History
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Main article: History of architecture
Origins and vernacular architecture[edit]
Clockwise from upper left: wooden house in Norway; rondavel stones in Lesotho; peasant houses in a Romanian museum; Yola hut in Ireland
Main article: Vernacular architecture
Building first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (e.g. shelter, security, and worship) and means (available building materials and attendant skills). As human cultures developed and knowledge began to be formalized through oral traditions and practices, building became a craft, and architecture became the term used to describe the highly formalized and respected aspects of the craft. It is widely assumed[citation needed] that architectural success was achieved through trial and error, with progressively less trial and more replication as results became satisfactory over time. However, vernacular architecture, in essence a rudimentary, non-academic form of building construction based on cultural traditions, continues to be produced in many parts of the world.
Prehistoric architecture[edit]
Clockwise from upper left: Göbekli Tepe from Turkey, occupied 10th to 8th millennium BC; goseck circle, Germany 4900 BC; excavated dwellings at Skara Brae (Orkney, Scotland); miniature of a regular Cucuteni-Trypillian house
Early human settlements were mostly rural. Expanding economies resulted in the creation of proto-cities or urban areas, which in some cases grew and evolved very rapidly, such as Çatalhöyük in modern-day Turkey and Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan.
Neolithic archaeological sites include Göbekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük in Turkey, Jericho in the Levant, Mehrgarh in Pakistan, Skara Brae in Orkney, and Cucuteni-Trypillian culture settlements in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine.
Classical era[edit]
Clockwise from upper left: reconstruction of the Mesopotamian Ishtar Gate, c.  575 BC; Egyptian Great Pyramid of Giza, c. 2589–2566 BC; Roman Maison Carrée from Nîmes (France), c.  2 AD; Ed-Deir "The Monastery" at Petra, Jordan, c. mid-first century AD; ancient Greek Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, c. 460–406 BC
In many ancient civilizations, such as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, architecture and urbanism reflected the constant engagement with the divine and the supernatural, and many ancient cultures resorted to monumentality in their architecture to symbolically represent the political power of the ruler or the state itself. In Egypt, the education of state architects was closely linked to the priestly class, and trade secrets were passed from father to son. Plans were drawn and then implemented using the ruler, square, and triangle.
The architecture and urbanism of classical civilizations such as the Greek and Roman civilizations evolved from civic ideals rather than religious or empirical ones. New building types emerged and architectural style developed in the form of the classical orders. Roman architecture was influenced by Greek architecture as they incorporated many Greek elements into their building practices.
Texts on architecture have been written since ancient times—these texts provided both general advice and specific formal prescriptions or canons. Some examples of canons are found in the writings of Vitruvius in the 1st century BC. Some of the most important early examples of canonic architecture are religious.
Asian architecture[edit]
Clockwise from upper left: Kandariya Mahadeva Temple, India, c. 1030; Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, Temple of Heaven, China, 1703–1790; Bakong, Cambodia, completed in 881; Himeji Castle, Japan, 1609;
Asian architecture developed differently from European architecture, and the Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh architectural styles have different characteristics. Unlike Indian and Chinese architecture, which had great influence on the surrounding regions, Japanese architecture did not. Some Asian architecture showed great regional diversity, in particular Buddhist architecture. Moreover, another architectural achievement in Asia is the Hindu temple architecture, which developed from around the 5th century CE. It is, in theory, governed by concepts laid down in the Shastras, and is concerned with expressing both the macrocosm and the microcosm.
In many Asian countries, pantheistic religion led to architectural forms that were designed specifically to enhance the natural landscape. Also, the grandest houses were relatively lightweight structures mainly using wood until recent times, and there are few survivals of great age. Buddhism was associated with a move to stone and brick religious structures, probably beginning as rock-cut architecture, which has often survived very well.
Early Asian writings on architecture include the Kao Gong Ji of China from the 7th–5th centuries BC, the Shilpa Shastras of ancient India, Manjusri Vasthu Vidya Sastra of Sri Lanka, and Araniko of Nepal.
