries of most of the rest do exist. Indeed, only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived.

Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world: archaeology and the study of source texts. Primary sources are those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study.

Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary sources, which often cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources.

The date used as the end of the ancient era is entirely arbitrary. The transition period from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages is known as Late Antiquity. Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world.

5

Ancient Civilisation - Egypt Ancient Egypt was a long-lived civilization geographically located in north-eastern Africa. It was concentrated along the middle to lower reaches of the Nile River reaching its greatest extension during the second millennium BC, which is referred to as the New Kingdom period. It reached broadly from the Nile Delta in the north, as far south as Jebel Barkal at the Fourth Cataract of the Nile. Extensions to the geographical range of ancient Egyptian civilization included, at different times, areas of the southern Levant, the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea coastline, the Sinai Peninsula and the Western Desert (focused on the several oases).

Ancient Egypt developed over at least three and a half millennia. It began with the incipient unification of Nile Valley polities around 3500 BC and is conventionally thought to have ended in 30 BC when the early Roman Empire conquered and absorbed Ptolemaic Egypt as a province. (Though this last did not represent the first period of foreign domination, the Roman period was to witness a marked, if gradual transformation in the political and religious life of the Nile Valley, effectively marking the termination of independent civilisational development).

Khafre’s Pyramid (4th dynasty) and Great Sphinx of Giza (c.2500 BC or perhaps earlier)

A typical Naqada II jar decorated with gazelles.

(Predynastic Period)

The civilization of ancient Egypt was based on a finely balanced control of natural and human resources, characterised primarily by controlled irrigation of the fertile Nile Valley; the mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions; the early development of an independent writing system and literature; the organisation of collective projects; trade with surrounding regions in east / central Africa and the eastern Mediterranean; finally, military ventures that exhibited strong characteristics of imperial hegemony and territorial domination of neighbouring cultures at different periods. Motivating and organizing these activities were a socio-political and economic elite that The many achievements of the ancient Egyptians include the quarrying, surveying and construction techniques that facilitated the building of monumental pyramids, temples, and obelisks; a system of mathematics, a practical and effective system of medicine, irrigation systems and agricultural production techniques, the first known ships, Egyptian faience and glass technology, new forms of literature, and the earliest known peace treaty Egypt left a lasting legacy. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world. Its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travellers and writers for centuries. A new-found respect for antiquities and excavations in the early modern period led to the scientific investigation of Egyptian civilization and a greater appreciation of its cultural legacy.

The Giza Pyramids

The Narmer Palette depicts the unification of the Two Lands

7

Ancient Egyptian architecture The Nile valley has been the site of one of the most influential civilizations which developed a vast array of diverse structures encompassing ancient Egyptian architecture. The architectural monuments, which include the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Sphinx of Giza, are among the largest and most famous.

Ancient Egyptian architecture is based mainly on religious monuments, massive structures characterized by thick, sloping walls with few openings, possibly echoing a method of construction used to obtain stability in mud walls. In a similar manner, the incised and flatly modelled surface adornment of the stone buildings may have derived from mud wall ornamentation. Although the use of the arch was developed during the fourth dynasty, all monumental buildings are post and lintel constructions, with flat roofs constructed of huge stone blocks supported by the external walls and the closely spaced columns.

The well preserved Temple of Horus at Edfu is an example of Egyptian architecture and architectural sculpture.

Exterior and interior walls, as well as the columns and piers, were covered with hieroglyphic and pictorial frescoes and carvings painted in brilliant colors. Many motifs of Egyptian ornamentation are symbolic, such as the scarab, or sacred beetle, the solar disk, and the vulture. Other common motifs include palm leaves, the papyrus plant, and the buds and flowers of the lotus. Hieroglyphs were inscribed for decorative purposes as well as to record historic events or spells. In addition, these pictorial frescoes and carvings allow us to understand how the Ancient Egyptians lived, statuses, wars that were fought and their beliefs. This was especially true when exploring the tombs of Ancient Egyptian officials in recent years.

Remains of the Ramesseum, mortuary temple of Ramses II (1290-1224 BC), in the west bank of Luxor (Egypt).

Ancient Egypt Art

Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, Der El-Bahari - 1520 BC

Great Temple of Amun

9

Pyramid - Building techniques Techniques of Transportion Another unsolved question is how hundreds thousands of blocks, some weighting several tons, were transported. Ramps were used for the lower part of the structure and various theories have been put forward to explain this technique. It is not known how the transport problem was solved for the upper part of the pyramid.

The procedure building

of

pyramid

The inner structure of the pyramid of the old kingdom is still largely unknown. It is probable that from the start of dynasty IV, the porous limestone core blocks were built up in horizontal layers, with the cladding of thick limestone blocks being positioned as building progressed.

Section through the pyramid of Cheops and plan of pyramid temple Cheops It has not yet been fully explained why this pyramid has three chambers. The construction plans may have been altered during building, or they may have been planned from the outset as three separate functional elements.

11

Karnak temple The temple complex of Karnak is located on the banks of the River Nile some 2.5 kilometers (1.5 mi) north of Luxor. It consists of four main parts, the Precinct of AmonRe, the Precinct of Montu, the Precinct of Mut and the Temple of Amenhotep IV (dismantled), as well as a few smaller temples and sanctuaries located outside the enclosing walls of the four main parts, and several avenues of ram-headed sphinxes connecting the Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Amon-Re and Luxor Temple.

Sphinx avenue in front of the Temple of Karnak The divine inhabitant of the temple remains hidden in the form of a cult image within the inner most sanctuary of the temple. In front of the temple the God shows himself in a variety of statue forms.

13

Architectural Model

Small-scale

models

of

architectural components were used in the Ptolemaic Period for training sculptors in traditional architectural forms. the lotus capital, rarely seen on buildings, has the pointed petals and round buds of a water lily.

Plant capital In the temples of Ptolemaic Period the basic forms of Egyptian columns, which had been virtually unchanged over 2500 years, emerged in a wide variety of different shapes. Various plants motifs were combined to create veritable bouquets of flowers emerging from the surface of the stones. Birth house of the Temple of Isis in Philae; Ptolemaic Period, second-first millennium B.C; sandstone

Plam Capital Classical columnar forms maintained

their

place

alongside

the

newly

developed

forms

with

floral composite capitals.

Columned

Hall

of

the

Temple of Isis on Philse; Ptolemaic-Roman Period; third century B.C -third century A.D; sandstone

15

Relief of Hatshepsut On one of the quartzite blocks in the ‘Chapelle Rouge’ Queen Harshepsut is shown dedicating to the God Amun’ two great obelisks, covered with white gold, and so high that they pierce the skies”

Obelisk of Tuthmosis I In Karnak In front of the temple gate, or pylon, stood pairs of obelisks with golden tips which reflected the first and last rays of the sun each day a symbolic image of the presence of the sun god on earth and of his daily cycle.

New Kindom, Dynasty XVIII, c.1490 B.C Obelisk of Hatshepsut in Karnak The obelisks of Karnak once stood in front of the temple, but later building work around them effectively placed them inside the temple complex, away from the view.

Relief in the ‘Botanical Garden’

The animals and plants depicted in the reliefs are not shown in their natural surroundings, but in a kind of reference work which is a pictorial homage to the God Amun, who is manifested on earth through his creations.

17

The Temples of the New Kingdom Under the New Kingdom, Egypt was at the peak of its power. The conquering pharaohs of the XVIIIth, XIXth and XXth dynasties extended their authority from the fourth cataract of the Nile in the south up to the frontiers of Mesopotamia in the northeast of the state and of the temples flowed from this great empire. On the initiative of the sovereigns, tuous capital, Thebes, were generously endowed with grandiose stone buildings. The quarries of the hills which bordered the country to the south and the State administration or by the temple authorities these great programmes mobilized huge numbers of workers. There are two groups of monumental buildings at Thebes.

On the east bank, the great temples to deities still mark the religious and official centre of the town; the most important ones are the immense temple of Amon-Re at Karnak and the temple of Luxor. On the west bank, on the edge of the desert and hard by the sites of the numerous rock tombs, a series of temples stand which were put up by the sovereigns of the New Kingdom primarily for their afterlife cult but in which the worship of Amon was very prominent too. The most important and the best preserved are the temples of queen Hatshepsut at Deirel-Bahri ( XVIIIth dynasty), of Remesses III at Mednet Habu (XXth)

Temple of Khons, Karnak The small temple of Khons, theson in the divine trinity of Thebes was built by Ramosses III and is typical of the Egyptian temple of the New Kingdom measure 75 by 30 metres

An Egyptian temple was a vast structure. Generally a long wall of unbaked brick delimited a large enclosure within were first of all the house of the God, in stone, but also numerous related buildings in brick that were connected with the many activities of the temple. The cult derived its income and its staff their upkeep from agriculture, sometimes on a vast scale and not neccssarily confined to the surrounding region. Storehouses, silos, poultry yards and cowsheds are often found in temple precincts. Workshops were erected for the maintenance of the buildings and other buildings for the preparation of daily offerings. Stewards and administrators responsible for managing the temple had their offices. Temples were also centres of intellectual activity, in which young scribes were trained, ancient manuscripts were copied and new works of theology were written. Temples were respoitories of knowledge, with intellectual and religious roles to play in addition to their economic functions; some temples, thanks to the influence their priests had been able to acquire, also wielded considerable political influence. The numerous brick buildings that still surround the Ramesseum give an idea of the importance of these ancillary functions.

19

The Step Pyramid of Saqqara The Old Kingdom begins with the 3rd Dynasty and a king named Zoser (Djoser).

Before Zoser’s time, people were buried in chambers carved out of bedrock and covered with flat pieces of stone. Eventually, these tombs were elaborated by adding sun-baked mud-brick rectangular structures above, called mastabas. Inside the mastaba were storage rooms for clothing, food, furniture, weapons, and other items of daily life. Later mastabas included a chamber with a statue of the deceased.

Zoser, however, envisioned a grander memorial. His tomb, the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, built under the direction of his vizier and architect Imhotep, was remarkable in several ways. The tomb began as a mastaba, but Zoser was not satisfied, so he had the mastaba enlarged, adding other mastabas on top of previous ones until the structure had six layers and rose to a height of 204 feet. The pyramid was the first building erected entirely of stone (Moffitt, Fazio and Wodehouse 24).

Zoser surrounded his pyramid with a stone wall 33 feet high, moulding it after a palace facade. The entire Step Pyramid complex was 1,800 feet by 900 feet. Shafts, tunnels, and chambers within the pyramid contained stone vases, carved stone walls, paintings and a statue of the king.

Mastabas (Trachtenberg and Hyman 62)

Step Pyramid at Saqqara, c.2750 B.C.E. (Robins 42)

Plan of the Saqqara neropolis

Beyond the entrance was a long hall flanked by two rows of half-columns attained to piers that supported a massie stone ceiling. These half-columns are notable because they are among the first momnmental columnar forms in the history of architecture (Trachtenberg and Hyman 63). The columns imitated papyrus plants and the bundles of reeds that had been used as building supports in earlier times. Imitating natural forms in columns and other buildings aspects is a motif that has remained central throughout the history of architecture (Trachtenberg and Hyman 63). The slender halfcolumns in the courtyard had bell-shaped depictions of papyrus flowers that formed the first capitals in architecture (Trachtenberg and Hyman 63).

Zoser’s Step Pyramid, and all the pyramids that were built in succeeding dynasties in the Old Kingdom, embodied Egyptian religious beliefs in monumental physical form.

The pyramids symbolized the initial emergence of the earth from the primordial waters and the rising up of the king’s body after death - providing a stairway on which the king could walk to.

21

Ancient Greek architecture The architecture of Ancient Greece is the architecture produced by the Greekspeaking people (Hellenic people) whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland and Peloponnesus, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Asia Minor and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest remaining architectural works dating from around 600 BC. Ancient Greek architecture is best known from its temples, many of which are found throughout the region, mostly as ruins but many substantially intact. The second important type of building that survives all over the Hellenic world is the open-air theatre, with the earliest dating from around 350 BC. Other architectural forms that are still in evidence are the processional gateway (propylon), the public square (agora) surrounded by storied colonnade (stoa), the town council building (bouleuterion), the public monument, the monumental tomb (mausoleum) and the stadium.

Ancient Greek architecture is distinguished by its highly formalised characteristics, both of structure and decoration. This is particularly so in the case of temples where each building appears to have been conceived as a sculptural entity within the landscape, most often raised on high ground so that the elegance of its proportions and the effects of light on its surfaces might be viewed from all angles. Nikolaus Pevsner refers to “the plastic shape of the [Greek] temple.....placed before us with a physical presence more intense, more alive than that of any later building�.

The architecture of Ancient Rome grew out of that of Greece and maintained its influence in Italy unbroken until the present day. From the Renaissance, revivals of Classicism have kept alive not only the precise forms and ordered details of Greek architecture, but also its concept of architectural beauty based on balance and proportion. The successive styles of Neoclassical architecture and Greek Revival architecture followed and adapted Ancient Greek styles closely.

23

The Greek World Architectural character Early development There is a clear division between the architecture of the preceding Mycenaean culture and Minoan cultures and that of the Ancient Greeks, the techniques and an understanding of their style being lost when these civilizations fell.

Mycenaean art is marked by its circular structures and tapered domes with flat-bedded, cantilevered courses. This architectural form did not carry over into the architecture of Ancient Greece, but reappeared about 400 BC in the interior of large monumental tombs such as the Lion Tomb at Cnidos (c. 350 BC). Little is known of Mycenaean wooden or domestic architecture and any continuing traditions that may have flowed into the early buildings of the Dorian people.

The reconstructed Stoa of Attalos,

The Bouleuterion, at Priene

the Agora, Athens

Porta Rosa, a street (3rd century BCE) Velia, Italy

The Stadium at Epidauros

The Minoan architecture of Crete, was of trabeated form like that of Ancient Greece. It employed wooden columns with capitals, but the columns were of very different form to Doric columns, being narrow at the base and splaying upward. The earliest forms of columns in Greece seem to have developed independently. As with Minoan architecture, Ancient Greek domestic architecture centred on open spaces or courtyards surrounded by colonnades. This form was adapted to the construction of hypostyle halls within the larger temples.

