Lecture 1 – Week 2: The Antiquities – Classical Architecture of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman (2000 BC to 6th Century AD)

Lecture 1 – Week 2: The Antiquities – Classical Architecture of the Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman (2000 BC to 6th Century AD)

21 July 2010

LECTURE  1  PPT

Sejarah Senibina II / Sejarah Senibina Barat [BAEA 2115]

Slide 1

Lecture 1 – Week 2: The Antiquities – Classical Architecture of the Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman (2000 BC to 6th Century AD)

Slide 2

• Introduction to the Antiquities
• The different types of architecture in the Antiquities: Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman Architecture
• How the architecture of the Antiquities influenced Western Architecture
• · Archetypes: buildings, elements and motifs

The Antiquity age is largely the period of civilization before the Middle Ages, according to the Western definition. It is commonly used to describe the age of Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations, particularly the latter two.

Technically speaking, the word Classical denotes the world of the ancient Greece and Rome (classical antiquity) referring mostly to literature, history and philosophy. The Egyptian period has often been defined as part of the Antiquities but not belonging to the classical antiquity period. The reason being that although the Egyptians had influenced the origins of the Classical Orders, but in aspects of the society, living and working was mainly based on servitude or being servants to the nobles and kings, rather than being ‘free’ man compared to the common citizens of Athens and Rome.

Slide 3

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE

In Egypt the close connection between religion and architecture is everywhere, where they believed in polytheism, many gods, such as worshipping the sun and Osiris, the god of death.

A god of the earth and vegetation, Osiris symbolized in his death the yearly drought and in his miraculous rebirth the periodic flooding of the Nile and the growth of grain. He was a god-king who was believed to have given Egypt civilization.

The oldest religious texts refer to Osiris as the great god of the dead, and throughout these texts it is assumed that the reader will understand that he once possessed human form and lived on earth. As the first son of Geb, the original king of Egypt, Osiris inherited the throne when Geb abdicated. At this time the Egyptians were barbarous cannibals and uncivilized. Osiris saw this and was greatly disturbed. Therefore, he went out among the people and taught them what to eat, the art of agriculture, how to worship the gods, and gave them laws. Osiris was Egypt’s greatest king who ruled through kindness and persuasion. Having civilized Egypt, Osiris traveled to other lands, leaving Isis as his regent, to teach other peoples what he taught the Egyptians.

The kings of Egypt were regarded as both god and priests. Along the Nile River there are extensive complexes of tomb and temple architecture.

Egyptian theology with its deified pharaohs and strange animal-headed gods, was complicated. The most important thing was the belief that survival after death depended upon the preservation of the body. (Furneaux, 1969)

Slide 4

For the Egyptians, the body must be preserved as much as possible, hence must be buried in an impregnable tomb, which is the basis for Egyptian architecture. Tomb architecture is essentially to house the dead kings and queens with internal burial chambers, and the character changed in the beginning from a flat top mound called mastabas to later the pyramidal shape. The pyramid was achieved by building in step-like tiers, and then the steps were filled with packing blocks. It is only in the outer face that characterized the style of “batter” or inward inclination of setting the stones, which were a trademark of Egyptian architecture. Inside the walls are vertical. Later, the tombs were built into the mountains.

Slide 5

According to Herodotus (484 – 425 BC, Greek historian), the ancient Egyptians regarded the dwelling-house as temporary lodging and the tomb as permanent abode. The design of the tombs were inspired by the houses, where the bundles of papyrus stalks used as supports in mud huts were transformed into the majestic carved stone papyrus columns of the temples. [2]

The columns are inspired directly by the physical shape of the vegetation that is abundant in the Nile River delta, such as the papyrus, the lotus and the palm tree. The shafts of the column reflects the bundles of plant stems, and is reflected in the column as such, rising from the base, and the capitals seems to derive from the lotus bud, the papyrus flower or the palm.

Slide 6

Examples of columns and shafts and pylons

Slide 7

Example of the massive pylons (gateways). Note the “batter” wall.

Slide 8 & 9

Egyptian temple complexes consisted of many routes and passages, with mythical monsters, each with the body of a lion and the head of a man, hawk, ram or woman – along the massive pylons (gateways), great courts, hypostyle halls (large halls with forest-like columns), inner sanctuaries, secret rooms and other chambers. This was in contrast to the Greek temples that were planned as a homogeneous whole, and each component parts were essential to the complete design.