African Architecture[edit]
Main article: Architecture of Africa
Clockwise from upper left: International Fair of Dakar in Senegal; Lideta Market in Ethiopia; Pyramids of Meroe, c. 300 BC in Sudan; Gare de Dakar from Senegal; Great Mosque of Djenne in Mali; Maja House, Gerber Square in Nigeria; Zaria Emir's Palace Gate in Nigeria; Great Mosque of Porto-Novo in Bénin 1912-1935; Hikma Religious and Secular Complex in Niger.
The Architecture of Africa is very diverse, reflecting the continent’s many climates, cultures, and histories. Traditional African architecture mixes building traditions, using a wide arrange of materials like mud, stone, and wood. Fractal scaling is commonly used in designs, making smaller parts of a structure mirror the overall design. This concept can be seen in village layouts and decorative elements.
Historical stone structures like the great Zimbabwe walls show the long lasting and durable construction. Wattle and Daub is a technique used in many areas that take wooden frames covered in mud to create rounded structures that help to regulate the temperature inside. Architecture in West Africa such as Porto-Novo in Benin, Lagos Island and Zaria in Nigeria and Dakar in Senegal is dominated by the Sudano-Sahelian, Afro-modernist designs and Sobrado styles. This is a form of multi-storied, Portuguese-Brazilian baroque architecture.
These buildings are suited for dry, hot climates, as they often have central or rear courtyard, stuccoed façades, symmetrical layouts, tiled roofs for heat insulation, and prominent balconies. Along the Swahili Coast of East Africa many homes are made out of coral stone with mangrove pole roofs. The architecture is a mix of local, Arabic and Islamic styles due to trade across the Indian Ocean. Ethiopia also has stunning architectural traditions like the rock-hewn churches like the 13th century churches of Lalibela which were carved directly into the ground. Together, these styles highlight the creativity, adaptability, and cultural depth of African architectural traditions.
Islamic architecture[edit]
Main article: Islamic architecture
Left to right, row one: grand arches of the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba, Spain; minaret of the Great Mosque of Samarra, Iraq; Jameh Mosque in Isfahan, Iran. Row two: Taj Mahal, India; interior side view of the main dome of the Selimiye Mosque, Turkey; old city of Sanaa, Yemen. Row three: Demak Great Mosque,Indonesia; Nasseef House, Saudi Arabia; Great Mosque of Djenné, Mali.
Islamic architecture began in the 7th century, incorporating architectural forms from the ancient Middle East and Byzantium, but also developing features to suit the religious and social needs of the society. Examples can be found throughout the Middle East, Africa, Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean islands, the Indian Sub-continent and later in Eastern parts of Europe, such as the Balkan States, as the result of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire.
European medieval architecture[edit]
Main article: Medieval architecture
Clockwise from upper left: Interior of Etchmiadzin Cathedral, founded 303 year AD; apse of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, 5th century; interior of Durham Cathedral, UK, 1093–1133; stained glass windows, Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, completed in 1248; interior of Aachen Cathedral, Germany, 796–805
In Europe during the Medieval period, guilds were formed by craftsmen to organize their trades and written contracts have survived, particularly in relation to ecclesiastical buildings. The role of architect was usually one with that of master mason, or Magister lathomorum as they are sometimes described in contemporary documents.
The major architectural undertakings were the building of abbeys and cathedrals. From about 900 onward, the movements of both clerics and tradesmen carried architectural knowledge across Europe, resulting in the pan-European styles Romanesque and Gothic.
A significant part of the Middle Ages architectural heritage is numerous fortifications across the continent. From the Balkans to Spain, and from Malta to Estonia, these buildings represent an important part of European heritage.
Renaissance architecture[edit]
Main article: Renaissance architecture
Clockwise from upper left: The Tempietto, Rome, 1444–1514; Hall of Perspective, Rome, 1505–1510; Château de Chenonceau, France, 1576; Villa La Rotonda, Italy, 1567 – c. 1592.
In Renaissance Europe, from about 1400 onwards, there was a revival of Classical learning accompanied by the development of Renaissance humanism, which placed greater emphasis on the role of the individual in society than had been the case during the Medieval period. Buildings were ascribed to specific architects – Brunelleschi, Alberti, Michelangelo, Palladio – and the cult of the individual had begun. There was still no dividing line between artist, architect, engineer, or any of the related vocations, and the appellation was often one of regional preference.
