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Cette Architecture

Cretan architecture developed between 4000 BC and 1400 BC on the island of Crete. Key characteristics included flat roofs, multi-story buildings constructed of stone and timber, and elaborate palaces like those at Knossos that featured frescoes, thrones rooms, and a snake goddess fresco. Architecture in Pre-Columbian America included pyramid temples topped with small temples in Mesoamerica and the Andes. Civilizations like the Maya, Teotihuacan, Toltecs, Aztecs, and Incas built monumental religious structures out of stone, adobe, or rubble with corbelled arches, carved panels, and minimal openings. Religion played a central role in the large

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Sunil Tandan
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38 views21 pages

Cette Architecture

Cretan architecture developed between 4000 BC and 1400 BC on the island of Crete. Key characteristics included flat roofs, multi-story buildings constructed of stone and timber, and elaborate palaces like those at Knossos that featured frescoes, thrones rooms, and a snake goddess fresco. Architecture in Pre-Columbian America included pyramid temples topped with small temples in Mesoamerica and the Andes. Civilizations like the Maya, Teotihuacan, Toltecs, Aztecs, and Incas built monumental religious structures out of stone, adobe, or rubble with corbelled arches, carved panels, and minimal openings. Religion played a central role in the large

Uploaded by

Sunil Tandan
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Cretan Architecture

c. 4000 BC -1400 BC
• Also known as Aegean Civilization or Minoan
civilization.
• Commercial empire with naval power.
• Unification among 90 city states were done by
Phaestos and later under Knossos – at both
places complex palaces were evolved.
• Kings having semi-divine authority.
• The palace of Knossos indicates a highly
centralized, bureaucratic, sybaritic society,
enjoying music, dancing and athletic pursuits.
• Women took an important part in social life and
participated in most activities.
• There was a total absence of the monumental
class structure as compared with Egypt and
Mesopotamia.
• ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS:
• Buildings had flat roofs– typical of eastern countries.
• The flat roofs allowed buildings to be drawn together,
when necessary, in large blocks, two, three or even four
storey high, light wells being used to admit natural light
to the inner part of the blocks.
• Stairways, in return flights were developed and flat roof
formed a part of the serviceable accommodation.
• Houses and palaces were the principal building types.
• Buildings were constructed of rubble or cut stone work
to dado height, the upper parts having a heavy, double
frame of timbre, the panels being in filled with sundried
bricks or stone rubble.
• The walls were coated with stucco outside and painted
with patterns inspired by the framed construction which
lay behind.
• Palace of Knossos
Restored
view

Present
view

Queen’s Snake
room Goddess

Fresco Throne
painting Room
Architecture of Pre-Columbian
America

Mexican and Peruvian


Yucatan

Oaxaca

Guatemala
and
Honduras

Mexican Architecture is centered around central


Mexico, Oaxaca Region, Yucatan Peninsula,
Honduras and Guatemala.
Mayan Culture developed in Yucatan around 600BC usually broken
down into 3 phases: 1) Pre-classic (untill 100AD)
2) Classic (100-900 )
3) Post-Classic (900-1525).

Teotihuacan civilization started in Mexican plateau around 100 BC


but flourished between 150-350 AD in the Mexican Plateau.

Aztecs arrived in the fourteenth Century. This extended to Oaxaca


and Guatemala.
•All the civilizations of Middle
America religion played a pervasive
part, and the largest and the most
impressive buildings served a
religious purpose. Gods
represented natural phenomena –
the sun, moon, rain and corn. The
Toltecs worshipped Quetzalcoatl ,
the plumed serpent and probably
introduced human sacrifice, which
later characterized the Aztec
religion.
•Pyramids and other monuments dominated the
religious centers.
•Societies based on a powerful ruling priesthood
supported by a large peasant or slave population
and in essence similar to the Egyptians.
Aztec society was relatively complex and organized in a number of distinct and separate
classes priests, warriors, merchants craftsmen and serfs-and ruled by a priests-king with
absolute powers elected from the royal family by a council of priests and warriors.

Maya were highly skilled in mathematics and astronomy and they, and later the Aztecs ,
possessed an extremely accurate calendar based on a 365 day year and a concurrent 260
days religious cycle the two systems coinciding every 52 years. The ending of one 52 year
cycle and beginning of another was regarded as a particularly significant time, marked in
the case of the Aztec s by the rebuilding of important religious monuments.

The Maya seem to have been a peace-loving people.


Toltecs and Aztecs were accomplished warriors and possessed large, highly –organized
armies.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
•Most important building type was Temple Pyramid.
•The small temple surmounted the pyramid and served as the ‘house of the
God – entered by a single door.
•It consisted of one or two windowless chambers and in Maya example, was
crowned externally by a high roof-crest or comb.
•The truncated pyramid base was stepped and terraced in a variety of ways
like the Mesopotamian Ziggurats.
•Examples:- Cuicuilco at South of Mexico city which was build in clay and
stone, unusual by its circular plan.
•More elaborate example is Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan with richly carved
vertical panels of stone separating the terraces.

•Stone was used for all important buildings– finely dressed or carved
or laid as roughly dressed rubble.
•Stone facing panels were carved, suggesting of woven designs,
characteristic of Mixtec - Zapotec culture.
•Roofs were flat, windows were not used and doorways are square
headed.
•In Maya work, principle of the corbel was exploited, and corbelled
openings and vaults were common.
Corbelled Arch of Uxmal.
PERUVIAN ARCHITECTURE
C 1800 BC- 1532 AD
•The region falls into two zones – the
mountain range of Andes and the coastal
strip .
Characterized by gorges, and steep valleys
– wildest and most desolate landscape in
the world.
•Adobe brick was building material of the
coastal region. On highlands stone was
used as building materials.
•Culture was based on the worship of Man-
jaguar gods .
•Centers like Tiahuanaco in the Titicaca
Basin of the southern highlands developed
as a centre of religious matters.
•Under the Incas religion and the state
were interdependent, Incas related them
to the Sun God.
•The Inca governed as an absolute ruler,
with below him a series of nobles,
members of the Royal Family and the
rulers of states within the empire.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERS
•Adobe brick was building material of the coastal region. On
highlands stone was used as building materials. Ex- Temple of Sun
at Moche.
•Roofs were sometimes gabled, openings kept to a minimum and generally the
architecture was one of strong, simple forms.
•At Chanchan, walls had geometrical patterns cut in to the facing of clay plaster.
•Adobe bricks were made in variety of shapes at diiferent periods and included
conical, hemispherical and cubic forms.

•Houses were of one room, entered by a single door and without window. Several
houses belonging to different members of a family were grouped around a
central courtyard, and a typical village was made up of a number of these
compounds.
•In the highlands, buildings were constructed of rubble, bonded with clay.
•In public buildings dressed stones were used in a variety of forms.
• Decorations on stone were rare. At Tiahuanaco, however, decoration is found cut into
the lintel of the gate of temple of Sun.
•Roofs were covered with thatch, although in the southern highlands corbelled
stone roofs were sometimes used.
END

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