2011 AR 103

History of

Architecture
CLASS 24

Nipun George
SCMS School of Architecture, Karukutty, Kochi.

MODULE 2

a. Neolithic Age / Bronze Age

b. Iron Age 1300BC 0AD

Iron Age 1300BC 0AD

ASIA

EUROPE

AMERICA

AFRICA

HOLICITY VARANASI
(1200 BC)

MINOAN CULTURE
(2700 BC 1450BC)

POVERTY POINT
(1650 BC 700BC)

IRON AGE EGYPT

(1500BC 0AD)

EASTERN ZHOU
DYNASTY
(1046BC 256BC)

HATTUSAS
(2000 BC 1200BC)

MACHALILLA
CULTURE
(1500BC 1100BC)

THE GREAT SUN

TEMPLE AT AMARNA
(1353BC 1336 BC)

NEO ASSYRIAN
EMPIRE
(911BC 609 BC)
TEMPLE OF
SOLOMON
(587BC)
BUDDHA PERIOD
MAURYAN EMPIRE
ASHOKA PILLAR
(approx.300BC)

GREEK CULTURE
(900BC )

OLMEC CULTURE
(1500 BC 400BC)
PRECLASSIC MAYA
CULTURE
(1000BC 250 AD)

Greek Culture 900BC

Mycenaean Civilization
~1500 BC

Geometric Period (Greek Dark Ages)

900 BC 700 BC

Archaic Period (Ancient Period)

800 BC 480 BC

Classical Period
510 BC 323 BC

Hellinistic Period
323 BC 31 BC

Geometric Period 900BC 700 BC

The Minoans and Mycenaeans, had no temples
but held caves and mountains sacred, with
worship done on altars / shrines in the open.
Same system followed by Greeks in Geometric
period.
Trees special place in Greek culture, associated
with Gods. eg. Athena olive tree.
Animal sacrifices were common.
Greek sacrifice connected principles of
farming and herding Bread and meat were
important.

The emergence of the altarplustemple form

coincided with the personification of gods in
statues.
Earliest forms were carved from Wooden
Columns of roughly human sized Known as
Kolossos.
The Altar of Zeus at Pergamon featured a flight
of steps on its west side and flanking Ionic
colonnades.
It stands on a fivestepped, almost square plinth.
The altar was inside the court.

The earliest temples, built of mud bricks and

thatched roofs, were modeled, on chieftains houses
consisted of a single elongated, windowless
rooma naos or cella
Eg.Temple of Apollo atThermos (950 BC) where a
low stone wall supported a high, steeply pitched
thatched roof.
No side chambers, ancillary spaces, or storage
rooms.
Later a continuous porch was added around the
building to form a regular shape.
The last model had an elongated form, with
proportions of almost 5 to 1 and a row of
columns down the center.

 More than 80% temples were laid out to

face the sunrise.
Some oriented to elements in the
landscape, to a solitary peak (Zeus) or
double peak( horn of a bull) etc.
the temple was considered a type of
house for the deity, who was represented
inside the temple by his cult statue made
out of wood.
the statue was not mobile main religious
events took place outside the temple, in
front of the altar.
Temenos, the boundary around the
temple precinct could only be crossed at
one point, marked by a gate.

Temple of Poseidon

 Located at Isthmia (700 BC)

Its podium measures 14 by 40 m, with a central
row of five columns within the cella and two in the
pronaos.
The cella was of stone, but the columns and
entablature were of oak the roof was low pitched
and covered in fired terracotta tilesa Greek
invention.
the ashlar blocks of this temple were laid in
regular courses all the way to the rooflinea
standardization of masonry elements. (Egyptian
temples were of irregular size).

The wall is a single vertical element. (In Egypt, a

wall composed of two separate walls, the gap filled
with rubble).
the wall was covered with a thin coat of plaster
broken by a series of pilasters on the walls inline
with the colonnade outside of the cella.
The altar was a 30meterlong structure in front of
the temple, with the sports field and stadium just
to the south.