The domestic architecture of ancient Greece employed walls of sun dried clay bricks or wooden framework filled with fibrous material such as straw or seaweed covered with clay or plaster, on a base of stone which protected the more vulnerable elements from damp. Roofs were probably of thatch with eaves which overhung the permeable walls.

It is probable that many early houses had an open porch or “pronaos” above which rose a low pitched gable or pediment. Since the Ancient Greeks did not have royalty, they did not build palaces. The evolution that occurred in architecture was towards public building, first and foremost the temple, rather than towards grand domestic architecture such as had evolved in Crete.

The rectangular temple is the most common and best-known form of Greek public architecture. The temple did not serve the same function as a modern church, since the altar stood under the open sky in the temenos or sacred precinct, often directly before the temple. Temples served as the location of a cult image and as a storage place or strong room for the treasury associated with the cult of the god in question,, and as a place for devotees of the god to leave their votive offerings, such as statues, helmets and weapons. Some Greek temples appear to have been oriented astronomically. The temple was generally part of a religious precinct known as the acropolis. According to Aristotle, ‘”the site should be a spot seen far and wide, which gives good elevation to virtue and towers over the neighbourhood”. Small circular temples, tholos were also constructed, as well as small temple-like buildings that served as treasuries for specific groups of donors.

25

Greek Structure Column and lintel The architecture of Ancient Greece is of a trabeated or “post and lintel” form, i.e. it is composed of upright beams (posts) supporting horizontal beams (lintels).

Although the existent buildings of the era are constructed in stone, it is clear that the origin of the style lies in simple wooden structures, with vertical posts supporting beams which carried a ridged roof. The posts and beams divided the walls into regular compartments which could be left as openings, or filled with sun dried bricks, lathes or straw and covered with clay daub or plaster. Alternately, the spaces might be filled with rubble. It is likely that many early houses and temples were constructed with an open porch or “pronaos” above which rose a low pitched gable or pediment.

The earliest temples, built to enshrine statues of deities, were probably of wooden construction, later replaced by the more durable stone temples many of which are still in evidence today. The signs of the original timber nature of the architecture were maintained in the stone buildings.

A few of these temples are very large, with several, such as the Temple of Zeus Olympus and the Olympieion at Athens being well over 300 feet in length, but most were less than half this size. It appears that some of the large temples began as wooden constructions in which the columns were replaced piecemeal as stone became available. This, at least was the interpretation of the historian Pausanias looking at the Temple of Hera at Olympia in the 2nd century AD. The stone columns are made of a series of solid stone cylinders or “drums” that rest on each other without mortar, but were sometimes centred with a bronze pin. The columns are wider at the base than at the top, tapering with an outward curve known as “entasis”. Each column has a capital of two parts, the upper, on which rests the lintels, being square and called the “abacus”. The part of the capital that rises from the column itself is called the “echinus”. It differs according to the order, being plain in the Doric Order, fluted in the Ionic and foliate in the Corinthian.

Doric and usually Ionic capitals are cut with vertical grooves known as “fluting”.

This fluting or grooving of the columns is a retention of an element of the original wooden architecture.

Facing Page picture: At the Temple of Aphaia the hypostyle columns rise in two tiers, to a height greater than the walls, to support a roof without struts.

Left picture : Erechtheion: masonry, door, stone lintels, coffered ceiling panels

27

Parts of an Ancient Greek temple of the Doric Order: 1. Tympanum, 2. Acroterium, 3. Sima 4. Cornice 5. Mutules 7. Freize 8. Triglyph 9. Metope 10. Regula 11. Gutta 12. Taenia 13. Architrave 14. Capital 15. Abacus 16. Echinus 17. Column 18. Fluting 19. Stylobate

Entablature and pediment The columns of a temple support a structure that rises in two main stages, the entablature and the pediment. The entablature is the major horizontal structural element supporting the roof and encircling the entire building. It is composed by three parts. Resting on the columns is the architrave made of a series of stone “lintels” that spanned the space between the columns, and meet each other at a joint directly above the centre of each column.

Above the architrave is a second horizontal stage called the “frieze”. The frieze is one of the major decorative elements of the building and carries a sculptured relief. In the case of Ionic and Corinthian architecture, the relief decoration runs in a continuous band, but in the Doric Order, it is divided into sections called “metopes” which fill the spaces between vertical rectangular blocks called “triglyphs”. The triglyphs are vertically grooved like the Doric columns, and retain the form of the wooden beams that would once have supported the roof.

The upper band of the entablature is called the “cornice”, which is generally ornately decorated on its lower edge. The cornice retains the shape of the beams that would once have supported the wooden roof at each end of the building. At the front and back of each temple, the entablature supports a triangular structure called the “pediment”. The triangular space framed by the cornices is the location of the most significant sculptural decoration on the exterior of the building.

29

Temple plans Most Ancient Greek temples were rectangular, and were approximately twice as long as they were wide, with some notable exceptions such as the enormous Temple of Zeus Olympus in Athens with a length of nearly 2 1/2 times its width. The majority of Temples were small, being 30–100 feet long, while a few were large, being over 300 feet long and 150 feet wide. The iconic Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis occupies a midpoint at 235 feet long by 109 feet wide. A number of surviving templelike structures are circular, and are referred to as tholos.

The temple rises from a stepped base or “stylobate”, which elevated the structure above the ground on which it stood. Early examples, such as the Temple of Zeus at Olympus, have two steps, but the majority, like the Parthenon, have three, with the exceptional example of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma having six. The core of the building is a masonry-built “naos” within which was a cella, a windowless room which housed the statue of the god. The cella generally had a porch or “pronaos” before it, and perhaps a second chamber or “antenaos” serving as a treasury or repository for trophies and gifts. The chambers were lit by a single large doorway, fitted with a wrought iron grill. Some rooms appear to have been illuminated by skylights.

On the stylobate, often completely surrounding the naos, stood rows of columns. Each temple was defined as being of a particular type, with two terms: one describing the number of columns across the entrance front, and the other defining their distribution

Distyle in antis describes a small temple with two columns at the front, which are set between the projecting walls of the pronaos or porch, like the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnus.

Amphiprostyle tetrastyle describes a small temple that has columns at both ends which stand clear of the naos. Tetrastyle indicates that the columns are four in number, like those of the Temple on the Ilissus in Athens.

Peripteral hexastyle describes a temple with a single row of peripheral columns around the naos, with six columns across the front, like the Theseion in Athens.

Peripteral octastyle describes a temple with a single row of columns around the naos, with eight columns across the front, like the Parthenon, Athens.

Dipteral decastyle describes the huge temple of Apollo at Didyma, with the naos surrounded by a double row of columns, with ten columns across the entrance front.

The Temple of Zeus Olympius at Agrigentum, is termed Pseudo-periteral heptastyle, because its encircling colonnade has pseudo columns that are attached to the walls of the naos. Heptastyle means that it has seven columns across the entrance front.

31

Proportion and optical illusion The ideal of proportion that was used by Ancient Greek architects in designing temples was not a simple mathematical progression using a square module. The math involved a more complex geometrical progression, the so-called Golden mean. The ratio is similar to that of the growth patterns of many spiral forms that occur in nature such as rams’ horns, nautilus shells, fern fronds, and vine tendrils and which were a source of decorative motifs employed by Ancient Greek architects as particularly in evidence in the volutes of capitals of the Ionic and Corinthian Orders.

In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.61803398874989. Other names frequently used for the golden ratio are the golden section (Latin: sectio aurea) and golden mean. Other terms encountered include extreme and mean ratio, medial section, divine proportion, divine section (Latin: sectio divina), golden proportion, golden cut, golden number, and mean of Phidias. In this article the golden ratio is denoted by the Greek lowercase letter phi (φ), while its reciprocal, 1 / φ or φ − 1, is denoted by the uppercase variant Phi (Φ).

At least since the Renaissance, many artists and architects have proportioned their works to approximate the golden ratio—especially in the form of the golden rectangle, in which the ratio of the longer side to the shorter is the golden ratio—believing this proportion to be aesthetically pleasing. Mathematicians have studied the golden ratio because of its unique and interesting properties. The golden ratio is also used in the analysis of financial markets, in strategies such as Fibonacci retracement.

The drawing of a man’s body in a pentagram suggests relationships to the golden ratio.

The Ancient Greek architects took a philosophic approach to the rules and proportions.

The determining factor in the mathematics of any notable work of architecture was its ultimate appearance. The architects calculated for perspective, for the optical illusions that make edges of objects appear concave and for the fact that columns that are viewed against the sky look different to those adjacent that are viewed against a shadowed wall. Because of these factors, the architects adjusted the plans so that the major lines of any significant building are rarely straight. The most obvious adjustment is to the profile of columns, which narrow from base to top. However, the narrowing is not regular, but gently curved so that each columns appears to have a slight swelling, called entasis below the middle. The entasis is never sufficiently pronounced as to make the swelling wider than the base; it is controlled by a slight reduction in the rate of decrease of diameter.

The Parthenon, the Temple to the Goddess Athena on the Acropolis in Athens, is the epitome of what Nikolaus Pevsner called “the most perfect example ever achieved of architecture finding its fulfilment in bodily beauty”. Helen Gardner refers to its “unsurpassable excellence”, to be surveyed, studied and emulated by architects of later ages.

33

Orders Stylistically, Ancient Greek architecture is divided into three “orders�: the Doric Order, the Ionic Order and the Corinthian Order, the names reflecting their origins.

While the three orders are most easily recognizable by their capitals, the orders also governed the form, proportions, details and relationships of the columns, entablature, pediment and the stylobate. The different orders were applied to the whole range of buildings and monuments.

The Doric Order developed on mainland Greece and spread to Italy. It was firmly established and well-defined in its characteristics by the time of the building of the Temple of Hera at Olympia, c. 600 BC. The Ionic order co-existed with the Doric, being favoured by the Greek cites of Ionia, in Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands.

It did not reach a clearly defined form until the mid 5th century BC. The early Ionic temples of Asia Minor were particularly ambitious in scale, such as the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The Corinthian Order was a highly decorative variant not developed until the Hellenistic period and retaining many characteristics of the Ionic. It was popularised by the Romans.

Left: the

Capital Ionic

of Order

showing volutes and ornamented echinus

Left:

Architectural

elements of the Doric Order

showing

simple

curved echinus of capital Right : Capital of the Corinthian Order showing foliate decoration and vertical volutes.

Doric Order The Doric order is recognised by its capital, of which the echinus is like a circular cushion rising from the top of the column to the square abacus on which ress the lintels. The echinus appears flat and splayed in early examples, deeper and with greater curve in later, more refined examples, and smaller and straight-sided in Hellenistc examples. A refinement of the Doric Column is the entasis, a gentle convex swelling to the profile of the column, which prevents an optical illusion of concavity.

The entablature showing the architrave, frieze with triglyphs and metopes and the overhanging cornice Doric columns are almost always cut with grooves, known as “fluting�, which run the length of the column and are usually 20 in number, although sometimes fewer. The flutes meet at sharp edges called arises. At the top of the columns, slightly below the narrowest point, and crossing the terminating arrises, are three horizontal grooves known as the hypotrachelion. Doric columns have no bases, until a few examples in the Hellenistic period.

The cornice is a narrow jutting band of complex moulding which overhangs and protects the ornamented frieze, like the edge of an overhanging wooden-framed roof.

It is decorated on the underside with projecting blocks, mutules, further suggesting the wooden nature of the prototype. At either end of the building the pediment rises from the cornice, framed by moulding of similar form.

35

Ionic Order The Ionic Order is recognised by its voluted capital, in which a curved echinus of similar shape to that of the Doric Order, but decorated with stylised ornament, is surmounted by a horizontal band that scrolls under to either side, forming spirals or volutes similar to those of the nautilus shell or ram’s horn. In plan, the capital is rectangular. It’s designed to be viewed frontally but the capitals at the corners of buildings are modified with an additional scroll so as to appear regular on two adjoining faces. In the Hellenistic period, four-fronted Ionic capitals became common.

Like the Doric Order, the Ionic Order retains signs of having its origins in wooden architecture. The horizontal spread of a flat timber plate across the top of a column is a common device in wooden construction, giving a thin upright a wider area on which to bear the lintel, while at the same time reinforcing the load-bearing strength of the lintel itself. Likewise, the columns always have bases, a necessity in wooden architecture to spread the load and protect the base of a comparatively thin upright.

Corner capital with a diagonal volute, showing also details of the fluting separated by fillets.

Frieze of stylised alternating palms and reeds, and a cornice decorated with “egg and dart” moulding.

Corinthian Order The Corinthian Order does not have its origin in wooden architecture. It grew directly out of the Ionic in the mid 5th century BC, and was initially of much the same style and proportion, but distinguished by its more ornate capitals. The capital was very much deeper than either the Doric or the Ionic capital, being shaped like a large krater, a bell-shaped mixing bowl, and being ornamented with a double row of acanthus leaves above which rose voluted tendrils, supporting the corners of the abacus, which, no longer perfectly square, splayed above them. According to Vitruvius, the capital was invented by a bronze founder, Callimarchus of Corinth, who took his inspiration from a basket of offerings that had been placed on a grave, with a flat tile on top to protect the goods. The basket had been placed on the root of an acanthus plant which had grown up around it. The ratio of the column height to diameter is generally 10:1, with the capital taking up more than 1/10 of the height.

The ratio of capital height to diameter is generally about 1.16:1.

The Temple of Zeus Olympia, Athens, (“the Olympieion�)

The tall capital combines both seminaturalistic leaves and highly stylised tendrils forming volutes.

37

39

Ancient Roman architecture Ancient Roman architecture adopted certain aspects of Ancient Greek architecture, creating a new architectural style. The Romans were indebted to their Etruscan neighbours and forefathers who supplied them with a wealth of knowledge essential for future architectural solutions, such as hydraulics and in the construction of arches.

