Architecture Part 1

Architecture.

by Nancy R E Meugens Bell.

INTRODUCTION

WHAT ARCHITECTURE IS--MATERIALS EMPLOYED--DEFINITION OF DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF THE TWO MAIN STYLES, TRABEATED AND ARCUATED

It is only when a building entirely fulfils the purpose for which it is intended and bears the impress of a genuine style that it takes rank as a work of architecture. This definition, exclusive though it at first sight appears, brings within the province of the art every structure which combines with practical utility beauty of design and execution, from the humblest cottage to the most dignified temple or palace.

Suitability of material and harmony with its surroundings are among the minor factors that give to a building vitality of character and contribute to its enduring value, a value enhanced by its reflection of the needs and aspirations of those by whom and for whom it was erected.

Wood appears to have been the earliest material used for the building of a home when out-of-door dwellings took the place of the caves that were the first shelters of primitive man. At Joigny in France there still exist examples of what are supposed to be the most ancient of all such dwellings, namely circular holes, locally known as _buvards_, in which the trunk of a tree had been fixed, the branches plastered over with clay forming the roof of a simple but rain-proof refuge. Huts of wattle and hurdle work dating from prehistoric times have also been preserved, some rising from the ground, others from platforms resting on piles sunk in the beds of lakes. These were in their time superseded by stronger structures, with walls made of squared beams piled up horizontally and fastened together at the corners with wooden pegs; the roof being formed of roughly sawn planks. Out of such primeval houses as these were evolved in the course of centuries the picturesque half-timbered cottages of mediaeval Europe and the quaint wooden churches of Norway such as the characteristic one at Hitterdal.

Limestone, granite, and sandstone were used for building at a very remote period in much the same way as wood, large blocks, fresh from the quarry, of all manner of different shapes, being piled up horizontally or stood on edge, no cement being employed, though in certain cases crushed stone was used to fill up the s.p.a.ces between the blocks. To walls or buildings of which courses of undressed stone were the only materials, the name of Cyclopean has been given because of the erroneous belief that it was originated by the Cyclopes, an imaginary race of giants, supposed to have lived in Thrace, a province of ancient Greece.

Bricks, that is to say, dried blocks of clay, were used at a very early date as a supplement to or subst.i.tute for wood and stone for building purposes. The most ancient bricks were not subjected to artificial heat but were simply exposed to the sun, and even when kiln-baked bricks were introduced they were often employed merely to face the older variety.

s.p.a.cious and lofty buildings consisting entirely of bricks were erected at a very early date in a.s.syria, Persia, and elsewhere, and some of the most noteworthy architectural survivals of the Roman Empire are of the same material.

The main features of a building are determined by the shape of the walls or the mode of arrangement of the pillars that take the place of walls, the way in which the roof is constructed, and that in which the openings of the doors and windows are spanned. The earliest roofs were flat, and the most ancient mode of linking together the supports of doors and windows was to place a plank of wood or slab of stone known as a _lintel_ across them at the top. To this style of roofing and spanning, which reached its most perfect development in the temples of Greece, the name of the _trabeated_ was given, derived in the first instance from the so-called _trabea_, a toga adorned with horizontal stripes.

It was only by very gradual degrees that the trabeated mode of roofing and spanning was succeeded by what is known as the _arcuated_, or that in which the arch takes the place of the horizontal beam. In early Roman temples and palaces the Greek style was long carefully copied, but in utilitarian works such as bridges, viaducts, and drains the arch was employed at a very remote period. An arch whether circular or pointed consists of two series of stones cut into the form of wedges known as _voussoirs_, a central one at the apex or highest point called the _keystone_ locking the two series together. This beautiful contrivance, the inventor of which is unknown, gradually revolutionised the science of architecture. It was used at first, tentatively as it were, in combination with the horizontal beam or slab of stone, but in the end became in its rounded form the distinctive peculiarity of the Romanesque and in its pointed shape of the Gothic style.

ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER I

EGYPTIAN, ASIATIC, AND EARLY AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

The most ancient existing examples of Egyptian architecture are the royal tombs of the Memphite kingdom known as the Pyramids, of which the oldest is that of King Seneferu (about 3000 B.C.) at Medum, and the largest, which rises to a height of 481 feet from a base 764 feet square, that called the Great Pyramid of King Cheops (3788-3666) at Ghizeh, near Cairo, on which 100,000 men are said to have been continuously employed for thirty years. The latter is not only a marvel of constructive skill, but is by many authorities considered to be a most accurately designed astronomical observatory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Section of King's Chamber, and of Pa.s.sage in Great Pyramid]

The Pyramids consist of ma.s.ses of admirably squared and polished stones, in certain cases supplemented with bricks piled up in the form of a rectangle around a sepulchral chamber, the entrance to which was most carefully concealed. When the body of the monarch had been placed in it the tapering mound above it was finished off with huge facing blocks, that were skilfully worked into the angle required and finally levelled to a smooth surface.