A revival of the Classical style in architecture was accompanied by a burgeoning of science and engineering, which affected the proportions and structure of buildings. At this stage, it was still possible for an artist to design a bridge as the level of structural calculations involved was within the scope of the generalist.
Early modern and the industrial age[edit]
Left to right, top row: Château de Maisons, France, 1630–1651; pièce de la vaisselle d'or, Palace of Versailles, France; west facade, Petit Trianon, Versailles, 1764; second row: Interior, All Saints, London, 1850–1859; Museum of Ages, Bucharest, Romania, late 19th century; Zollern II/IV Colliery, Dortmund; third row: Éden-Théâtre, Paris, early 1880s – demolished in 1895; C.N. Câmpeanu House, Bucharest, c. 1923; CEC Palace, Bucharest, 8 June 1897 – 1900
bottom: Ernst Ludwig House, Darmstadt, Germany, 1900
With the emerging knowledge in scientific fields and the rise of new materials and technology, architecture and engineering began to separate, and the architect began to concentrate on aesthetics and the humanist aspects, often at the expense of technical aspects of building design. There was also the rise of the "gentleman architect" who usually dealt with wealthy clients and concentrated predominantly on visual qualities derived usually from historical prototypes, typified by the many country houses of Great Britain that were created in the Neo Gothic or Scottish baronial styles.
Formal architectural training in the 19th century, for example, at École des Beaux-Arts in France, gave much emphasis to the production of beautiful drawings and little to context and feasibility.
Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution laid open the door for mass production and consumption. Aesthetics became a criterion for the middle class as ornamented products, once within the province of expensive craftsmanship, became cheaper under machine production.
Vernacular architecture became increasingly ornamental. Housebuilders could use current architectural design in their work by combining features found in pattern books and architectural journals.
Modernism[edit]
Main article: Modern architecture
Clockwise from upper left: Fagus Factory, Alfeld, Germany, 1911; Einstein Tower, Potsdam Germany, 1919–22; Derzhprom, Kharkiv, Ukraine, 1925–28; Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, 1910–13; Glaspaleis, Heerlen, the Netherlands, 1934–35
Around the beginning of the 20th century, general dissatisfaction with the emphasis on revivalist architecture and elaborate decoration gave rise to many new lines of thought that served as precursors to Modern architecture. Notable among these is the Deutscher Werkbund, formed in 1907 to produce better quality machine-made objects. The rise of the profession of industrial design is usually placed here. Following this lead, the Bauhaus school, founded in Weimar, Germany in 1919, redefined the architectural bounds prior set throughout history, viewing the creation of a building as the ultimate synthesis – the apex – of art, craft, and technology.
When modern architecture was first practiced, it was an avant-garde movement with moral, philosophical, and aesthetic underpinnings. Immediately after World War I, pioneering modernist architects sought to develop a completely new style appropriate for a new post-war social and economic order focused on meeting the needs of the middle and working classes. They rejected the architectural practice of the academic refinement of historical styles which served the rapidly declining aristocratic order. The approach of the Modernist architects was to reduce buildings to pure forms, removing historical references and ornament in favor of functional details. Buildings displayed their functional and structural elements, exposing steel beams and concrete surfaces instead of hiding them behind decorative forms. Architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright developed organic architecture, in which the form was defined by its environment and purpose, with an aim to promote harmony between human habitation and the natural world with prime examples being Robie House and Fallingwater.
Architects such as Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, and Marcel Breuer worked to create beauty based on the inherent qualities of building materials and modern construction techniques, trading traditional historic forms for simplified geometric forms, celebrating the new means and methods made possible by the Industrial Revolution, including steel-frame construction, which gave birth to high-rise superstructures. Fazlur Rahman Khan's development of the tube structure was a technological breakthrough in building ever higher. By mid-century, Modernism had morphed into the International Style, an aesthetic epitomized in many ways by the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center designed by Minoru Yamasaki.