Later they absorbed Greek and Phoenician influence, apparent in many aspects closely related to architecture; for example, this can be seen in the introduction and use of the Triclinium in Roman villas as a place and manner of dining. Social elements such as wealth and high population densities in cities forced the ancient Romans to discover new (architectural) solutions of their own.

The Roman use of the arch and their improvements in the use of concrete and bricks facilitated the building of the many aqueducts throughout the empire, such as the magnificent Aqueduct of Segovia and the eleven aqueducts in Rome itself, such as Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus. The same idea produced numerous bridges, such as the still used bridge at MĂŠrida.

The dome permitted construction of vaulted ceilings and provided large covered public space such as the public baths and basilicas. The Romans based much of their architecture on the dome, such as Hadrian’s Pantheon in the city of Rome, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla.

Art historians such as Gottfried Richter in the 1920s identified the Roman architectural innovation as being the Triumphal Arch and it is poignant to see how this symbol of power on earth was transformed and utilised within the Christian basilicas when the Roman Empire of the West was on its last legs: The arch was set before the altar to symbolize the triumph of Christ and the after life. It is in their impressive aqueducts that we see the arch triumphant, especially in the many surviving examples, such as the Pont du Gard, the aqueduct at Segovia and the remains of the Aqueducts of Rome itself. Their survival is testimony to the durability of their materials and design.

Roman architects invented Roman concrete and used it in buildings where it could stand on its own and support a great deal of weight. The first use of concrete by the Romans was in the town of Cosa sometime after 273 BCE. Ancient Roman concrete was a mixture of lime mortar, sand with stone rubble, pozzolana, water, and stones, and stronger than previously-used concrete. The ancient builders placed these ingredients in wooden frames where it hardened and bonded to a facing of stones or (more frequently) bricks.

When the framework was removed, the new wall was very strong with a rough surface of bricks or stones. This surface could be smoothed and faced with an attractive stucco or thin panels of marble or other coloured stones called revetment.

Concrete construction proved to be more flexible and less costly than building solid stone buildings. The materials were readily available and not difficult to transport. The wooden frames could be used more than once, allowing builders to work quickly and efficiently.

Tile covered concrete quickly supplanted marble as the primary building material and more daring buildings soon followed, with great pillars supporting broad arches and domes rather than dense lines of columns suspending flat architraves. The freedom of concrete also inspired the colonnade screen, a row of purely decorative columns in front of a load-bearing wall. In smaller-scale architecture, concrete’s strength freed the floor plan from rectangular cells to a more free-flowing environment. Most of these developments are ably described by Vitruvius writing in the first century AD in his work De Architectural. Though most would consider concrete the Roman contribution most relevant to the modern world, the Empire’s style of architecture can still be seen throughout Europe and North America in the arches and domes of many governmental and religious buildings.

41

The Pantheon The Pantheon from Greek is a building in Rome, Italy, commissioned by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in about 126 AD. The nearlycontemporary writer (2nd–3rd centuries AD), Cassius Dio, speculated that the name comes either from the statues of so many gods placed around this building, or else from the resemblance of the dome to the heavens.

Since the French Revolution, when the church of Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, was deconsecrated and turned into a secular monument, the PanthÊon of Paris, the generic term pantheon has sometimes been applied to other buildings in which illustrious dead are honored or buried.

The building is circular with a portico of three ranks of huge granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment. A rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered, concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon’s dome is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. The height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 metres (142 ft). It is one of the best preserved of all Roman buildings. It has been in continuous use throughout its history, and since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a Roman Catholic church dedicated to “St. Mary and the Martyrs” but informally known as “Santa Maria Rotonda”; the square in front of the Pantheon is called Piazza della Rotonda

Pantheon and Fontana del Pantheon

43

The Pantheon The successive periods of the Roman Empire provided a continuity of architectural development that advanced techniques in construction and engineering. Although indebted to the established Orders of Greek architecture the Romans were to find a new form of expression in the range of their building types, their spatial complexity, and a coordinated urban-planning program that achieved cohesion throughout the empire. The structural potential of the true arch, previously utilized in Etruscan architecture, found its logical conclusion in the Roman vault and dome.

45

Colosseum The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium, Italian Anfiteatro Flavio or Colosseo), is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. It is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and Roman engineering.

Occupying a site just east of the Roman Forum, its construction started in 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD under Titus, with further modifications being made during Domitian’s reign (81–96). The name “Amphitheatrum Flavium” derives from both Vespasian’s and Titus’s family name (Flavius, from the gens Flavia).

Capable of seating 50,000 spectators, the Colosseum was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology. The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine.

Although in the 21st century it stays partially ruined because of damage caused by devastating earthquakes and stone-robbers, the Colosseum is an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome. It is one of Rome’s most popular tourist attractions and still has close connections with the Roman Catholic Church, as each Good Friday the Pope leads a torchlit “Way of the Cross” procession that starts in the area around the Colosseum.

The Colosseum’s original Latin name was Amphitheatrum Flavium, often anglicized as Flavian Amphitheater. The building was constructed by emperors of the Flavian dynasty, hence its original name, after the reign of Emperor Nero. This name is still used in modern English, but generally the structure is better known as the Colosseum.

In antiquity, Romans may have referred to the Colosseum by the unofficial name Amphitheatrum Caesareum; this name could have been strictly poetic as it was not exclusive to the Colosseum; Vespasian and Titus, builders of the Colosseum, also constructed an amphitheater of the same name in Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli).

The name Colosseum has long been believed to be derived from a colossal statue of Nero nearby (the statue of Nero was named after the Colossus of Rhodes)[citation needed]. This statue was later remodeled by Nero’s successors into the likeness of Helios (Sol) or Apollo, the sun god, by adding the appropriate solar crown. Nero’s head was also replaced several times with the heads of succeeding emperors.

Despite its pagan links, the statue remained standing well into the medieval era and was credited with magical powers. It came to be seen as an iconic symbol of the permanence of Rome.

In the 8th century, a famous epigram attributed to the Venerable Bede celebrated the symbolic significance of the statue in a prophecy that is variously quoted: Quamdiu stat Colisæus, stat et Roma; quando cadet colisæus, cadet et Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus (“as long as the Colossus stands, so shall Rome; when the Colossus falls, Rome shall fall; when Rome falls, so falls the world”. This is often mistranslated to refer to the Colosseum rather than the Colossus (as in, for instance, Byron’s poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage). However, at the time that the PseudoBede wrote, the masculine noun coliseus was applied to the statue rather than to what was still known as the Flavian amphitheatre.

The Colossus did eventually fall, possibly being pulled down to reuse its bronze. By the year 1000 the name “Colosseum” had been coined to refer to the amphitheatre. The statue itself was largely forgotten and only its base survives, situated between the Colosseum and the nearby Temple of Venus and Roma.

The name further evolved to Coliseum during the Middle Ages. In Italy, the amphitheatre is still known as il Colosseo, and other Romance languages have come to use similar forms such as le Colisée (French), el Coliseo (Spanish) and o Coliseu (Portuguese).

Construction of the Colosseum began under the rule of the Emperor Vespasian[3] in around 70–72 AD. The site chosen was a flat area on the floor of a low valley between the Caelian, Esquiline and Palatine Hills, through which a canalised stream ran. By the 2nd century BC the area was densely inhabited. It was devastated by the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, following which Nero seized much of the area to add to his personal domain.

47

Colosseum Unlike earlier Greek theatres that were built into hillsides, the Colosseum is an entirely free-standing structure. It derives its basic exterior and interior architecture from that of two Roman theatres back to back. It is elliptical in plan and is 189 meters (615 ft / 640 Roman feet) long, and 156 meters (510 ft / 528 Roman feet) wide, with a base area of 6 acres (24,000 m2). The height of the outer wall is 48 meters (157 ft / 165 Roman feet). The perimeter originally measured 545 meters (1,788 ft / 1,835 Roman feet). The central arena is an oval 87 m (287 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide, surrounded by a wall 5 m (15 ft) high, above which rose tiers of seating.

The outer wall is estimated to have required over 100,000 cubic meters (131,000 cu yd) of travertine stone which were set without mortar held together by 300 tons of iron clamps. However, it has suffered extensive damage over the centuries, with large segments having collapsed following earthquakes. The north side of the perimeter wall is still standing; the distinctive triangular brick wedges at each end are modern additions, having been constructed in the early 19th century to shore up the wall.

The remainder of the present-day exterior of the Colosseum is in fact the original interior wall. The surviving part of the outer wall’s monumental façade comprises three stories of superimposed arcades surmounted by a podium on which stands a tall attic, both of which are pierced by windows interspersed at regular intervals.

The arcades are framed by half-columns of the Tuscan, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, while the attic is decorated with Corinthian pilasters. Each of the arches in the secondand third-floor arcades framed statues, probably honouring divinities and other figures from Classical mythology. Two hundred and forty mast corbels were positioned around the top of the attic. They originally supported a retractable awning, known as the velarium, that kept the sun and rain off spectators. This consisted of a canvas-covered, net-like structure made of ropes, with a hole in the centre. It covered two-thirds of the arena, and sloped down towards the centre to catch the wind and provide a breeze for the audience. Sailors, specially enlisted from the Roman naval headquarters at Misenum and housed in the nearby Castra Misenatium, were used to work the velarium.

The Colosseum’s huge crowd capacity made it essential that the venue could be filled or evacuated quickly. Its architects adopted solutions very similar to those used in modern stadiums to deal with the same problem. The amphitheatre was ringed by eighty entrances at ground level, 76 of which were used by ordinary spectators. Each entrance and exit was numbered, as was each staircase. The northern main entrance was reserved for the Roman Emperor and his aides, whilst the other three axial entrances were most likely used by the elite. All four axial entrances were richly decorated with painted stucco reliefs, of which fragments survive. Many of the original outer entrances have disappeared with the collapse of the perimeter wall, but entrances XXIII (23) to LIV (54) still survive.

Cross-section from the Lexikon der gesamten Technik 49

Colosseum According to the Codex-Calendar of 354, the Colosseum could accommodate 87,000 people, although modern estimates put the figure at around 50,000. They were seated in a tiered arrangement that reflected the rigidly stratified nature of Roman society. Special boxes were provided at the north and south ends respectively for the Emperor and the Vestal Virgins, providing the best views of the arena. Flanking them at the same level was a broad platform or podium for the senatorial class, who were allowed to bring their own chairs. The names of some 5th century senators can still be seen carved into the stonework, presumably reserving areas for their use. The tier above the senators, known as the maenianum primum, was occupied by the non-senatorial noble class or knights (equites). The next level up, the maenianum secundum, was originally reserved for ordinary Roman citizens (plebians) and was divided into two sections. The lower part (the immum) was for wealthy citizens, while the upper part (the summum) was for poor citizens. Specific sectors were provided for other social groups: for instance, boys with their tutors, soldiers on leave, foreign dignitaries, scribes, heralds, priests and so on. Stone (and later marble) seating was provided for the citizens and nobles, who presumably would have brought their own cushions with them.

Inscriptions identified the areas reserved for specific groups. Another level, the maenianum secundum in legneis, was added at the very top of the building during the reign of Domitian. This comprised a gallery for the common poor, slaves and women. It would have been either standing room only, or would have had very steep wooden benches. Some groups were banned altogether from the Colosseum, notably gravediggers, actors and former gladiators. Each tier was divided into sections (maeniana) by curved passages and low walls (praecinctiones or baltei), and were subdivided into cunei, or wedges, by the steps and aisles from the vomitoria. Each row (gradus) of seats was numbered, permitting each individual seat to be exactly designated by its gradus, cuneus, and number. The arena itself was 83 meters by 48 meters (272 ft by 157 ft / 280 by 163 Roman feet). It comprised a wooden floor covered by sand (the Latin word for sand is harena or arena), covering an elaborate underground structure called the hypogeum (literally meaning “underground�).

Little now remains of the original arena floor, but the hypogeum is still clearly visible.

It consisted of a two-level subterranean network of tunnels and cages beneath the arena where gladiators and animals were held before contests began. Eighty vertical shafts provided instant access to the arena for caged animals and scenery pieces concealed underneath; larger hinged platforms, called hegmata, provided access for elephants and the like. It was restructured on numerous occasions; at least twelve different phases of construction can be seen.

51

Colosseum The Roman Emperor Vespasian commissioned

this

vast

amphitheater as a grand civic gesture to satisfy the escalating public appetite for spectacular shows of violent entertainment.

The Colosseum in Rome was a public reminder of the power and organization of Roman Empire.

The rapid

Colosseum’s construction

program taxed

of the

organisational skill and ingenuity of the builders, who used shift work,

prefabrication,

modular

building, elaborate machinery, and a largely skilled workforce in methods not unfamiliar in 20thcentury projects.

53

Local Architecture and Historical Values Fullerton Hotel - Singapore

The Fullerton Hotel Singapore is a five-star luxury hotel located near the mouth of the Singapore River, in the Downtown Core of Central Area, Singapore. It was originally known as The Fullerton Building, and also as the General Post Office Building. The address is 1 Fullerton Square. The Fullerton Building was named after Robert Fullerton, the first Governor of the Straits Settlements (1826–1829). Commissioned in 1919 as part of the British colony’s centennial celebrations, the building was designed as an office building by Major P.H. Keys of Keys & Dowdeswell, a Shanghai firm of architects, which won the project through an architectural design competition. The architectural firm also designed the Capitol Theatre and the Singapore General Hospital. Capturing the personality of a boutique hotel. The Fullerton is ideally situated on the centre of the bustling financial district in Singapore. Yet it surrounds its guests with surprisingly refreshing ambience of peace and tranquillity. Extreme luxury resides in every detail at The Fullerton Singapore.