Near the Pyramids of the kings are the tombs, known as Mastabas, of their wives and children and of the great officers of state. They are constructed of stone, are square or oblong in form, and their walls are adorned with paintings of scenes from contemporary life, the whole reminiscent of earlier timber structures. Later tombs are those hewn out of the living rock at Beni Ha.s.san and elsewhere, dating from about 2500 B.C., with porticoes upheld by columns resembling those of Greek temples and flat or curved roofs, the latter suggestive of the principle of the arch having been known to those who excavated them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Section of Hall at Karnak]

It was between 1600 B.C. and 1110 B.C. that the Egyptians reached their highest point of civilisation, and it was during that period that were erected the magnificent Theban temples, of which those at Karnak and Luxor, which were connected by an avenue of colossal sphinxes, are the finest still remaining. The plan of all Egyptian temples of whatever size was the same: a horizontal gateway flanked on either side by ma.s.ses of masonry of considerably greater height than it, known as pylons, their surfaces enriched with symbolic carvings, giving access to a square s.p.a.ce open to the sky, and partly surrounded with cloisters, leading into a n.o.ble hall of huge dimensions, its flat roof upheld by columns, some with capitals resembling lotus buds, others representing the head of the G.o.ddess Isis. Beyond this hall were a number of small dark rooms, the use of which has never been ascertained, enclosing within them the nucleus of the whole, the low narrow mysterious cell or sanctuary in which was enshrined the image of the G.o.d to whom the temple was dedicated. Outside these n.o.ble buildings were ranged obelisks, or four-sided tapering-pillars of great height, covered with hieroglyphics commemorating the triumphs of the kings, and colossal figures, few of which remain _in situ_, which added greatly to the dignity of the appearance of the whole.

To the same period as the temples of Thebes belong those of very similar general design hewn out of the sides of the mountains of Nubia, of which the best example is the larger of the two at Ipsambul, specially noteworthy for the huge seated figure of the monarch for whom it was built, the great Rameses II, guarding the entrance to it. The tombs of the Theban rulers, like the Nubian temples, were hewn out of the living rock, and are many of them, notably those known as the Tombs of the Kings and the Tombs of the Queens in the plains watered by the Nile, of vast extent, labyrinths of pa.s.sages, alternating with large rooms, leading to the actual sepulchral chamber.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tomb at Beni Ha.s.san]

Of considerably later date than any of the buildings referred to above are the temples of Denderah, Edfou, and Philae, erected after the conquest of Egypt by the Greeks, but they all resemble those of the Theban dynasty in general style, whilst that at Esneh is a good example of the results of Roman influence.

Very great is the contrast to Egyptian architecture presented by the Asiatic buildings that have been preserved to the present day. In the former stone was the usual material employed, and the mode of construction was as a general rule that known as the post and lintel, whilst in the latter brick was almost exclusively used, and the arch was a distinctive feature. The so-called Babylonian or Chaldean, a.s.syrian, and Persian styles resemble each other so greatly that they may justly be said to belong to one type, evolved by the inhabitants of the extensive region watered by the Euphrates and Tigris, who like the Egyptians attained to a very advanced civilisation at a remote period.

Of the temples not a single one has been preserved, but the remains have recently been excavated, in the mounds on the site of Babylon, of four that consisted of numerous chambers enclosing a large court with towered gateways, whilst at a.s.sur another has been uncovered of a somewhat similar design. To atone for the lack of temples many Asiatic palaces have been to some extent reconstructed, the most remarkable being those unearthed near the villages of Nimrod, Khorsabad, and Koyunjik, all supposed to be relics of Nineveh. They originally consisted of lofty many-roomed structures raised on high platforms, and entered from arched gateways flanked by colossal winged bulls of stone. The brick walls were encased in alabaster slabs carved with figure subjects in low relief, some of which are in the British Museum, and galleries, rising from columns with capitals that foreshadowed Greek forms, admitted air and light freely. The Palace of Nebuchadnezzar has also recently been identified, and must when uninjured have been an immense castle-like pile with a vast number of courts and halls to which a paved way led up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Terrace Wall at Khorsabad]

Tombs and palaces are the chief relics of Persian architecture. Many of the former, notably that near Murghab, supposed to have been the sepulchre of Cyrus, resemble Greek temples in general style, whilst others are rock-cut and recall the Mastabas of Egypt. Of the palaces those at Persepolis were the most remarkable, for in them Persian architecture reached its fullest development. Their ruins, that rise from a platform some forty feet high hewn out of the surface of the living rock, to which long flights of steps led up, consist of vast columned halls entered from detached porticoes known as propylaea. When intact the largest of these halls, named after Xerxes, must have exceeded in size the cathedrals of Canterbury or Winchester.

