W02 Study: Elements of Architecture

Overview

 Task: Study the reading below.

 Purpose: To help you identify the elements of architecture.

Instructions

 Complete the following reading.

Reading

In no other art form do the ideals of form and function compete more
ardently than they do in architecture. Painting, for instance, is almost an
exclusively aesthetic endeavor. Paintings serve no purpose beyond the
beauty they bring and the lessons they teach. Music exists to please, and
that is all. We cannot eat it, sleep on it, or brush our teeth with it. It only
gives us intellectual, emotional, and spiritual pleasure. There is no physical
benefit, except perhaps that it relaxes us and lowers our blood pressure.

But architecture is born out of the need for shelter. A good building has a
purpose beyond aesthetics. The built environment can be beautiful,
instructive, agreeable, and elegant, but these are not its primary purposes.
We build to put a roof over our heads, to keep out the cold, to protect us
from brigands and wild animals, to gather the things we cherish about us,
and wall out the things we fear or dislike. Unlike music, painting, sculpture,
and literature, architecture has a purpose near the base of Maslow's
hierarchy of needs.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

The history of architecture is a counterpoint between form and function,

between beauty and shelter. Some architects have created works of great
beauty that have little to do with shelter. Others (especially modernist
architects) have cast out all aesthetic considerations and created buildings
that are purely functional (think of a typical government project apartment
block). But the best architects find ways to satisfy both and even take
functional elements and make them beautiful, or beautiful elements and
make them functional. As we will see with all artists, the architect is
presented with many choices, and his style is determined by the choices he
makes.

In this short introduction, we shall consider three basic tensions that each
architect has to resolve in creating a built environment. These tensions are
1)open vs. closed,

2)horizontal vs. vertical,and

3)structure vs. decoration.

We shall consider specific examples of how architects have resolved these
tensions at various points in history. In doing so, we will begin to grasp
certain aesthetic principles-the rules for how humans create beautiful
things.

Open vs. Closed

As with so many of the fine arts, we look to the ancient Greeks as the first
great exemplars of Western architecture. The basic Greek structure was
the temple. The Greek temple was built to house a statue, or statues, of
one or more of the Greek gods. As with many ancient cultures, the Greeks
offered sacrifices to their gods, but the altar was placed outside in front
of the temple. This enabled the priest to face his congregation, who was
assembled outside. With the temple entrance at the priest's back, the
congregation could then watch him and look toward the temple.

Christian churches are built for the congregation to come inside, to move
around, to sit and contemplate, to pray and worship. Greek temples, on the
other hand, were made for the worshiper to behold from the outside.
Except for during special festivals, the interior of a Greek temple was
closed to the public. This encouraged an atmosphere of mystery and awe
about the temple and the images it contained. This accorded with the
Greek reverence for nature, and they saw trees, rocks, rivers, mountains,
and the sky as animated by the presence of their gods. They also lived in a
warm Mediterranean climate that encouraged life outdoors.

Hence the basic structural element of Greek architecture was the porch.
Greek porches were made with what we call apost and lintel structure. To
see a post and lintel, look at the door of your house and apartment. You
have two posts on the left and right of your door, and a lintel, or a board
across the top held up by the two posts.

The Greeks did this probably a bit more magnificently than the carpenters
who built your door. They carved the post and lintels out of stone, usually
fine marble, and set up a long series of columns to make astoa, or porch.

Parthenon, Athens

The Romans, as much as they admired the Greeks, had a slightly different
aesthetic. The Greeks preferred public life and saw their homes primarily
as a place to eat, sleep, and do other private things. The Romans, on the
other hand, prided themselves on being family-oriented and loved the
pleasures of a beautiful home. They also were masters of a new
building material, concrete. This enabled them to build massive walls at a
much lower cost than if they had to carve everything out of stone. The
Romans, however, did not make the mistake that modern builders make of
leaving their concrete exposed. They knew that it did not weather well, and
if left exposed to the elements, it would soon be an ugly mess, so they
always covered it with brick or stone facing.