Architectural Details The grey Aberdeen granite Fullerton Building sits on 41,100 square metres (442,400 square feet) of land. The height of its walls measures 36.6 metres (120 ft) from the ground. The building has Neoclassical architectural features which include fluted Doric colonnades on their heavy base, and the lofty portico over the main entrance with trophy designs and the Royal Coat of Arms, crafted by Italian Cavalier Rudolfo Nolli. Originally, there were five distinct frontages, each treated in the Doric order. 14 elevators served the four floors plus the basement floors. A hollow cellular raft foundation was proposed by the original contractors in 1920s to save cost because bedrock lies directly below the building. The Fullerton Building restoration project from 1998 to 2000 was one of the few conservation projects in the world involving an institutional building. Architects 61, together with DP Consultants, was engaged to convert it into a 400-room luxury hotel.

The hotel rooms were designed by Hirsch Bedner Associates.

During its redevelopment, the historical building had most of its special architectural features retained and restored. The conservation work was coordinated by the URA, which had certain stipulations that the new owners had to comply with. Several features of the original building had to be restored faithfully. These included the General Post Office gallery area on the ground floor, with bays that corresponded with the building’s towering Doric columns on the façade, and the Straits Club Billiard Room. The post office gallery no longer exists, but has been subdivided to provide a bar, a restaurant and the hotel foyer. The Straits Club Billiard Room was kept, but without its wood panelling.

55

Interior and Exterior The building’s neo-classical columns and high-ceiling verandas were retained. It was clad in Shanghai plaster panels, which have been restored. The owners converted the windows back to be housed in timber frames. Part of the tunnel under Fullerton Road, which was used to transfer mail onto ships waiting in the harbour, has also been kept.

While the building’s exterior has been conserved, the developers had also to transform the interior into a five-star hotel. The room on the fourth storey, where the British Governor was first told of the British military’s decision to surrender to the Japanese during World War II, was converted to an exclusive lounge. The room has a barrel-vaulted, coffered ceiling, which is the only one of its kind in Singapore. The building’s historical lighthouse, which used to guide ships into the port, has been incorporated into a food and beverage outlet. The Fullerton Light, a revolving beacon of 540 kilocandelas mounted on the roof of the building, was installed in 1958 to replace the Fort Canning Lighthouse which was being demolished. The beacon could be seen by ships 29 kilometres (15.7 nautical miles) away. The Lighthouse has been moved to a new location as an artefact near Harbour Front Tower.

The Fullerton Hotel Singapore has 400 rooms and suites which either overlook the atrium courtyard, or face downtown Singapore’s skyline, the Singapore River promenade or the Marina Bay. The hotel has a 25 metre outdoor infinity swimming pool, fitness centre and a luxury spa. It also has five food and beverage outlets. For business travellers, the hotel has a 24-hour financial centre with the Bloomberg Professional service that provides financial reports and world news, and 15 meeting rooms equipped with conference facilities.

The Fullerton Building was designed for natural ventilation before the age of airconditioning; one of the architectural devices used to provide this was the internal air-wells. There were four air-wells along the central longitudinal axis, divided by three internal bays of offices, linking the front façade with the rear. It was the largest and the last example of this kind of architecture in Singapore. As air-conditioning became increasingly common, the air-wells became redundant.

Two parallel sets of guest rooms now ring the hotel’s central triangular sky-lit atrium.

One row faces out towards the harbour and the tall buildings of the central business district. The rooms of the inner ring have views of the courtyard in the centre of the building. There is an indoor garden over the old Straits Club at the centre of the atrium which can double as a venue for cocktails. The main entrance into the hotel, where dignitaries and celebrities are received, is covered with a large glass canopy at the porch. Construction work in the interior was carried out to reinforce the beams and columns, while retrofitting done on the exterior to restore the façade.

57

Architectural Details and Design Elements

Built in 1928, The Fullerton Building begins a new chapter in its prolific history, with its restoration into Singapore’s landmark hotel - The Fullerton Singapore. The historic significant and statuesque architecture make the building eminently suited for a grand hotel. With its distinguished Doric columns and monumental porte cocher.

The monumental porte cocheres(“couchgate� or portico-like structure) is similar to that of the Parthenon in Athens. Also, one side of the Fullerton Building has Doric Columns arranged in Octostyle building wherein there are eight colums in one side of the building structure, same with Parthenon in Athens.

Octostyle buildings had eight columns, they were considerably rarer than hexstyle ones in classic Greek architectural canon.

This building represents a significant and statuesque of palladian architecture with its distinguishing Doric columns.

59

The Fullerton Singapore, represents the height of Palladian architecture (European style of Architecture derived from the designs of Venetian architect Andrea Palladio) in Singapore, with only two other buildings in the city that share the same architectural grandeur, City Hall and Supreme court. Embraced by soothing shades of champagne in the lobby that accentuates the stately colonial facade.

A

villa

with

a

superimposed partico, from

Book

IV

of

Palladio’s architecture

City Hall Facade

Fullerton Hotel Facade

Originally, there were five distinct frontages, each were treated in the Doric order. 14 elevators served the four floors plus the basement floors. Two interior courts once gave light to the Postal Hall, and light and ventilation to the interior courts upstairs. In 1958, a tablets, one on each side of the entrance stairway reveals that the construction work began on February 1924, when Sir Laurence Nunns Guillemard, G.C.M.G, K.C.B, was the Governor of Singapore; and the building was completed in June 1928, when Sir Hugh Clifford, M.C.S., G.C.M.G., C.B.E., took over as Governor. The building cost was estimated at S$4,098,808, but The Straits Times of 27 June 1928, quoted the cost of S$4,750,000, as the eventual bill.

61

The stylishly chic accommodations offer the weary traveller a fresh and contemporary decor that exudes a sense of warmth and comfort. Slick, streamlined designs of Philippe Starck grace the bathrooms that are accessorized with Fullerton Fundamentals, a range of bathroom amenities. Views from the 400 rooms and suites at The Fullerton are unrivalled in Singapore. Rooms either overlook the sunlit atrium courtyard, or have verandas that open out to sweeping panoramas out of the city skyline, or river promenade or Marina Bay. The Straits Club, Fullerton’s hotel within a hotel, offers personalized service as well as an array of food and beverage selections in Straits Club Lounge Throughout the day and evening. A reading room and a Bar add to the refined ambience of a private club.

Whether it is business or leisure, a stay at The Fullerton is the highlight of a visit to Singapore.

Fullerton Hotel Developments Exterior: - The building’s neo-classical columns and high ceiling verandas were retained. It was clad in Shanghai plaster panels, which have been restored and the owners converted the windows back to housed in timber frames.

Part of the tunnel under Fullerton Road, which was used to transfer mail onto ships waiting in the harbour, has also been kept.

Interior: - The room has a barrel-vaulted, coffered ceiling, which is the only one of its kind in Singapore. The Fullerton building was designed for natural ventilation before the age of air-conditioning; one of the architectural devices used to provide this was the internal air-wells. There were four air-wells along the central longitudinal axis, divided by thress internal bays of offices, linking the front facade with the rear.

63

Non - European Civilization China

Great Wall of China China, officially the People’s Republic of China (PRC), is the most populous state in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres (3.7 million square miles). It is the world’s second-largest country by land area and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area. China’s landscape is vast and diverse, with forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts occupying the arid north and northwest near Mongolia and Central Asia, and subtropical forests being prevalent in the wetter south near Southeast Asia. The terrain of western China is rugged and elevated, with the towering Himalaya, Karakorum, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain separating China from South and Central Asia. The world’s apex, Mt. Everest (8,848 m), and second-highest point, K2 (8,611 m), lie on China’s borders, respectively, with Nepal and Pakistan.

The ancient Chinese civilization—one of the world’s earliest—flourished in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain.[17] China’s political system was based on hereditary monarchies, known as dynasties, beginning with the semi-mythological Xia of the Yellow River basin (approx. 2000 BC) and ending with the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. Since 221 BC, when the Qin Dynasty first conquered several states to form a Chinese empire, the country has fractured and been reformed numerous times. The Republic of China (ROC), founded in 1912 after the overthrow of the Qing, ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949. In the 1946–1949 phase of the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communists defeated the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang) on the mainland and established the People’s Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949. The Kuomintang relocated the ROC government to Taiwan with its capital in Taipei. The ROC’s jurisdiction is now limited to Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and several outlying islands. Since then, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (subsequently became known as “Taiwan”) have remained in dispute over the sovereignty of China and the political status of Taiwan, mutually claiming each other’s territory and competing for international diplomatic recognition. In 1971, the PRC gained admission to United Nations and took the Chinese seat as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. The PRC is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the G-20. As of September 2011, all but 23 countries have recognized the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China.

Some

of

the

thousands of life-size Terracotta Warriors of the Qin Dynasty, ca. 210 BC. 65

Chinese civilization originated in various regional centres along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world’s oldest civilizations. The written history of China can be found as early as the Shang Dynasty (c. 1700 – 1046 BC), although ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca. 100 BC) and Bamboo Annals assert the existence of a Xia Dynasty before the Shang. Oracle bones with ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty have been radiocarbon dated to as early as 1500 BC. Much of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy further developed during the Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BC).

The Zhou Dynasty began to bow to external and internal pressures in the 8th century BC, and the kingdom eventually broke apart into smaller states, beginning in the Spring and Autumn Period and reaching full expression in the Warring States period.

This is one of multiple periods of failed statehood in Chinese history (the most recent of which was the Chinese Civil War).

In between eras of multiple kingdoms and warlordism, Chinese dynasties (or, more recently, republics) have ruled all of China (minus Xinjiang and Tibet) (and, in some eras, including the present, they have controlled Xinjiang and/or Tibet as well). This practice began with the Qin Dynasty: in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang united the various warring kingdoms and created the first Chinese empire. Successive dynasties in Chinese history developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the Emperor of China to directly control vast territories.

The conventional view of Chinese history is that of alternating periods of political unity and disunity, with China occasionally being dominated by Inner Asian peoples, most of whom were in turn assimilated into the Han Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia, carried by successive waves of immigration, expansion, and cultural assimilation, are part of the modern culture of China.

What is now China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than a million years ago. Recent study shows that the stone tools found at Xiaochangliang site are magnetostratigraphically dated to 1.36 million years ago. The archaeological site of Xihoudu in Shanxi Province is the earliest recorded use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago. The excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation. Perhaps the most famous specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man discovered in 1923-27.

The Neolithic age in China can be traced back to between 12,000 and 10,000 BC. Early evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is radiocarbon-dated to about 7000 BC. The Peiligang culture of Xinzheng county, Henan was excavated in 1977.

With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and the potential to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a cultural centre, where the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of those was found at Banpo, Xi’an. The Yellow River was so named because of loess forming its banks gave a yellowish tint to the water.

The early history of China is made obscure by the lack of written documents from this period, coupled with the existence of accounts written during later time periods that attempted to describe events that had occurred several centuries previously. In a sense, the problem stems from centuries of introspection on the part of the Chinese people, which has blurred the distinction between fact and fiction in regards to this early history.

67

Xia Dynasty (c. 2100 - c. 1600 BC) The Xia Dynasty is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles such as Bamboo Annals, Classic of History and Records of the Grand Historian. The Xia Dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him. The Xia was later succeeded by the Shang Dynasty (1600–1046 BC).

According to the traditional chronology based upon calculations by Liu Xin, the Xia ruled between 2205 and 1766 BC; according to the chronology based upon the Bamboo Annals, it ruled between 1989 and 1558 BC. The Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project concluded that the Xia existed between 2070 and 1600 BC. The tradition of tracing Chinese political history from heroic early emperors to the Xia to succeeding dynasties comes from the idea of the Mandate of Heaven, in which only one legitimate dynasty can exist at any given time, and was promoted by the Confucian school in the Eastern Zhou period, later becoming the basic position of imperial historiography and ideology.

Although the Xia is an important element in early Chinese history, reliable information on the history of China before 13th century BC can only come from archaeological evidence since China’s first written system, oracle bone script, did not exist until then.

Thus the concrete existence of the Xia is yet to be proven, despite efforts by Chinese archaeologists to link Xia with Bronze Age Erlitou archaeological sites. According to ancient Chinese texts, before the Xia Dynasty was established, battles were frequent between the Xia tribe and Chi You’s tribe. The Xia tribe slowly developed around the time of Zhuanxu, one of the legendary Five Emperors. The Records of the Grand Historian and the Classic of Rites say that Yu the Great is the grandson of Zhuanxu, but there are also other records, like Ban Gu, that say Yu is the fifth generation of Zhuanxu.

Based on this, it is possible that the people of the Xia clan are descendants of Zhuanxu.

Shang Dynasty (c. 1700-1046 BC) The earliest written record of Chinese past so far discovered dates from the Shang Dynasty in perhaps the 14th century BC and takes the form of inscriptions of divination records on the bones or shells of animals—the so-called oracle bones. Archaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang Dynasty, c. 1600-1046 BC, are divided into two sets. The first set, from the earlier Shang period comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin period, consists of a large body of oracle bone writings. Anyang, in modern-day Henan, has been confirmed as the last of the Shang’s nine capitals (c. 1300-1046 BC). The Shang Dynasty featured 31 kings, from Tang of Shang to King Zhou of Shang. In this period, the Chinese worshipped many different gods - weather gods and sky gods - and also a supreme god, named Shangdi, who ruled over the other gods. Those who lived during the Shang Dynasty also believed that their ancestors - their parents and grandparents - became like gods when they died, and that their ancestors wanted to be worshipped too, like gods. Each family worshipped its own ancestors.

Around 1500 BC, the Chinese began to use written oracle bones to predict the future. By the time of the Zhou Dynasty (about 1100 BC), the Chinese were also worshipping a natural force called tian, which is usually translated as Heaven. Like Shangdi, Heaven ruled over all the other gods, and it decided who would rule China, under the Mandate of Heaven. The ruler could rule as long as he or she had the Mandate of Heaven. It was believed that the emperor or empress had lost the Mandate of Heaven when natural disasters occurred in great number, and when, more realistically, the sovereign had apparently lost his concern for the people. In response, the royal house would be overthrown, and a new house would rule, having been granted the Mandate of Heaven.