Postmodernism[edit]
Main article: Postmodern architecture
Clockwise from upper left: Piazza d'Italia, New Orleans, US, 1978; Team Disney Building, Los Angeles, US, 1990; interior, Cambridge Judge Business School, Cambridge, UK, 1995; Dancing House, Prague, Czech Republic, 1996
Many architects resisted modernism, finding it devoid of the decorative richness of historical styles. As the first generation of modernists began to die after World War II, the second generation of architects including Paul Rudolph, Marcel Breuer, and Eero Saarinen tried to expand the aesthetics of modernism with Brutalism, buildings with expressive sculpture façades made of unfinished concrete. But an even younger postwar generation critiqued modernism and Brutalism for being too austere, standardized, monotone, and not taking into account the richness of human experience offered in historical buildings across time and in different places and cultures.
One such reaction to the cold aesthetic of modernism and Brutalism is the school of metaphoric architecture, which includes such things as bio morphism and zoomorphic architecture, both using nature as the primary source of inspiration and design. While it is considered by some to be merely an aspect of postmodernism, others consider it to be a school in its own right and a later development of expressionist architecture.
Beginning in the late 1950s and 1960s, architectural phenomenology emerged as an important movement in the early reaction against modernism, with architects like Charles Moore in the United States, Christian Norberg-Schulz in Norway, and Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Vittorio Gregotti, Michele Valori, and Bruno Zevi in Italy, who collectively popularized an interest in a new contemporary architecture aimed at expanding human experience using historical buildings as models and precedents. Postmodernism produced a style that combined contemporary building technology and cheap materials with the aesthetics of older pre-modern and non-modern styles, from high classical architecture to popular or vernacular regional building styles. Robert Venturi famously defined postmodern architecture as a "decorated shed" (an ordinary building which is functionally designed inside and embellished on the outside) and upheld it against modernist and brutalist "ducks" (buildings with unnecessarily expressive tectonic forms).
Architecture today[edit]
Main article: Contemporary architecture
Clockwise from upper left: Meadows Museum Dallas, US; Beijing National Stadium, China, 2003–2007; Isbjerget housing project, Denmark, 2013; Library and Learning Center, University of Vienna, Austria, 2008
Since the 1980s, as the complexity of buildings began to increase (in terms of structural systems, services, energy and technologies), the field of architecture became multi-disciplinary with specializations for each project type, technological expertise or project delivery methods. Moreover, there has been an increased separation of the 'design' architect from the 'project' architect who ensures that the project meets the required standards and deals with matters of liability. The preparatory processes for the design of any large building have become increasingly complicated, and require preliminary studies of such matters as durability, sustainability, quality, money, and compliance with local laws. A large structure can no longer be the design of one person but must be the work of many.
Modernism and Postmodernism have been criticized by some members of the architectural profession who feel that successful architecture is not a personal, philosophical, or aesthetic pursuit by individualists; rather it has to consider everyday needs of people and use technology to create livable environments, with the design process being informed by studies of behavioral, environmental, and social sciences.
Environmental sustainability has become a mainstream issue, with a profound effect on the architectural profession. Many developers, those who support the financing of buildings, have become educated to encourage the facilitation of environmentally sustainable design, rather than solutions based primarily on immediate cost. Major examples of this can be found in passive solar building design, greener roof designs, biodegradable materials, and more attention to a structure's energy usage. This major shift in architecture has also changed architecture schools to focus more on the environment. There has been an acceleration in the number of buildings that seek to meet green building sustainable design principles. Sustainable practices that were at the core of vernacular architecture increasingly provide inspiration for environmentally and socially sustainable contemporary techniques. The U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system has been influential in this.
Concurrently, the recent movements of New Urbanism, Metaphoric architecture, contemporary Traditional architecture and New Classical architecture promote a sustainable approach towards construction that appreciates and develops smart growth, architectural tradition, and classical design. This in contrast to modernist and globally uniform architecture, as well as leaning against solitary housing estates and suburban sprawl. Glass curtain walls, which were the hallmark of the ultra modern urban life in many countries, surfaced even in developing countries like Nigeria where international styles had been represented since the mid-20th Century, mostly because of the leanings of foreign-trained architects.