Colosseum, Rome
As you will soon discover, the Romans loved everything Greek and eagerly
imitated them. Nevertheless they valued the strength and privacy that their
walls afforded them. So they found ways to imitate Greek architecture and
build concrete walls at the same time. In some cases they put the row of
columns out front, with a solid wall behind them. Sometimes they
constructed a wall embedded with half columns that were non-structural
and purely decorative. Whereas most Greek temples were primarily built to
be beautiful from the outside, Roman buildings strove to be beautiful within
and without.

Besides concrete, the Romans made much use out of another

technological invention, the arch. An arch is a kind of post and lintel all
rolled into one: near the top, each post starts to round towards the other
until they meet in the middle, held together by akeystone.

An arch is a fine tool for giving beauty to the inside of a building, and a row
of them can be used to create what is called abarrel vault, whose rounded
corners seem to be more aesthetically pleasing than the sharp edges of a
plain post and lintel.

Barrel Vault ,St. Sernin Basilica, Toulouse, France

The Romans grew so enamored of their arches that they built them just for
the joy of it, unattached to any particular building. Whenever a Roman
general won a great victory (or wanted to convince the population that he
had), he built a triumphal arch and marched his troops underneath it.

Arch of Titus, Forum, Rome

An extension of the arch was the dome, which also beautified the interior of
a building. Domes are created by making a whole series of arches that
intersect round about each other.

Some of the most interesting ceilings in the history of architecture are made
of domes. Built around the time of Christ, the Pantheonis one of the finest
buildings of Roman architecture, and one of the best-preserved. Originally
constructed as a temple for all the gods of Roman mythology, it was later
consecrated as a Christian church and is still in service. On the outside, it
features concrete walls, but in the front, we see a classical Greek post and
lintel entrance, just as if it were a Greek temple.

Pantheon, Rome, main entrance

The interior is covered by an enormous dome, built to highlight one of the

best tricks in architectural history. Instead of having each arch of the dome
meet in the middle at a keystone, the dome forms a ring that is open at the
top.

Pantheon, Rome, interior

This ring is called an oculus, or eye. This not only opens the Pantheon to
the heavens, allowing the outside to come in, but creates the illusion that
the vast dome is suspended in space without any earthly support. This
makes an important statement about our second set of tensions, the
horizontal vs. the vertical.

Before we go there, however, we should look at an example of architecture

that is completely committed to the interior. Early Christianity was an indoor
church. Being the victim of bitter persecution, Christian meetings were held
privately in homes and other places where they would not draw public
attention. Their sacraments were considered holy, pearls that should not be
cast before swine. The early Christian leaders were also careful to
avoid any connection with the pagan nature cults of the Greeks and
Romans. Hence their architecture favored an aesthetic that created a
refuge from the world, a place for quiet prayer and meditation.

Hagia Sophia was built in the sixth century AD in Constantinople, a Greek

city on the Dardanelles between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
After the fall of Rome in the west, Constantinople became the center of
European civilization. Justinian, the Christian emperor of Constantinople,
wanted to build a church commensurate with his city's glory and indicative
of his people's faith. Hagia Sophia means "holy wisdom," and it employs a
number of the architectural tricks of the day. It was built as a huge
rectangle enclosing a central square, lined with arches within arches, and
crowned with a vast dome. To the east and west of the main dome are two
half-domes. All in all, the complexity of the structure pulls our eyes from
one point to another, distracting us from its carefully constructed symmetry
and creating a sense of mystery about how it all holds together.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, interior

But most of the interest is on the inside. The outside is rather plain and is
little more than the inside-out of the interior.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, exterior

Thus we have turned 180 degrees, from the Greek temples that were
designed to be contemplated from the outside, to the Pantheon that was
pleasing both in and out, to Hagia Sofia that is a mainly interior creation.

Horizontal vs. Vertical

The Greeks were people of the earth. To them, the gods were of a different
order, and man could never attain their level of life, consciousness, and
happiness. They only could be appeased through sacrifices and offerings.
In fact, as you will learn, the great flaw of most of the heroes of Greek
stories and plays was their hubris, or desire to be like the gods. But the
gods loved men, mostly, and gave them good things while they were in this
life-food and wine, their bodies to enjoy things, and their minds to figure out
how to make life better while it lasts. To the Greeks, the day of this life was
a time for enjoyment, and the afterlife was a dark and unhappy place. This
led them to cherish this earth while they were on it and get as much out of it
as they could.
Greek architecture, therefore, reflects an earthbound philosophy. Greek
temples are, for the most part, horizontal, with outlines relatively close to
the ground. They are built of stone-usually marble-and in many cases,
seem to rise out of the ground itself. The post and lintel structure creates a
ballet between the raised stones and the gravity that pulls them earthward.
In fact, Greeks were known to carve their columns so that they bulged in
the center, almost as if the lintels were crushing the columns beneath their
massive weight.