Drinking

Tools

during

Shang Dynasty

69

Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC) The Zhou Dynasty was the longest-lasting dynasty in Chinese history, from 1066 BC to approximately 256 BC. By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou Dynasty began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the territory of the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The Zhou lived west of the Shang, and the Zhou leader had been appointed “Western Protector” by the Shang. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his brother, the Duke of Zhou, as regent, managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye. The king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that

the Shang Dynasty was under the rule of King Zhou

would be influential for almost every succeeding dynasty. The Zhou initially moved their capital west to an area near modern Xi’an, on the Wei River, a tributary of the Yellow River, but they would preside over a series of expansions into the Yangtze River valley. This would be the first of many population migrations from north to south in Chinese history.

Bronze ritual vessel (You), Western Zhou Dynasty

According to Chinese accounts, Zhou was built by a chieftain of a tribe called Zhou. The chieftain overthrew Shang’s last ruler and build the Zhou dynasty.

Spring and Autumn Period (722-476 BC) In the 8th century BC, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period, named after the influential Spring and Autumn Annals. In this period, local military leaders used by the Zhou began to assert their power and vie for hegemony.

The situation was aggravated by the invasion of other peoples from the northwest, such as the Qin, forcing the Zhou to move their capital east to Luoyang. This marks the second major phase of the Zhou dynasty: the Eastern Zhou. In each of the hundreds of states that eventually arose, local strongmen held most of the political power and continued their subservience to the Zhou kings in name only. For instance, local leaders started using royal titles for themselves. The Hundred Schools of Thought of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period, and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Mohism were founded, partly in response to the changing political world. The Spring and Autumn Period is marked by a falling apart of the central Zhou power. China now consists of hundreds of states, some of them only as large as a village with a fort. Although there were many civil strife and in the period of disunity, the Spring and Autumn period saw a great prosperity in cultural movement and development. It has been called the golden age in China’s history. The civil war of the period was leaded by the different interest of each empire.

Each empire tried its best to seize more fields and more people. This situation was also good for the unity of the whole country. But too many wars and civil strife made the people in the period live a sad and depressed life. It was in the depressed society, the reform and new life is eagerly needed by most of people. So there appeared the hundred schools of thoughts in the period. In order to develop the economic and military as well as the production, the regional lords need a lot of skilled and literature officials and excellent teachers to help them. Thus the great thoughts and ideas were produced in the situation. It is in the situation that many philosophies were produced to conduct and analyse the disunity conditions. The hundred schools of thoughts were appeared under the great situations. The thoughts and the discipline of the great thinkers influenced the Chinese history until today.

71

Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) Historians often refer to the period from Qin Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty as Imperial China. Though the unified reign of the Qin Emperor lasted only 12 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang (close to modern Xi’an). The doctrine of Legalism that guided the Qin emphasized strict adherence to a legal code and the absolute power of the emperor.

This philosophy, while effective for expanding the empire in a military fashion, proved unworkable for governing it in peacetime. The Qin Emperor presided over the brutal silencing of political opposition, including the event known as the burning of books and burying of scholars. This would be the impetus behind the later Han synthesis incorporating the more moderate schools of political governance.

The Qin Dynasty is well known for beginning the Great Wall of China, which was later augmented and enhanced during the Ming Dynasty. The other major contributions of the Qin include the concept of a centralized government, the unification of the legal code, development of the written language, measurement, and currency of China after the tribulations of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. Even something as basic as the length of axles for carts had to be made uniform to ensure a viable trading system throughout the empire Emperor Qing Shi Huang

Marble statesman Yang

bust

of

Shang

The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring States Period. In the mid and late third century BC, the Qin accomplished a series of swift conquests, first ending the powerless Zhou Dynasty, and eventually destroying the remaining six states of the major states to gain control over the whole of China, resulting in an unified China.

During its reign over China, the Qin Dynasty achieved increased trade, improved agriculture, and military security. This was due to the abolition of landowning lords, to whom peasants had formerly held allegiance. The central government now had direct control of the masses, giving it access to a much larger workforce. This allowed for the construction of ambitious projects, such as a wall on the northern border, now known as the Great Wall of China. The Qin Dynasty also introduced several reforms: currency, weights and measures were standardized, and a better system of writing was established. An attempt to purge all traces of the old dynasties led to the infamous burning of books and burying of scholars incident, which has been criticized greatly by subsequent scholars. The Qin’s military was also revolutionary in that it used the most recently developed weaponry, transportation, and tactics, though the government was heavy-handed and bureaucratic.

Despite its military strength, the Qin Dynasty did not last long. When the first emperor died in 210 BC, his son was placed on the throne by two of the previous emperor’s advisers, in an attempt to influence and control the administration of the entire dynasty through him. The advisors squabbled among themselves, however, which resulted in both their deaths and that of the second Qin emperor. Popular revolt broke out a few years later, and the weakened empire soon fell to a Chu lieutenant, who went on to found the Han Dynasty.[note 1] Despite its rapid end, the Qin Dynasty influenced future Chinese empires, particularly the Han, and the European name for China is thought to be derived from it.

73

Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907) Tang Dynasty was founded by Emperor Gaozu on June 18, 618. It was a golden age of Chinese civilization with significant developments in art, literature, particularly poetry, and technology. Buddhism became the predominant religion and was adopted by the imperial family and common people. Chang’an (modern Xi’an), the national capital, was the largest city in the world of its time.

Since the second emperor Taizong, military campaigns were launched to dissolve threats from nomadic tribes, extend the border, and submit neighboring states into tributary system. Military victories in the Tarim Basin kept the Silk Road open, connecting Chang’an to Central Asia and areas far to the west. In the south, lucrative maritime trade routes began from port cities like Guangzhou. There was extensive trade with distant foreign countries, and many foreign merchants settled in China, boosting a vibrant cosmopolitan culture. The Tang culture and social systems were admired and adapted by neighbouring countries like Japan. Internally, the Grand Canal linked the political heartland in Chang’an to the economic and agricultural centers in the eastern and southern parts of the empire. Underlying the prosperity of the early Tang Dynasty was a strong centralized government with efficient policies. The government was organized as “Three Departments and Six Ministries” to separately draft, review and implement policies. These departments were run by royal family members as well as scholar officials who were selected from imperial examinations. These practices, which matured in the Tang Dynasty, were to be inherited by the later imperial dynasties with modifications.

A 10th century mural painting in the Mogao Caves

at

showing

Dunhuang monastic

architecture from Mount Wutai,

Tang

Dynasty;

Japanese architecture of

this

influenced

period by

was Tang

Chinese architecture

Ming Dynasty (AD 1368–1644) Throughout the Yuan Dynasty, which lasted less than a century, there was relatively strong sentiment among the populace against the Mongol rule. The frequent natural disasters since the 1340s finally led to peasant revolts. The Yuan Dynasty was eventually overthrown by the Ming Dynasty in 1368.

Urbanization increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil.

Despite the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming Dynasty was not isolated. Foreign trade and other contacts with the outside world, particularly Japan, increased considerably. Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the voyages of Zheng He. Zhu Yuanzhang or Hong-wu, the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state interested less in commerce and more in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of the Emperor’s background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song and the Mongolian Dynasties, which relied on traders and merchants for revenue. Neo-feudal landholdings of the Song and Mongol periods were expropriated by the Ming rulers. Land estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out. Private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Emperor Yong-le, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture.

These laws might have paved the way to removing the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes. During the Ming dynasty the last construction on the Great Wall was undertaken to protect China from foreign invasions. While the Great Wall had been built in earlier times, most of what is seen today was either built or repaired by the Ming. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watch towers were redesigned, and cannons were placed along its length.

75

Qing Dynasty (AD 1644–1911) The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) was the last imperial dynasty in China. Founded by the Manchus, it was the second non-Han Chinese dynasty. The Manchus were formerly known as Jurchen residing in the northeastern part of the Ming territory outside the Great Wall. They emerged as the major threat to the late Ming Dynasty after Nurhaci united all Jurchen tribes and established an independent state. However, the Ming Dynasty would be overthrown by Li Zicheng’s peasants rebel, with Beijing captured in 1644 and the last Ming Emperor Chongzhen committed suicide. The Manchu then allied with the Ming Dynasty general Wu Sangui and seized Beijing, which was made the capital of the Qing dynasty, and proceeded to subdue the remaining Ming’s resistance in the south.

The decades of Manchu conquest caused enormous loss of lives and the economic scale of China shrank drastically. Nevertheless, the Manchus adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government in their rule and was considered a Chinese dynasty.

The Manchus enforced a ‘queue order’ forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu queue hairstyle and Manchu-style clothing. The traditional Han clothing, or Hanfu, was also replaced by Manchu-style clothing Qipao (bannermen dress and Tangzhuang).

Emperor Kangxi ordered the creation of the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever put together at the time. The Qing dynasty set up the “Eight Banners” system that provided the basic framework for the Qing military organization. The bannermen were prohibited from participating in trade and manual labour unless they petitioned to be removed from banner status. They were considered a form of nobility and were given preferential treatment in terms of annual pensions, land and allotments of cloth.

Over the next half-century, the entire areas originally under the Ming Dynasty, including Yunnan were consolidated. Also Xinjiang, Tibet and Mongolia were formally incorporated into Chinese territory. By the end of Qianlong Emperor’s long reign, the Qing Empire was at its zenith, ruled more than one-third of the world’s population, and was the largest economy in the world. By area of extent, it was one of the largest empires ever existed in history.

In the 19th century, the empire was internally stagnated and externally threatened by imperialism. The defeat in the First Opium War (1840) by the British Empire led to the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), under which Hong Kong was ceded and opium import was legitimized. Subsequent military defeats and unequal treaties with other imperial powers would continue even after the fall of the Qing Dynasty.

Internally, the Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864), a quasi-Christian religious movement led by the “Heavenly King” Hong Xiuquan, would raid roughly a third of Chinese territory for over a decade until they were finally crushed in the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864.

Arguably one of the largest warfares in the 19th century in terms of troops involvement, there were massive lost of lives, with a death toll of about 20 millions. A string of rebellions would follow, which included Punti-Hakka Clan Wars, Nien Rebellion, Muslim Rebellion, Panthay Rebellion and the Boxer Rebellion. All rebellions were eventually put down at enormous cost and casualties, the weakened central imperial authority would gradually give rise to regional warlordism. Eventually, China would descend into civil war immediately after the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Qing’s imperial rule. In response to the calamities within the empire and threats from imperialism, the Self-Strengthening Movement was an institutional reform to modernize the empire with prime emphasis to strengthen the military. However, the reform was undermined by the corruption of officials, cynicism, and quarrels of the imperial family. As a result, the “Beiyang Navy” were soundly defeated in the Sino-Japanese War (18941895). Guangxu Emperor and the reformists then launched a more comprehensive reform effort, the Hundred Day’s Reform (1898), but it was shortly overturned by the conservatives under Empress Dowager Cixi in a military coup.

Empress Dowager Cixi

An edict in bronze from the reign

of

Emperor

the

Second

Qin 77

Chinese Buildings, Architectural Details And Design Elements Chinese architecture refers to a style of architecture that has taken shape in East Asia over many centuries. The structural principles of Chinese architecture have remained largely unchanged, the main changes being only the decorative details. Since the Tang Dynasty, Chinese architecture has had a major influence on the architectural styles of Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.

The architecture of China is as old as Chinese civilization. From every source of information - literary, graphic, exemplary - there is strong evidence testifying to the fact that the Chinese have always employed an indigenous system of construction that has retained its principal characteristics from prehistoric times to the present day. Over the vast area from Chinese Turkistan to Japan, from Manchuria to the northern half of French Indochina, the same system of construction is prevalent; and this was the area of Chinese cultural influence. That this system of construction could perpetuate itself for more than four thousand years over such a vast territory and still remain a living architecture, retaining its principal characteristics in spite of repeated foreign invasions - military, intellectual, and spiritual - is a phenomenon comparable only to the continuity of the civilization of which it is an integral part.

National Grand Theatre, Beijing

Five main characteristics of chinese architecture (Banister 1996): 1. Unity of Structure with Architectural Art - This was achieved by beautifying the structural components themselves instead of applying additional ornament.

2. Good Anti - Seismic Function - The structural components of a wooden building were connected by mortises and tenons and were thus able to move under earthquake conditions without causing the buildings to collapse.

3. A High Degree of Standardisation - A building is composed of a group of beams carried on columns with curved corbel-brackets forming a kind of roof truss, or is supported on a series of vertical frames serving the same purpose. The space between two such beams is called jian(a bay). These two constructional techniques were used in most building with rectilinear plan shapes. The dimensions of structural components are based on standard modules.

4. Bright Colours - The practice of painting wooden buildings to weathering and insect infestation and to achieve decorative effects began in Early Spring and Autumn period (722-481 BC). Gradually the Chinese learned to employ colours appropriate to the nature of the buildings or the element on which it was use.

5. Systematic grouping of buildings - The traditional chinese method of arrangement was to plan a singlebuilding around a courtyard and then to use courtyards as basic units to form groups of buildings.

79

An important feature in Chinese architecture is its emphasis on articulation and bilateral symmetry, which signifies balance. Bilateral symmetry and the articulation of buildings are found everywhere in Chinese architecture, from palace complexes to humble farmhouses. When possible, plans for renovation and extension of a house will often try to maintain this symmetry provided that there is enough capital to do so. Secondary elements are positioned either side of main structures as two wings to maintain overall bilateral symmetry.

In contrast to the buildings, Chinese gardens are a notable exception which tends to be asymmetrical. The principle underlying the garden’s composition is to create enduring flow.

Chongqing Garden

Shenyang Imperial Palace

Most of the luxurious palace of the emperors of China were destroyed when the dynasties fell. Only the Forbidden City or Beijing built in the Ming and Qing Dynasties is preserved intact. Construction began in 1406. The battlemented perimeter extends 760m (2500ft) from east to west and 960, (3150ft) from north to south and encloses an area of 73 ha (180 acres). Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum’s former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War. The design of the Forbidden City, from its overall layout to the smallest detail, was meticulously planned to reflect philosophical and religious principles, and above all to symbolise the majesty of Imperial power.