Other noteworthy relics of early Asiatic architecture are the tombs of Lycia, Phrygia, and Lydia. The first named--of which the so-called tomb of the Harpies now in the British Museum is a typical example--are all either cut in the living rock or carved out of detached ma.s.ses of stone, in either case recalling in their general appearance the log-huts of prehistoric times. More ornate than those of Lycia, the Phrygian sepulchral monuments, of which the grave of Midas at Doganlu is the finest, are also rock hewn, but their shape and decoration are more suggestive of the tent than the wooden dwelling, whilst those in Lydia are comparatively primitive, being in some cases, notably in the Tumulus of Tantalus on the Gulf of Smyrna, mere ma.s.ses of stone heaped up above a huge mound.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Restored Section of Hall of Xerxes]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Capital of Lat]

The most ancient examples of Indian architecture are the Stambhas or Lats, the earliest dating from the time of Asoka (272-236 B.C.), that are pillars bearing inscriptions and surmounted by a symbolic animal such as an elephant or a lion, of which there is a good specimen at Allahabad, and the Stupas or Topes, mounds encased in masonry, crowned by a reliquary containing memorials of Buddha or of his chief disciples, and enclosed within a stone railing elaborately carved with scenes from the life of the founder of Buddhism, with an even more ornate gateway at each of the four corners, of which the finest is the larger of two at Sanchi in Central India. Even more interesting than the Lats and Stupas are the Viharas or Buddhist monasteries, of which there is a specially good example at Nigope near Behar, and the Chaityas or temples, of which those at Karli, Ellora, Ajunta, and Elephanta are amongst the finest.

All alike hewn out of the living rock, the former consist of a square central hall with or without columns, surrounded by cells for the monks, whilst the latter, of more complicated design, resemble in general plan a Roman basilica. A wide nave with rows of ma.s.sive pillars upholding a slightly domed roof is flanked by lateral aisles, and at the eastern end rises a semicircular sanctuary containing a seated figure of Buddha.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Section of Cave at Karli]

Out of the Buddhist religion grew that known as the Jaina, and many fine temples, of which the most remarkable are that at Sadri and the Dilwana Temple on Mount Abu, remain that were erected for the use of its professors. It was usual to group a number on some hill-top, and the plan of each was generally that of a Greek cross, a columned portico giving access to a complex collection of shrines, each approached by avenues of pillars and roofed in with a separate dome, whilst the exterior was adorned with rounded towers finished off with pointed finials suggestive of a spire, the whole both inside and out being richly decorated with carvings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: View of Temple at Sadri]

Hindu architecture, or that of those who hold the Brahmanic faith, differs very greatly from Buddhist, its chief characteristic being a lofty pyramidal tower of several stories, as a general rule covered with ornament, that reached its fullest development in the so-called paG.o.das, of which there are fine specimens at Jaggernaut, Mahavellipore, and Palitana. In different parts of India various modifications of this general style occur to which distinctive names have been given, but the same spirit may be said to pervade them all, from the great Temples of Bhuvaneswar, Tanjore, Bundaban, and elsewhere, to the humbler shrines scattered throughout the length and breadth of the vast continent and of its island dependencies.

There is nothing very distinctive about the architecture of China or j.a.pan. The Buddhist temples in both countries recall those of India, but the paG.o.das, most of which are of wood faced with porcelain tiles, differ slightly in having a curved roof to each story. The palaces of China are impressive on account of their vast extent and the use of copper in their construction, but the domestic buildings of j.a.pan are all of comparatively small size.

In America as in Asia are many deeply interesting architectural relics of the civilisation of the early inhabitants, of which the most remarkable are the ruins of Cyclopean buildings on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Tatiaca, the remains of the ancient city of Cuzco, all in Peru, and the Teocallis or temples and Palaces of the kings in Mexico, Yucatan, and Guatemala, none of which however call for description here as they did not influence the architecture of the future in their own or any other country.

CHAPTER II

GREEK ARCHITECTURE

In their architecture as in their sculpture the Greeks gave eloquent expression to the exquisite feeling for symmetry of form which was one of their most distinctive characteristics. Architects and masons were in close touch with the people for whom they built, no social barriers, so far as the arts and crafts were concerned, divided cla.s.s from cla.s.s, citizens, aliens, and even slaves vying with each other in their zeal to produce the best work possible.

The finest buildings of ancient Greece and its dependencies entirely fulfilled the conditions of true architecture, for they were beautiful alike in design and execution, admirably adapted to the purpose for which they were erected, and in complete harmony with their surroundings. Moreover they are of exceptional importance in the history of the evolution of the art on account of the influence they exercised on that of other countries, all their distinctive features having been either copied or modified in those of the rest of Europe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of Greek Temple]

The Greeks, though they were doubtless acquainted with the arch, the dome, and the tower, refrained as a general rule from using them, probably because they considered them unsuitable to the topographical and climatic conditions that prevailed in their native land. They achieved their highest results by means of correctness of proportion and dignity of outline, giving far more attention to the exterior than to the interior of their buildings, and in this respect differing greatly from the Egyptians, who endeavoured to impress the spectator chiefly by the vast extent and ma.s.siveness of their temples and palaces.