Temple of Apollo at Paestum

The Romans likewise were more interested in the things of this world than
the things of the next, and though the Pantheon ceiling seems to soar
toward heaven, most Roman structures also hug the earth. In the first part
of the Middle Ages, Christian buildings also were built using Roman
methods, especially the arch and barrel vault, in a style
called Romanesque. This was for several reasons. First, the Roman
architectural techniques were all they had. Their level of existence was
close enough to subsistence level that no one had the leisure or ability to
experiment with new ways of construction. Besides, the medieval
Christians admired the Roman civilization and looked back on it with
longing. Though Rome had been pagan and anti-Christian at the outset,
from the Emperor Constantine on the Roman Empire had been the great
supporter and protector of the church. In fact, the robes that Catholic
priests have worn since the Middle Ages imitate the way Roman noblemen
dressed.
But perhaps the greatest influence on Western European architecture from
the fall of Rome until the 1000s was the need for security. When the
Roman political system collapsed, the barbarian kings and Roman
aristocrats tried to maintain order, but to no avail. The ensuing political
chaos resulted in frequent small-scale warfare between rival tribes and
lords. Some powerful kings created large empires, such as Charlemagne’s
Empire that stretched from Spain to Romania, but they were not lasting.
Then, just as things began to settle down a little in the 800s and 900s,
Vikings from the north began their raids. It's hard to imagine the terror they
inspired as they pillaged the countryside targeting the most sacred places
to Western Christians – the monasteries. The wealthy turned their homes
into castles with high walls, ramparts, heavy gates, and turrets for shooting
arrows at invaders. Psychologically it is understandable why churches with
the strong sturdy design of the Romans appealed to the people of this time.
In a time of great change and insecurity, the church maintained a feeling of
stability, permanence, and connection to the glories of Rome for the
people. Aesthetically, the great builders of this Early Medieval world
imitated the Roman basilica. A basilica is a large building in the form of a
long hallway. They were built in the Roman style, known today as
Romanesque, with sturdy walls, high arched barrel vault ceilings, and small
windows.

Abbey of St. Austremoine, Issoire, France

Being Christian, however, they added a significant new feature

- transepts coming off of the long hall to create a building that was in the
form of a cross looking down on it. The nave is the longest part of the
basilica. The large square where the nave and transepts meet is called
the crossing. The area on the east side of the crossing is called
the choir. And the apse is the rounded part at the far east of the structure
and often contains some of the most brilliant art and stained glass.

But by the year 1000, the Vikings had been converted, and the raids were
over. New agricultural methods and trade brought prosperity to the land,
and Europeans moved to a level above subsistence agriculture. Population
boomed and urban centers grew rapidly in during the three hundred years
that we call the High Middle Ages (1000 to 1300). Towns were havens for
craftsmen, artists, and merchants. One of the most important of these
towns was the city of Paris.

A town since Roman times, Paris was built on an island in the Seine for
security. In the late 1100s they started work on a number of churches that
embraced a new aesthetic. One of the most important of these was Notre
Dame (Our Lady) of Paris. Under construction from 1160-1250 A.D., the
cathedral-in-progress attracted scholars and artists from all over Europe.
Students too came to study with these scholars, and soon the population
had outgrown the island and spilled over onto the left bank of the Seine.
The city of Paris designated the area as a place for scholarship, and the
University of Paris, called the Sorbonne, was born.

The scholars of the age were deeply committed to Christianity, but they
also loved the life of the mind. Most of them embraced a philosophy known
as Scholasticism. The scholastics believed that God created the world
rationally, and that everything in it makes sense if we only understood it.
God, through the Holy Ghost, teaches us truth. This truth is like the light of
the sun that streams forth into our minds from God. The aim of earth life is
to aspire upward, toward the sun-or Son-as it were.