81

Royal Palace was divided into an outer and inner court: Outer Court : • Taihedian (Hall of Supreme Harmony) - Reception, administration of the empire and celebration of important festivals.

• Zhonghedian (Hall of Central Harmony) - Reception, administration of the empire and celebration of important festivals.

• Baohedian (Hall of Perserved Harmony) - Reception, administration of the empire and celebration of important festivals.

• Wenhuadian (Hall of Literary Glory) - Served as a study for the crown prince • Wuyingdian (Hall of Martial Valour) - Place for the emperor to receive his ministers.

Inner Court: • Qianqinggong (Palace of Celestial Purity) - Containing the emperor’s and empress’s bedchambers • Kunninggong (Palace of Terrestrial Union) - Containing the emperor’s and empress’s bedchambers • Dongliugong (Six eastern Courtyards) - Inhabited by concubines and maids • Xiliugong (Six Western Courtyards) - Inhabited by concubines and maids

Hall of Supreme Harmony

The Forbidden City was full of red walls, pillars and yellow glazed roof-tiles, and dougong and beams decorated with dark-green designs of dragons, phoenixes and geometric figures.

Summer Palace - North-western outskirts of Beiking. Begun in 1750 and restored in 1888 and 1903.

83

Mausolea

Shisanling Tombs in ChangPing - Burial of thirteen Ming emperors and empresses

Elaborate funerals and lavish tombs were provided for the rulers of ancient China. The imperial tombs are of two kinds - above ground and below. Those underground are usually only chambers to house the emperor’s coffins, and at first were wood-framed structures, but after the Easter Han dynasty (25220) were built of stone or brick. Later tombs are either built above ground or combine underground chambers with commemorative buildings above the ground. The Ming and Qing imperial tombs are natural sites modified by human influence, carefully chosen according to the principles of geomancy (Fengshui) to house numerous buildings of traditional architectural design and decoration. They illustrate the continuity over five centuries of a world view and concept of power specific to feudal China.

Shrines Generally speaking, Buddhist architecture follows the imperial style. A large Buddhist monastery normally has a front hall, housing the statue of a Bodhisattva, followed by a great hall, housing the statues of the Buddhas. Accommodations for the monks and the nuns are located at the two sides. Some of the greatest examples of this come from the 18th century Puning Temple and Putuo Zongcheng Temple.

Buddhist monasteries sometimes also have pagodas, which may house the relics of the Gautama Buddha; older pagodas tend to be four-sided, while later pagodas usually have eight sides.

Daoist architecture, on the other hand, usually follows the commoners’ style. The main entrance is, however, usually at the side, out of superstition about demons which might try to enter the premise (see feng shui.) In contrast to the Buddhists, in a Daoist temple the main deity is located in the main hall at the front, the lesser deities in the back hall and at the sides.

Temple of Heaven

85

Giant Wild Goose Pagoda or Big Wild Goose Pagoda, is a Buddhist pagoda located in southern Xi’an, Shaanxi province, China. It was built in 652 during the Tang Dynasty and originally had five stories, although the structure was rebuilt in 704 during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian and its exterior brick facade was renovated during the Ming Dynasty.

The Nine Pinnacle Pagoda or Jiuding Pagoda is an 8th century pavilionstyle brick pagoda located in central Shandong Province, China.

It is noted for its unique roof design featuring nine small pagodas.

The Three Pagodas are an ensemble of three independent pagodas arranged on the corners of a equilateral triangle, near the town of Dali, Yunnan province, China, dating from the time of the Nanzhao kingdom and Kingdom of Dali.

The Three Pagodas are located about 1.5 km (0.93 mi) north of scenic Dali, Yunnan province. They are at the east foot of the tenth peak of the massive Cangshan Mountains and face the west shore of the Erhai Lake of the ancient Dali town.

The Three Pagodas are made of brick and covered with white mud. As its name implies, the Three Pagodas comprise three independent pagodas forming a symmetric triangle. The elegant, balanced and stately style is unique in China’s ancient Buddhist architectures, which makes it a must-see in the tour of Dali. The Three Pagodas, visible from miles away, has been a landmark of Dali City and selected as a national treasure meriting preservation in China.

87

Grottoes The Buddhist Grottoes were introduced to China from India. They are shrines carved into cliff faces and inside the caves.

Yulin Grottoes, commonly known as Thousand-Buddha Gap in Anxi County, 75 kilometers southwest of Yulin River (also known as pragmatic River), consists of the existing Tang, Five Dynasties, Song, Western Xia, Yuan dynasty, such as Cave 42, located in Yulin east of the river, on both the precipice, Dongya 31, West Cliff 11, 4,200 square meters murals, colorful 259. Due to natural and man-made reasons, the Yulin Grottoes colorful originals into obscurity now more colourful for future generations of repair or remodeling.

Bridges China has a long history of bridge building and tens of thousands of bridges still exist.

They assume many different forms and structural systems: wooden bridges of various kinds, arched stone bridges, beam bridges (including those wooden beams carried on stone pillars), and bamboo, rattan and steel cable bridges. Most of the surviving ancient bridges are made of stone and demonstrate a high level of bridge-building skill.

Anji Bridge

The Chaotianmen Bridge which spans the Yangtze River in Chongqing, China, is the world’s longest arch bridge 89

Evolution of Architecture Goth The dominance of the Church over everyday life was expressed in grand spiritual designs which emphasized piety and sobriety. The Romanesque style was simple and austere. The Gothic style heightened the effect with heavenly spires, pointed arches and ornamental religious carvings.

The various elements of Gothic architecture emerged in a number of 11th and 12th century building projects, particularly in the ﾃ四e de France area, but were first combined to form what we would now recognise as a distinctively Gothic style at the 12th century abbey church of Saint-Denis in Saint-Denis, near Paris. Verticality is emphasized in Gothic architecture, which features almost skeletal stone structures with great expanses of glass, pared-down wall surfaces supported by external flying buttresses, pointed arches using the ogive shape, ribbed stone vaults, clustered columns, pinnacles and sharply pointed spires. Windows contain beautiful stained glass, showing stories from the Bible and from lives of saints. Such advances in design allowed cathedrals to rise taller than ever, and it became something of an interregional contest to build a church as high as possible.

Medieval building in the Gothic era involved a wide variety of buildings other than cathedrals. Smaller churches were built in great numbers, sometimes using stone vaulting, but often with wooden roofs of the same sort that were used for a variety of secular buildings. Town halls, halls for the guilds of various crafts and trades, customs houses, and other official structures were all built in the Gothic style across the country. In the latter part of the Middle Ages, with increasingly settled conditions, the developing complexity of society led to needs for variety of special purpose buildings.

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture.

Religion was an immense influence and factor in the Gothic era which greatly influenced their architectural forms. The prime movers were almost certainly not the architect themselves, but their patrons, the higher clergy. Gothic was the outcome of intense and incessant brooding on the theme of the great church; what was the right form for such churches. The succession of experiments with novel forms of construction and decoration was inspired as much by the need to impress and edify the pious congregations of Christendom as by technical progress or changes of taste.

Patronage remained the essential ingredient throughout the evolution of Gothic, although the centre of gravity shifted somewhat from ecclesiastics to laymen who were themselves increasingly preoccupied with religion. Stained glass was a manifestation of the belief that a cathedral could be an image of the truth communicating a vision of heaven. Hence also the soaring spires pointing strivingly and devotedly to God. In its deployment of a complex structural logic in the service of faith, the cathedral had affinities with medieval scholasticism.

Buildings, Architectural Details and Design Elements The basic elements of Gothic - the pointed arch, rib vault and flying buttress - were not original in themselves. What was new was their combination in a structural and aesthetic system that delighted in a dynamic unity created out of interdependent parts.

Gothic is known to have a lofty and aspiring quality, structural honesty and the economy use of materials. Some of the features of Gothic Architecture are the pointed arch, rib and panel vaulting, tracery windows, flying buttress, stained glass, and spires and pinnacles.

The clerestory windows of Catedral del Buen Pastor de San Sebastiรกn.

91

Gothic architecture grew out of the previous architectural genre, Romanesque. For the most part, there was not a clean break, as there was later to be in Renaissance Florence with the revival of the Classical style by Brunelleschi in the early 15th century.

Romanesque architecture, or Norman architecture as it is generally termed in England because of its association with the Norman invasion, had already established the basic architectural forms and units that were to remain in slow evolution throughout the Medieval period. The basic structure of the cathedral church, the parish church, the monastery, the castle, the palace, the great hall and the gatehouse were all established.

Ribbed vaults, buttresses, clustered columns, ambulatories, wheel windows, spires and richly carved door tympanums were already features of ecclesiastical architecture.

The widespread introduction of a single feature was to bring about the stylistic change that separates Gothic from Romanesque, and broke the tradition of massive masonry and solid walls penetrated by small openings, replacing it with a style where light appears to triumph over substance. The feature that brought the change is the pointed arch.

With its use came the development of many other architectural devices, previously put to the test in scattered buildings and then called into service to meet the structural, aesthetic and ideological needs of the new style. These include the flying buttresses, pinnacles and traceried windows which typify Gothic ecclesiastical architecture.

Bad Doberan M端nster is in colourful brick, 1386

Abbot Suger Abbot Suger, friend and confidante of the French Kings, Louis VI and Louis VII, decided in about 1137, to rebuild the great Church of Saint-Denis, attached to an abbey which was also a royal residence.

Suger began with the West front, reconstructing the original Carolingian façade with its single door. He designed the façade of Saint-Denis to be an echo of the Roman Arch of Constantine with its three-part division and three large portals to ease the problem of congestion. The rose window is the earliest-known example above the West portal in France.

At the completion of the west front in 1140, Abbot Suger moved on to the reconstruction of the eastern end, leaving the Carolingian nave in use. He designed a choir (chancel) that would be suffused with light. To achieve his aims, his masons drew on the several new features which evolved or had been introduced to Romanesque architecture, the pointed arch, the ribbed vault, the ambulatory with radiating chapels, the clustered columns supporting ribs springing in different directions and the flying buttresses which enabled the insertion of large clerestory windows.

The new structure was finished and dedicated on 11 June 1144, in the presence of the King. The Abbey of Saint-Denis thus became the prototype for further building in the royal domain of northern France. It is often cited as the first building in the Gothic style. A hundred years later, the old nave of Saint-Denis was rebuilt in the Gothic style, gaining, in its transepts, two spectacular rose windows.

The Basilica of St Denis is an architectural landmark as it was the first major structure of which a substantial part was designed and built in the Gothic style. Both stylistically and structurally it heralded the change from Romanesque architecture to Gothic architecture. Before the term “Gothic” came into common use, it was known as the “French Style” (Opus Francigenum).

93

In Gothic architecture, a unique combination of existing technologies established the emergence of a new building style. Those technologies were the ogival or pointed arch, the ribbed vault, and the flying buttress.

The Gothic style, when applied to an ecclesiastical building, emphasizes verticality and light. This appearance was achieved by the development of certain architectural features, which together provided an engineering solution. The structural parts of the building ceased to be its solid walls, and became a stone skeleton comprising clustered columns, pointed ribbed vaults and flying buttresses.

The

structure

of

a typical Gothic cathedral.

Plan of Amiens Cathedral.

Most Gothic churches, unless they are entitled chapels, are of the Latin cross (or “cruciform�) plan, with a long nave making the body of the church, a transverse arm called the transept and, beyond it, an extension which may be called the choir, chancel or presbytery. There are several regional variations on this plan. The nave is generally flanked on either side by aisles, usually single, but sometimes double. The nave is generally considerably taller than the aisles, having clerestory windows which light the central space. Gothic churches of the Germanic tradition, like St. Stephen of Vienna, often have nave and aisles of similar height and are called Hallenkirche. In the South of France there is often a single wide nave and no aisles, as at Sainte-Marie in Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges. In some churches with double aisles, like Notre Dame, Paris, the transept does not project beyond the aisles. In English cathedrals transepts tend to project boldly and there may be two of them, as at Salisbury Cathedral, though this is not the case with lesser churches.

One of the defining characteristics of Gothic architecture is the pointed or ogival arch. Arches of this type were used in the Near East in pre-Islamic as well as Islamic architecture before they were structurally employed in medieval architecture, and are thus thought to have been the inspiration for their use in France, as at Autun Cathedral, which is otherwise stylistically Romanesque. However, contrary to the diffusionist theory, it appears that there was simultaneously an ongoing structural evolution towards the pointed arch, for the purpose of vaulting spaces of irregular plan, or to bring transverse vaults to the same height as diagonal vaults. This latter occurs at Durham Cathedral in the nave aisles in 1093. Pointed arches also occur extensively in Romanesque decorative blind arcading, where semi-circular arches overlap each other in a simple decorative pattern, and the points are accidental to the design. The Gothic vault, unlike the semicircular vault of Roman and Romanesque buildings, can be used to roof rectangular and irregularly shaped plans such as trapezoids. The other structural advantage is that the pointed arch channels the weight onto the bearing piers or columns at a steep angle.

This enabled architects to raise vaults much higher than was possible in Romanesque architecture. While, structurally, use of the pointed arch gave a greater flexibility to architectural form, it also gave Gothic architecture a very different visual character to Romanesque, the verticality suggesting an aspiration to Heaven.

95

A characteristic of Gothic church architecture is its height, both absolute and in proportion to its width. A section of the main body of a Gothic church usually shows the nave as considerably taller than it is wide. In England the proportion is sometimes greater than 2:1, while the greatest proportional difference achieved is at Cologne Cathedral with a ratio of 3.6:1. The highest internal vault is at Beauvais Cathedral at 48 metres (157 ft).Externally, towers and spires are characteristic of Gothic churches both great and small, the number and positioning being one of the greatest variables in Gothic architecture. In Italy, the tower, if present, is almost always detached from the building, as at Florence Cathedral, and is often from an earlier structure. In France and Spain, two towers on the front is the norm. In England, Germany and Scandinavia this is often the arrangement, but an English cathedral may also be surmounted by an enormous tower at the crossing. Smaller churches usually have just one tower, but this may also be the case at larger buildings, such as Salisbury Cathedral or Ulm Minster, which has the tallest spire in the world, slightly exceeding that of Lincoln Cathedral, the tallest which was actually completed during the medieval period, at 160 metres (520 ft). The pointed arch lends itself to a suggestion of height. This appearance is characteristically further enhanced by both the architectural features and the decoration of the building.