Slide 10

There were two types of temples, the mortuary temples for worshipping the dead Pharaohs and the cult temples for the gods. For the former, this occurred coincidentally when the kings were buried in the rock formations. The Temple of Khons, Karnak, is a cult temple, illustrating typically all the characteristics evident in one, such as the entrance pylons, hypostyle hall, sanctuary and chapels. Before the entrance a row of sphinxes flank the route.

There are tombs that were built by cutting into the rock formations, such as the tombs at Beni Hasan (2130 – 1785 BC). They serve the nobility rather than the royalty. There is a porticoed façade and the chamber resides behind the façade. In certain periods the king preferred to also build into the rock formations as in the tombs of the kings at Thebes.

Slide 11

Egyptian tombs for the dead kings and queens were essentially monumental with the pyramid standing out in a complex of buildings, with a walled enclosure and offering chapel. The tomb chambers were built deep within the pyramid structure to conceal and protect the contents, which were offered for the after-life of the dead kings and queens. An example of the pyramid is the Great Pyramid of Cheops was originally 146.4 m (480 ft) and 230.6 m (756 ft) square on plan, with an area of about 13 acres.

Slide 12

An example of a temple that later influenced the Greeks and Romans was the Temple, Island of Elephantine (1408 BC) were it is a Mammisi temple or Birth Houses, which is part of large temple enclosure. It is dedicated for the birth of the pharaoh due to the union of the god Horus and a mortal mother. The Birth Houses comprised of a single room, surrounded by a portico of columns.

Slide 13

ANCIENT GREEK ARCHITECTURE

The story of modern man begins for us when the Greek first enters upon the stage of history. Civilisation began centuries earlier, but it is not until the Periclean Age (dominated by Pericles in the 5th century BC) that we find intellect and the rule of law. (Furneaux, 1969)

Slide 14

In Classical Greece, the polis, the city-state community, was of paramount importance, with emphasis on the community and family and all aspects of life were under the protection of the gods. Offerings and animal sacrifices are made to the gods, in what they believe to be god’s property, in the open space on the open altar and in the houses of the gods, in the temples. Athena was the god that afforded protection for the city-state of Athens. There are many other city-states such as Sparta.

The buildings on the Acropolis, Athens are highly regarded by later civilizations. The Greeks built the buildings to achieve and discover an eternally valid rules of form and proportion, which is human in scale yet suited to the divinity of the gods, quoted as a “classically ideal architecture”

Slide 15

Buildings are regarded as offerings to the gods and were beautifully decorated to please the gods. The shape of the city-state depended on the conventions of the Greek society’s political system. A place for gathering were essential, and at first people gathered in the open space and later with the growth of organized towns, the agora was created to at least provide space to gather for all the adult male population of the town. The square was formed where buildings, like stoas (covered colonnades) and temples were placed around the square. The Greek town ideal was the essence of the planning of future Western towns.

Slide 16 & 17

There are abundant sources of high quality building stone, in particular limestone and marble in the Greek world. Marble was the most popular material for building temples. However timber was scarce. Skilled architects and craftsman were often in demand traveling from state to state. They were free men and not necessarily citizens of the community where they work.

Blocks of stones were cut and shaped and their mass and weight is used in compression to erect the temples, in a trabeated (post and beam) system. The roofs were made of timber. In the Classical period, 5th Century BC, Greek architects created very fine line of joints in between the blocks, which made the walls and columns to appear out of one solid stone slab. Colour work was used. Especially in the Hellenistic periods, greater importance was attached to the decoration of the walls, richly adorned in gold and black. Paintings were done on the walls with moulded stucco work.

Slide 18

The Greeks built temples after 6th Century BC with stone and marble in the trabeated manner and preserved many of the techniques of wooden construction. A deep respect for tradition led them to preserve the elements in their stone buildings the constructional elements of the wooden ones: triglyphs were end of cross beams, guttae was the pegs used for fastening the beams, and metopes were the space in between the beams.