This scholastic philosophy had a direct effect on the architecture that was
being created all around Paris. Churchmen and architects sought for ways
to overcome the earthbound aspect of stone and make it soar upwards.
They also sought for ways to bring more light into the churches than was
possible in the squat, dark, Romanesque structures. The problem with the
Roman arch is that it can't extend too far upward without collapsing
outward. Also, the arched ceilings over the long hall of the basilica design
had to be supported along its entire length. Large windows would
undermine this structural integrity. The Parisian architects and stone
masons found a solution, or rather a series of solutions.

The first element of Gothic architecture is the ribbed vault. Architects

created a vault that placed the weight of the ceiling on thin "ribs." These
ribs transferred the weight of the roof and ceiling onto pillars, rather than
the entire wall, as a barrel vault does. This enabled the majority of the wall
to be non weight-bearing and thus allowed them to fill the space with
beautiful stained glass.

Now the light was able to come streaming in.

 St. Denis, Paris, Choir with ribbed vaults and stained glass

The churches created in this new style featured dizzyingly high ceilings
characterized by the patterns created by the ribbed vaulting.

This also created large spaces between the supporting arches with ample
room for windows. Now the light was able to come streaming in. The
churches created in this new style featured dizzyingly high ceilings
characterized by the crossed ribbing of the intersecting arches.
 Gothic ribbed vault, St. Severin, Paris, France

The second element of Gothic design is the flying buttress. The ribbed
vaults placed all of the weight of the roof on pillars, but there was still the
problem of arches’ natural tendency to spread. The force of gravity upon
the stones in an arch causes a sideward force on the walls holding up the
arch. The arch spreads out the wall and causes it to collapse if the wall is
not very thick and sturdy or if there is not something to support the wall.
The thin pillars holding up the roofs of Gothic churches were certainly not
heavy enough to withstand this spreading force. The solution that 12th-
century architects developed was to place a buttress, or support, on the
outside of the building and lean it against the outer wall at the exact
location of the pillars on the inside of the wall. The arm that extends from
the buttress to the wall is called a flying buttress. The flying buttresses of
Gothic churches create a spider-leg type look to the external walls of
Gothic structures.
 Notre Dame, Paris, - Flying buttresses around the choir

The third main element of the Gothic style is the pointed arch. Instead of
using perfectly round arches like the Romans, Gothic architects used a
pointed, or ogive, arch. The pointed arch has the advantage of creating
less outward spreading force than a round arch and this allowed the vaults
to be built much taller than Roman structures could be built. The Gothic
churches of the Middle Ages surpassed the Great Pyramid to become the
tallest structures on earth for the next several hundred years.

Westminster Abbey, England, - Pointed Arches

These three elements, ribbed vaulting, flying buttresses, and pointed

arches are the structural elements that define Gothic architecture and
allowed builders to fill churches with the characteristic stained glass that
Gothic buildings are known for.
 St. Chapelle, Paris, - Stained Glass Windows

Most of these churches had three stories.

Bottom to top-ambulatory, triforium and clerestory of Chartres,

France

On the ground floor aisles were placed to the left and right of the nave, and
were open to pedestrian traffic, hence they were called ambulatories.
Above each ambulatory was a triforium, a series of arches lit by windows
kept out of sight from below. At the top was the clerestory, a series of
windows that allowed light to come streaming through.

This style was not called Gothic in its own day. During the Middle Ages
these magnificent buildings were referred to as the "Modern" style, or the
"French" style, because it was first developed in France. It was not until
the 16th century that people came to call this style Gothic, after the Gothic
tribes who moved into and overtook the Western Roman Empire. In the
18th and 19th century a popular genre of novels, often set in old ruins, and
involving dark, frightening events was dubbed "Gothic" literature due to the
prevalence of old Gothic structures in the settings of these stories. Thus
the notions of dark, spooky, and the occult became attached to the word
'Gothic' and still remains the primary connotation of that word. It is a sad
misnomer, really, that we call structures designed specifically to bring in
light and to glorify the rational nature of God by a word that means the
complete opposite today.