On the exterior, the verticality is emphasised in a major way by the towers and spires and in a lesser way by strongly projecting vertical buttresses, by narrow half-columns called attached shafts which often pass through several storeys of the building, by long narrow windows, vertical mouldings around doors and figurative sculpture which emphasises the vertical and is often attenuated. The roofline, gable ends, buttresses and other parts of the building are often terminated by small pinnacles, Milan Cathedral being an extreme example in the use of this form of decoration. On the interior of the building attached shafts often sweep unbroken from floor to ceiling and meet the ribs of the vault, like a tall tree spreading into branches. The verticals are generally repeated in the treatment of the windows and wall surfaces. In many Gothic churches, particularly in France, and in the Perpendicular period of English Gothic architecture, the treatment of vertical elements in gallery and window tracery creates a strongly unifying feature that counteracts the horizontal divisions of the interior structure.

One of the most distinctive characteristics of Gothic architecture is the expansive area of the windows as at Sainte Chapelle and the very large size of many individual windows, as at York Minster, Gloucester Cathedral and Milan Cathedral. The increase in size between windows of the Romanesque and Gothic periods is related to the use of the ribbed vault, and in particular, the pointed ribbed vault which channeled the weight to a supporting shaft with less outward thrust than a semicircular vault. Walls did not need to be so weighty. A further development was the flying buttress which arched externally from the springing of the vault across the roof of the aisle to a large buttress pier projecting well beyond the line of the external wall. These piers were often surmounted by a pinnacle or statue, further adding to the downward weight, and counteracting the outward thrust of the vault and buttress arch as well as stress from wind loading. The internal columns of the arcade with their attached shafts, the ribs of the vault and the flying buttresses, with their associated vertical buttresses jutting at right-angles to the building, created a stone skeleton. Between these parts, the walls and the infill of the vaults could be of lighter construction. Between the narrow buttresses, the walls could be opened up into large windows

97

The façade of a large church or cathedral, often referred to as the West Front, is generally designed to create a powerful impression on the approaching worshipper, demonstrating both the might of God, and the might of the institution that it represents.

One of the best known and most typical of such façades is that of Notre Dame de Paris.

Central to the façade is the main portal, often flanked by additional doors. In the arch of the door, the tympanum, is often a significant piece of sculpture, most frequently Christ in Majesty and Judgment Day. If there is a central door jamb or a tremeau, then it frequently bears a statue of the Madonna and Child. There may be much

Notre Dame de Paris

other carving, often of figures in niches set into the mouldings around the portals, or in sculptural screens extending across the façade.

Above the main portal there is generally a large window, like that at York Minster, or a group of windows such as those at Ripon Cathedral. In France there is generally a rose window like that at Reims Cathedral. Rose windows are also often found in the façades of churches of Spain and Italy, but are rarer elsewhere and are not found on the façades of any English Cathedrals. The gable is usually richly decorated with arcading or sculpture, or in the case of Italy, may be decorated, with the rest of the façade, with polychrome marble and mosaic, as at Orvieto Cathedral.

The West Front of a French cathedral and many English, Spanish and German cathedrals generally has two towers, which, particularly in France, express an enormous diversity of form and decoration. However some German cathedrals have only one tower located in the middle of the façade (such as Freiburg Münster).

The way in which the pointed arch was drafted and utilised developed throughout the Gothic period. There were fairly clear stages of development, which did not, however, progress at the same rate, or in the same way in every country. Moreover, the names used to define various periods or styles within the Gothic differs from country to country.

Lancet arch The simplest shape is the long opening with a pointed arch known in England as the lancet. Lancet openings are often grouped, usually as a cluster of three or five.

Lancet openings may be very narrow and steeply pointed.

Salisbury Cathedral is famous for the beauty and simplicity of its Lancet Gothic, known in England as the Early English Style. York Minster has a group of lancet windows each fifty feet high and still containing ancient glass. They are known as the Five Sisters. These simple undecorated grouped windows are found at Chartres and Laon Cathedrals and are used extensively in Italy.

Equilateral arch Many Gothic openings are based upon the equilateral form. In other words, when the arch is drafted, the radius is exactly the width of the opening and the centre of each arch coincides with the point from which the opposite arch springs. This makes the arch higher in relation to its width than a semi-circular arch which is exactly half as high as it is wide. The Equilateral Arch gives a wide opening of satisfying proportion useful for doorways, decorative arcades and large windows.

Flamboyant arch The Flamboyant Arch is one that is drafted from four points, the upper part of each main arc turning upwards into a smaller arc and meeting at a sharp, flame-like point.

These arches create a rich and lively effect when used for window tracery and surface decoration. The form is structurally weak and has very rarely been used for large openings except when contained within a larger and more stable arch. It is not employed at all for vaulting.

Depressed arch The Depressed or four-centred arch is much wider than its height and gives the visual effect of having been flattened under pressure. Its structure is achieved by drafting two arcs which rise steeply from each springing point on a small radius and then turn into two arches with a wide radius and much lower springing point.

99

Symbolism and ornamentation The Gothic cathedral represented the universe in microcosm and each architectural concept, including the loftiness and huge dimensions of the structure, were intended to convey a theological message: the great glory of God. The building becomes a microcosm in two ways. Firstly, the mathematical and geometrical nature of the construction is an image of the orderly universe, in which an underlying rationality and logic can be perceived. Secondly, the statues, sculptural decoration, stained glass and murals incorporate the essence of creation in depictions of the Labours of the Months and the Zodiac and sacred history from the Old and New Testaments and Lives of the Saints, as well as reference to the eternal in the Last Judgment and Coronation of the Virgin. The decorative schemes usually incorporated Biblical stories, emphasizing visual typological allegories between Old Testament prophecy and the New Testament. Many churches were very richly decorated, both inside and out. Sculpture and architectural details were often bright with coloured paint of which traces remain at the Cathedral of Chartres. Wooden ceilings and panelling were usually brightly coloured. Sometimes the stone columns of the nave were painted, and the panels in decorative wall arcading contained narratives or figures of saints. These have rarely remained intact, but may be seen at the Chapterhouse of Westminster Abbey.

Regional differences Wherever Gothic architecture is found, it is subject to local influences, and frequently the influence of itinerant stonemasons and artisans, carrying ideas between cities and sometimes between countries. Certain characteristics are typical of particular regions and often override the style itself, appearing in buildings hundreds of years apart.

France The distinctive characteristic of French cathedrals, and those in Germany and Belgium that were strongly influenced by them, is their height and their impression of verticality. Each French cathedral tends to be stylistically unified in appearance when compared with an English cathedral where there is great diversity in almost every building.

They are compact, with slight or no projection of the transepts and subsidiary chapels.

Interior of Amiens Cathedral, France.

England The distinctive characteristic of English cathedrals is their extreme length, and their internal emphasis upon the horizontal, which may be emphasised visually as much or more than the vertical lines. Each English cathedral (with the exception of Salisbury) has an extraordinary degree of stylistic diversity, The longitudinal emphasis in the nave of Wells

when compared with most French, German and Italian cathedrals.

It is not unusual for every part of the building to have been built in a different century and in a different style, with no attempt at creating a stylistic unity. Unlike French cathedrals, English cathedrals sprawl across their sites, with double transepts projecting strongly and Lady Chapels tacked on at a later date.

101

Other Gothic buildings Synagogues, commonly built in the prevailing architectural style of the period and country where they are constructed, were built in the Gothic style in Europe during the Medieval period. A surviving example is the Old New Synagogue in Prague, built in the 13th century. Many examples of secular, nonmilitary structures in Gothic style survive in fairly original condition.

Norse

architecture:

Borgund

Russian Orthodox architecture: Church

Stave Church, Norway

of the Intercession on the Nerl in Russia

Byzantine architecture: Church of

The faรงade of the Palais des Papes

Hagia Irene in Istanbul

Gothic Revival architecture The Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or Neo-Gothic) is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England. Its popularity grew rapidly in the early nineteenth century, when increasingly serious and learned admirers of neo-Gothic styles sought to revive medieval forms, in contrast to the neoclassical styles prevalent at the time. The Gothic Revival was paralleled and supported by medievalism, which had its roots in antiquarian concerns with survivals and curiosities. Gothic architecture was infused with the Christian values that had been supplanted by classicism and were being destroyed by industrialisation.

The 20th century Gothic architecture The Gothic style dictated the use of structural members in compression, leading to tall, buttressed buildings with interior columns of load-bearing masonry and tall, narrow windows. But, by the turn of the 20th century, technological developments such as the steel frame, the incandescent light bulb and the elevator led many to see this style of architecture as obsolete. Steel framing supplanted the non-ornamental functions of rib vaults and flying buttresses, providing wider open interiors with fewer columns interrupting the view. Some architects persisted in using Neo-Gothic tracery as applied ornamentation to an iron skeleton underneath, for example in Cass Gilbert’s 1913 Woolworth Building skyscraper in New York and Raymond Hood’s 1922 Tribune Tower in Chicago. But, over the first half of the century, Neo-Gothic became supplanted by Modernism. Some in the Modern Movement saw the Gothic tradition of architectural form entirely in terms of the “honest expression” of the technology of the day, and saw themselves as the rightful heir to this tradition, with their rectangular frames and exposed iron girders. Though the number of new Gothic revival buildings declined sharply after the 1930s, they continue to be built. The cathedral of Bury St. Edmunds was constructed between the late 1950s and 2005. A new church in the Gothic style is planned for St. John Vianney Parish in Fishers, Indiana

103

20th Century Architects Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (born Frank Lincoln Wright, June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was best exemplified by his design for Fallingwater (1935), which has been called “the best all-time work of American architecture”.

Wright was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture, and developed the concept of the Usonian home, his unique vision for urban planning in the United States.

His work includes original and innovative examples of many different building types, including offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums. Wright also designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass. Wright authored 20 books and many articles, and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe. His colorful personal life often made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire and murders at his Taliesin studio. Already well-known during his lifetime, Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as “the greatest American architect of all time”. Wright attended a Madison high school, but there is no evidence he ever graduated. He was admitted to the University of Wisconsin– Madison as a special student in 1886. There he joined Phi Delta Theta fraternity, took classes part-time for two semesters, and worked with a professor of civil engineering, Allan D. Conover. In 1887, Wright left the school without taking a degree (although he was granted an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University in 1955).

Frank Lloyd Wright spent more than 70 years creating designs that revolutionized the art and architecture of the twentieth century. Many innovations in today’s buildings are products of his imagination. In all he designed 1141 works - including houses, offices, churches, schools, libraries, bridges, museums and many other building types. Of that total, 532 resulted in completed works, 409 of which still stand.

However, Wright’s creative mind was not confined to architecture. He also designed furniture, fabrics, art glass, lamps, dinnerware, silver, linens and graphic arts. In addition, he was a prolific writer, an educator and a philosopher. He authored twenty books and countless articles, lectured throughout the United States and in Europe, and developed a remarkable plan for decentralizing urban America (Broadacre City) that continues to be debated by scholars and writers even to this day - decades after its conception. Wright is considered by most authorities to be the 20th century’s greatest architect. Indeed, the American Institute of Architects in a recent national survey, recognized Frank Lloyd Wright to be “the greatest American architect of all time.”

“Architectural Record” magazine (the official magazine of the American Institute of Architects) declared that Wright’s buildings stand out among the most significant architectural works during the last 100 years in the world. No other architect so intuitively designed to human scale. No other architecture took greater advantage of setting and environment. No other architect glorified the sense of “shelter” as did Frank Lloyd Wright. “A building is not just a place to be. It is a way to be,” he said. Wright’s work has stood the test of time. His buildings are still relevant to today’s values. People have moved and found new jobs just to own a Wright house. Grass-roots efforts have developed to preserve his work. In 1970, there were only two Wright homes open to the public. Today there are more than twenty, which together attract more than one million visitors a year. More than one-third of Wright buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places or are in a National Historic District.

105

Wright produced an enormous body of work - more than four hundred constructed buildings and many other projects - in a long career that can be divided into two phases. Each phase is of sufficient importance to support his major place in design history. The first or “early Wright” phase, extending from the beginning of his career up to about 1920, clearly established his roles as first major modern architect. The second “later Wright” phase surfaced after 1930.

Wright had a brief training in engineering at the University of Wisconsin in 1886. It was his period of employment in the offices of Adler and Sullivan in Chicago (1887-93) and the close relationship that he established with Louis Sullivan that set the direction he was to take in his own work. Sullivan’s dedication both to the concept embodied in the phrase “form follows function” and to style of ornament that was non-hstoric, original and “organic” was central to Wright’s own early work. In spite of his great admiration for Sullivan and his important role in Sullivan’s office (he was the primary designer of Chamley House of 1892 in Chicago), Wright was uncomfortable in the role of an assistant to someone else and so moved to establish his own practice in 1893 in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, illinois. Wright built a house of his own family in Oak park (1889), with an adjacent studio, and began to receive commissions for other houses in the area and nearby communities.

Frank Lloyd Wright pioneered a long, low style known as the Prairie house. He experimented with obtuse angles and circles, creating unusually shaped structures such as the spiral Guggenheim Museum (1943-49). He developed a series of low-cost homes that he called Usonian. And most importantly, Frank Lloyd Wright changed the way we think of interior space.

One of the founders of modern architecture in North America, Frank Lloyd Wright embraced the use of new technology, materials and engineering to create some of the 20th century’s most influential and iconic buildings. During a long and productive career spanning 70 years he designed over 1,000 buildings of which over 400 were built. Wright developed a language of architecture that did not look to Europe but was unique to the United States.