Slide 19, 20 & 21

Examples of the different Ancient Greek Classical Orders

Slide 22

ANCIENT ROMAN ARCHITECTURE

At its height, by the third century AD, the Roman Empire stretched from somewhere in Scotland, north of Hadrian’s Wall, right across to the Persian Gulf, embraced much of Arabia and North Africa. These were not ephemeral conquests. This was the Empire which Rome – with roads, law, garrisons and a postal system – organized and exploited, for which it built cities. (Furneaux, 1969)

Slide 23 & 24

Whereas Greek Architecture is tectonic, built up from a logical series of horizontals and verticals (the Doric temple has been called sublimated carpentry), Roman Architecture is plastic with much use of rounded forms (arch, vault, dome), so that buildings looks like as if they had been made from concrete poured into a mould. In Greek and Hellenistic Architecture (The style develop during the Hellenistic kingdoms created out of the empire conquered by Alexander the Great 356-323 BC) the column was the most important member; in Rome the column was used more decoratively. It was the development of the concrete used in conjunction with brick that made it possible the use of the great Roman domes and vaults. The earliest concrete dome was in the 2nd Century BC.

Slide 25

Pantheon (100-125 AD) with a dome of 141 ft in diameter was a feat of engineering and masterpiece of simple and yet satisfying proportions. Compare the Pantheon with the Parthenon and you can see the contrast between Greek and Roman architecture. This quality of introvert and plastic building is a characteristic of the Roman architecture found in other types of buildings such as the basilica.

Slide 26, 27, 28, 29 & 30

Apart from the Basilica form, other building types are the thermae (spa), amphiteatres such as the Colosseum, outdoor theatres and the aqueducts.

Slide 31

How the architecture of the Antiquities influenced Western Architecture

Egyptian architectural motifs were used extensively in European architecture particularly during the Neo-Classical Revival of the 18th and 19th centuries. The reason why Western civilizations referred to Egyptian architecture and earlier civilizations, for example Mesopotamia was for the search of pure forms, such as the pyramids and pylon motifs, and Egypt’s civilization had influenced the Greek temple in the later periods. During the Napolean Age of the 18th century when the Renaissance era was coming to a close, and the Age of Enlightenment and the emergence of modern science was surfacing, the excessiveness of Baroque Architecture had reached an impasse with worn-out ideas.

Egyptian Architecture inspired the West for a century but the Greek and Roman Architecture, and particularly the later was responsible for much of the Renaissance period that lasted from the 1500s to the later part of the 19th century.

Why did western civilizations refer to Egypt and not civilizations before that, such as the Mesopotamia. Arguably, the purists during the 18th and 19th Century Neo-Classical period wanted look beyond Greece and Rome. In search of pure forms, they were inspired by the pyramids and battered walls of the pylons.

The Greek and the Romans influenced European civilizations subsequently in history. The Roman Empire via Christianity expanded and created meaningful fusions of the Classical with the East as Byzantine Architecture, and together with Greek temples inspired many later Renaissance architects, artists and sculpturors with their life-like human motifs and scultures.

Archetypes: buildings, elements and motifs

The Classical Orders created by the Greeks, inspired by the Egyptian’s papyrus inspired capitals, and later propagated by the Romans is arguably the most influential archetype, more so in terms of building elements then just mere buildings alone. Pediments as motifs were used to cap windows and door openings during the Renaissance, purely as decoration.

The hypostyle hall was used abstractly as a thematic exhibition hall in a 20th century building designed for the Arab world by Jean Nouvel in Paris. The assembly hall created by the Greek, came in many variations and guises during all of man’s modern period until now. The amphitheatre was replicated many times in history even though its use is more for landscape art than Greek drama.

We shall investigate how during the Renaissance and subsequent periods the Classical Greek and Roman archetype is being reproduced.

---

[1] The Middle Ages, which will be presented in the next lecture is a period of European history from about 1000 AD to about 1500, or more technically from the last Roman Emperor in the West in AD 476 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

[2] Fleming, J et. al., 1985, The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture, 3^rd Edition. Middlesex: Penguin Books

[3] Fletcher, Sir B., 1987, A History of Architecture, 19^th Edition, London, Butterworths

http://nazyhistory2.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/lecture-1-%e2%80%93-week-2-the-antiquities-%e2%80%93-classical-architecture-of-the-egyptian-greek-and-roman-2000-bc-to-6th-century-ad/ – _ftnref4

http://nazyhistory2.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/lecture-1-%e2%80%93-week-2-the-antiquities-%e2%80%93-classical-architecture-of-the-egyptian-greek-and-roman-2000-bc-to-6th-century-ad/ – _ftnref51 Fleming, J et. al., 1985, The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture, 3^rd Edition. Middlesex: Penguin Books

Advertisement

Posted in: Antiquities - Egyptian, Greek & Roman