York Minster, England, Chapter House showing pointed arches, rib

vaulted ceiling and stained glass
Function vs. Decoration

Since these churches were built principally for illiterate townsfolk rather
than learned monks, the builders deemed it essential to tell the stories of
their faith visually, in painting, sculpture, and stained glass. Nearly every
free space was seen as an opportunity to show a biblical story, or venerate
a saint from the past. This contrasts our modern sense of simplicity and
unadorned walls. To our eyes it appears gaudy and overdone, but a
Medieval person touring a modern building would stunned by the amount of
wasted space and probably think of us as lazy. Prophets, angels, saints,
the last judgment, Biblical stories and the kings and queens of the past
were particularly popular themes in the architecture of the Middle Ages.

Prophets from the West Entrance, Reims, France

Intricate Biblical Scenes, Archivolt Strasbourg Cathedral, Germany

These visual representations included little statues of animals, monsters,

and sometimes demons called grotesques and gargoyles. A grotesque is
a statue that sits on the outside of the building as a decoration. A gargoyle,
a word that comes from the French word for throat, is a downspout
decorated to look like the water is coming out of the mouth of an animal. To
people in the Middle Ages, the world was the dominion of Satan,
unpredictable, unjust, and irrational. These external decorations seem to
have been a representation of the world outside of the church and contrast
starkly with the holiness, beauty, order, and reason displayed in the interior
of the cathedral.

Grotesques, Notre Dame, Paris

Gargoyles, Notre Dame, Paris

Decoration seems to be important to man. A simple post and lintel structure
should be sufficient for most of our dwelling places-in northern climates, we
might need to pitch our roof so that the snow slides off. But beyond that,
there is no pressing need for arches or stained glass or sculpture or
decoration of any kind. And yet, as soon as the more pressing items on our
needs pyramid are met, we immediately begin to decorate. When you
move into a new house or apartment, probably one of the first things you
do is hang a picture on the wall.

Greek architecture was based on post and lintel construction, but what
lovely things they did with the posts and lintels! Greek architecture had
three different orders, or styles. The earliest, and most distinctively Greek,
is called Doric, after the Dorian tribesmen who settled the Greek peninsula.
The Doric order consisted of a fluted column (5) with a plain top,
or capital (4). On top of the capital rested the lintel, called
the entablature (1, 2, 3). The entablature, in turn was broken down into
three parts. On the bottom was the architrave (3), which was largely
undecorated. Above that was a frieze (2), on which were carved small
decorative columns (2) with carved pictures in between (12). On top of the
frieze was an artfully shaped cornice (1).
Doric is the simplest, least decorated of the Greek orders. It relied on its
clear-cut form to please the eye. But as the Greek style moved into other
parts of the Mediterranean world, it encountered an increased desire for
decoration. The Ionic order, name for the Ionians who were Greek
colonists in what is now Turkey, featured more decoration. Now the column
has a decorative base, or plinth (8), and a capital in the shape of a scroll
(4).
After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and Persia and spread Greek
culture throughout much of the known world, an even grander, more
decorated style became popular. The Corinthian order, named for the
Greek city of Corinth, features a more extensive plinth and architrave and a
capital decorated with acanthus leaves (4). This is the order the Romans
admired most, and most Roman columns are usually Corinthian.

It really is a matter of taste as to what kind of building you like, something

plainer and more reliant on form, simplicity, and balance, or something
more extravagant and decorated. The history of architecture swings back
and forth, and we'll see things become more decorated or less so as
fashion changes. Romanesque structures were built for scholarly monks
and were rather simple affairs. The Gothic was built for the multitudes and
required much decoration. The Renaissance in the 1400s and 1500s
sought to imitate the Greeks and abandoned much of the Gothic style and
returned to Roman arches and less-adorned structures.

St. Peters Basilica, Rome

The Baroque in the 1600s kept the Roman arches and domes, but
decorated them with paintings and sculptures and decorative work until
they looked like an overdone wedding cake.

Cathedral of St. James, Innsbruck, Austria

This has been just a brief introduction into a few of the things we need to
look for in architecture as we tour the great museum of human history.
Architects have always been aware of the need to build structures that are
solid, spacious, and protective. But they have also sought to please the eye
and gladden the heart. Architecture, like all the humanities, is about more
than filling basic human needs. Humans, you may have noticed, are
complex creatures. It shouldn't surprise us that the places we live, meet,
play, and worship are complex too.

Notes

You will need to account for your efforts to study all assigned course
materials in the end-of-week Accountability Quiz.