As well as creating buildings which were radical in appearance, Wright had a rare ability to integrate them with the landscape – stemming from his deep love and knowledge of nature. It was this gift that marked him out from contemporary pioneers of modern architecture, such as Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, and make his buildings seem in tune with our environmentally conscious era. From the early 1940s to his death in 1959, Wright was extraordinarily prolific and designed almost 500 projects, almost half of his total output. By far the most famous is the 1956 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York commissioned by the eponymous art collector and his curator Hilla Rebay. As the narrow Manhattan plot required the design to be vertical and not horizontal, from the beginning Wright envisaged a continuous ramp circling around the centre of the interior. Yet it took an immense struggle to see the building he wanted accepted and constructed. Guggenheim accepted the design but after his death in 1949 Wright had to persuade a dubious board of trustees that the building was viable. Several changes were made as more land was acquired and seven complete sets of drawings were made before construction began in August 1956. The building was completed in 1959, six months after Wright’s own death. Frank Lloyd Wright died in 1959 at the age of 92. Despite the lulls and even great dips in his career he had continued designing and building for 70 years and at his death he left a thriving practice. Unlike many architects who perhaps are remembered for a distinct decade of work Wright was able to adapt as his architecture moved with the changing requirements of a fast- moving century. He used the newest materials and technologies from poured concrete to under floor heating and was happy to design for all incomes. Yet Wright was not a mainstream modernist – his deep love of nature and sense of place were stronger than his desire for the new. He was also a romantic who wanted to charge his work with emotional qualities. A house as a home for a family was an almost sacred place with the heat of a fire at its heart. Indeed it is his romantic and emotional response to architecture and its environment that makes Wright’s work seem particularly relevant today.

107

Frank Lloyd Wright Design Philosophies are: • Design and form acquires a symbolic meaning. Architecture can embody “picturesque” qualities that harmonize with the environment.

• Architectural beauty is seen as a reflection of the harmony that manifests from the integration of design, plan, form and materials. This is Wright’s “organic” approach to design.

• Architectural beauty is a natural outcome of the clear design plan of simple and harmonious relationships. All elements of a structure should be designed with economy according to the natural principles of geometrical relationships and the unadulterated use of appropiate materials.

• Using of basic geometrical forms, usually squares and rectangles to produce the distinctive forms, particularly in regards to the Prairie house designs.

• To view all details of a structure as the product of a single independent mind including all major and minor ornamental and symbolic elements.

• Ornament should be based upon the abstraction of nature.

• To unify the interior and exterior of a design through its decorative detailing. By employing this method, Wright sought to unify structural and aesthetic elements into a single composite form.

• Architectural beauty being the product of combining simple forms and expressing harmonious relationships.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed this imposing dining room set for the house of Mr. and Mrs. George Barton in Buffalo, New York.

Contribtions And Design Elements The earliest Wright Houses are somewhat tentative, with hints of Victorianism, Arts and Crafts, and Queen Anne aesthetic touches as well as, though only when demanded by a client, eclectic elements(half-timber work in a few examples) as well.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s First years as an architect were spent drawing together his responses to his approach to architecture was expressed in 1928 as he reflected on his career in the 1890s; When in early years I looked south from the massive stone tower of the Auditorium Building, a pencil in the hands of a master, the red glare of the Bessemer steel converters to the south of Chicago would thrill me as pages of the Arabian Nights used to with a sense of terror and romance (Wright 1928). He aims as an architect were as he expressed himself, to exalt the health, lift the spirit, and create a complete environment in response to immediate surroundings. The prairie houses he designed were a specific response to the immediate surroundings. The prairie has a beauty of its own and we should recognise and accentuate this natural beauty, its quiet level. Hence, gentle slopping roofs, low proportion, quiet skylines, suppressed heavy set chimneys and a respect for the harmonious relationship between the form/design and the function of the building (for example, Wright rejected the idea of making a bank look like a Greek temple). Organic architecture is also an attempt to integrate the spaces into a coherent whole; a marriage between the site and the structure and a union between the context and the structure.

Barrel Chair by Frank Lloyd Wright

109

Famous Contribution and Works: Imperial Hotel - Tokyo, Japan

The original Imperial Hotel in Tokyo was completed in 1890, backed by key Japanese leaders, such as Foreign Minister Count Kaoru Inoue and Viscount Eiichi Shibusawa.

Architect Yuzuru Watanabe designed the hotel, known as “Watanabe House”, in the German neo-Renaissance style. By 1917, the hotel was no longer able to accommodate the growing number of visitors, and the design was seen as outdated. To replace the original wooden structure, the owners commissioned a design by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Frank Lloyd Wright version was designed in the “Maya Revival Style” of architecture.

It incorporates a tall, pyramid-like structure, and also loosely copies Maya motifs in its decorations. The main building materials are poured concrete, concrete block, and carved oya stone. The visual effect of the hotel was stunning and dramatic, though not unique; in recent years, architectural historians have noted a marked similarity with the Cafe Australia in Melbourne, Australia (1916), designed by Prairie School architects Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin.

Johnson Wax Company Building - Racine, Wisconsin, U.S The Johnson Wax Building, also called the Administration Building, is constructed of more than 200 sizes and shapes of bricks. Light shines into the building through several layers of glass tubes that cannot be seen through. Frank Lloyd Wright also designed the original furniture for the Johnson Wax building, some chairs had only three legs, and would tip over if a forgetful secretary did not sit with correct posture. An example of streamlined design, the building has over 200 types of curved red bricks making up the exterior and interior of the building and Pyrex glass tubing from the ceiling and clerestories to let in soft light. The colors that Frank Lloyd Wright chose for the Johnson Wax building are cream (for the columns and mortar) and “Cherokee red” for the floors, bricks, and furniture. The furniture, also designed by the architect, and manufactured

by Steelcase, Inc., echoes the curving lines of the building. The construction of the Johnson Wax building created controversies for the architect. In the Great Workroom, the dendriform columns are 9 inches (23 cm) in diameter at the bottom and 18 feet (550 cm) in diameter at the top, on a wide, round platform that Wright termed, the “lily pad.” This difference in diameter between the bottom and top of the column did not accord with building codes at the time.

111

Kaufman House or “Falling Water”, Bear Run, Falling Water may look like a loose pile of concrete slabs about to topple into the stream, but there is no danger of that, the slabs are actually anchored throught the stone work of the hillside. Also the largest and heaviest portion of the house is at the rear, not over the water. And, finally each floor has its own support system. When you enter the recessed front door of Falling water, your eye is first drawn to a far corner, where a balcony overlooks the waterfall. To the right of the entryway, there is a dining alcove, a large fireplace and stairs leading to the upper story. To the left, groups of seating offer scenic views. The structural design for Falling water was undertaken by Wright in association with staff engineers Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters, who had been responsible for the columns featured in Wright’s revolutionary design for the Johnson Wax Headquarters. Preliminary plans were issued to Kaufmann for approval on October 15, 1935, after which Wright made a further visit to the site and provided a cost estimate for the job. In December 1935 an old rock quarry was reopened to the west of the site to provide the stones needed for the house’s walls. Wright only made periodic visits during construction, instead assigning his apprentice Robert Mosher as his permanent on-site representative. The final working drawings were issued by Wright in March 1936 with work beginning on the bridge and main house in April 1936.

Larkin Administration Building - Buffalo, N.Y. Built in the early 1900s, the Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, New York was one of the few large public buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The Larkin Building was modern for its time with conveniences like air conditioning. Tragically the Larkin Company struggled financially and the building fell into disrepair. For awhile the office building was used as a store for Lakin products, Then in 1950s when Frank Lloyd Wright was 83, the building was demolished. Exterior details of the 200-footlong (61 m) by 134-foot-wide (41 m) building were executed in red sandstone; the entrance doors, windows, and skylights were of glass. Floors, desktops, and cabinet tops were covered with magnesite for sound absorption. For floors, magnesite was mixed with excelsior and poured, and troweled like cement, over a layer of felt to impart its resiliency. Magnesite was also used for sculptural decoration on the piers surrounding the light court and for panels and beams around the executive offices at the south end of the main floor. Wright designed much of the furniture. The interior walls were made of semi-vitreous, hard, cream colored brick. A 76-foot-tall (23 m) light court was located in the centre of the building which provided natural sunlight to all of the floors.

113

Robie House or “Prairie House” - Chicago, Illinois

Frank Lloyd Wright revolutionized the American home when he began to design Frank Paririe Style houses with low horizontal lines and open interior spaces. The Robie House in Chicago, Illlinios, is perhaps Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous prairie house. Originally owned by Frederick C, Robie, a businessman and inventor, the Robie House has a long, low profile with linear white stones and wide, nearly flat roof and overhanging eaves. The Prairie School developed in sympathy with the ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement begun in the late 19th century in England by John Ruskin, William Morris, and others. The Prairie School shared an embrace of handcrafting and craftsman guilds as a reaction against the new assembly line, mass production manufacturing techniques, which they felt created inferior products and dehumanized workers.

Solomon Guggenheim Museum - N.Y

Frank Lloyd Wright spent 15 years on his design for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The museum opened in 1959, six months after Frank Llyod Wright died. Frank Lloyd Wright created the Guggenheim Museum as a series of organic shapes.

Circular forms spiral down like the interior of a sloping ramp downward through

connected

exhibition

spaces. At the core, an open rotunda offers views of artwork on several levels.

115

Walt Disney Concert Hall - Los Angeles

The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves (among other purposes) as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Lillian Disney made an initial gift in 1987 to build a performance venue as a gift to the people of Los Angeles and a tribute to Walt Disney’s devotion to the arts and to the city.

The Frank Gehry-designed building opened on October 24, 2003. Both the architecture

by Frank Gehry and the acoustics of the concert hall (designed by Yasuhisa Toyota) were praised in contrast to its predecessor, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

Weisman Art Museum - Minneapolis The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is an art museum located on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis. A teaching museum for the university since 1934, the museum is named for Frederick R. Weisman, and was designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry. The museum’s current building, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, was completed in 1993. The stainless steel skin was fabricated and installed by the A. Zahner Company, a frequent collaborator with Gehry’s office. It is one of the major landmarks on campus, situated on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River at the east end of the Washington Avenue Bridge.

The building presents two faces, depending on which side it is viewed from. From the campus side, it presents a brick facade that blends with the existing brick and sandstone buildings. On the opposite side, the museum is a playground of curving and angular brushed steel sheets. This side is an abstraction of a waterfall and a fish.

117

Jay Pritzker Pavilion Jay

Pritzker

Pavilion,

also

known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois,

United

States.

The

pavilion was named after Jay Pritzker, whose family is known for owning Hyatt Hotels.

The building was designed by architect Frank Gehry, who accepted the design commission in April 1999; the pavilion was constructed between June 1999 and July 2004, opening officially on July 16, 2004. Pritzker Pavilion serves as the centerpiece for Millennium Park and is the new home of the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the Grant Park Music Festival, the nation’s only remaining free outdoor classical music series. It also hosts a wide range of music series and annual performing arts events.

The bandshell’s brushed stainless steel headdress frames the 120-foot (37 m) proscenium theatre; the main stage can accommodate a full orchestra and chorus of 150 members.

The bandshell is connected to a trellis of interlocking crisscrossing steel pipes that support the innovative sound system, which mimics indoor concert hall acoustics.

119

Marta Museum - Herford, Germany

Czech Republic and the Marta Museum in Herford, Germany. The site of Gehry’s Dancing house was originally occupied by a house in the Neo-renaissance style from the end of the 19th century. That house was destoryed during bombing in 1945, its remains finally removed in 1960. The neighbouring house was co-owned by czeh ex-president Vaclav Havel, who lived there from his childhood until the mid-1990s. He ordered the first architectural study from Vlado Milunic. Afterwards the Dutch bank ING agreed to build a house there and asked Milunic to invite a world-renowned architect. Milunic first asked Jean Nouvel, who rejected the invitation because of the small size of the site; he then asked Frank Gehry, who and he accepted the challenge. Gehry had an almost unlimited budget, because ING wanted to create an icon in Prague. The construction started in 1994 and the house was finished in 1996.

Richard B. Fisher Centre for the Performing Arts The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College is a performance hall located in New York’s Hudson Valley. The center provides audiences with performances and programs in orchestral, chamber, and jazz music and theatre, dance, and opera by American and international artists. Designed by architect Frank Gehry, the 110,000-square foot (10,000 m²) center houses two theatres, four rehearsal studios for dance, theatre, and music, and professional support facilities. The total cost of the project reached $62 million. The New Yorker calls it “[possibly] the best small concert hall in the United States.

The flexible 200-seat Theatre Two houses Bard’s Theatre and Dance Programs during the academic year. The Fisher Center is also the home of the Bard Music Festival, entering its 20th season in July 2009, hosting companies from the United States and abroad during Bard SummerScape, a festival of opera, theatre, and dance.

121

Bibliography Nuttgens, P. and weston, R. (2006) The complete Handbook of Architecture.

Revised Ed. Great Britain; Mitchell Beazley, Octopus, Hachette

BanisterF. 91196) A History of Architecture. 20th Ed. London; Heinemann

Pile, J (2009) A History of Interior Design. 3rd edition United States of America; John Wiley and Son.

Fullerton Hotel - Internet - http://highwaytotheblues.wikispace.com

Chinese

Geography

-

Internet

-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/chinese_

geography

Frampton,K. (1992) Modern Architecture. London

Frank Lloyd Wright - Internet - http://architecture.about.com

Epilogue Architecture

as I understand it appears when the need to demolish, erect

or preserve a construction meets the particular conditions of the site. The dialogue between human action and nature may refine the environment. Light and shadow, heat and cold, sound and silence are conducted by forms and materials, contributing to the creation of livable spaces.

The memory of the past, eagerness to investigate and the awareness of contemporary circumstances and demands lead to new solutions.

“I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen�

Frank Lloyd Wright

Thomas Tan Cheng Feng ADID 12 0007/2010 123