Introduction to Architecture E-Book

Francis D. K. Ching

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 392

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A survey of the built environment distills the work of legendary author and illustrator Francis D. K. Ching into a single volume Introduction to Architecture presents the essential texts and drawings of Francis D. K. Ching for those new to architecture and design. With his typical highly graphic approach, this is the first introductory text from Ching that surveys the design of spaces, buildings, and cities. In an easy to understand format, readers will explore the histories and theories of architecture, design elements and process, and the technical aspects of the contemporary profession of architecture. The book explains the experience and practice of architecture and allied disciplines for future professionals, while those who love the beauty of architecture drawing will delight in the gorgeous illustrations included. * Overview of the issues and practices of architecture in an all-in-one introductory text * Includes new chapters and introductory essays by James Eckler, and features more than 1,000 drawings throughout * Professor Ching is the bestselling author of numerous books on architecture and design, all published by Wiley; his works have been translated into 16 languages and are regarded as classics for their renowned graphical presentation For those pursuing a career in architecture or anyone who loves architectural design and drawing, Introduction to Architecture presents a beautifully illustrated and comprehensive guide to the subject.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Half Title page

Title page

Copyright page

Preface

1: Introduction: Object, Space, Building, City

What Is Architecture?

The Scale of Design

The Anatomy of This Text

2: The Beginnings of Architecture: Early History— from Ancient Times to the Renaissance

What Is the First Architecture?

Early Cultures

2500 BCE

1500 BCE

800 BCE

400 BCE

1 CE

200 CE

400 CE

600 CE

800 CE

1000 CE

1200 CE

3: A Concise History: Architecture from the Renaissance to the Contemporary

Influences of the Past

1400 CE

1600 CE: Architecture of the Eurasian Power Bloc

1700 CE

1800 CE

1900 CE

1950 CE

4: Fundamentals of Architecture: Form

Tectonics

Characteristics of Form

Shape

Surface

Transformation

Dimensional Transformation

Subtractive Form

Grouping Forms

Surface Articulation

Form and Movement

Proportion and Scale

5: Fundamentals of Architecture: Space

Why Is Space Important in Architecture?

Form and Space

Form-Defining Space

Horizontal Elements Defining Space

Base Plane

Elevated Base Plane

Depressed Base Plane

Overhead Plane

Vertical Elements Defining Space

Vertical Linear Elements

Single Vertical Plane

L-Shaped Configuration of Planes

Parallel Vertical Planes

U-Shaped Planes

Four Planes: Closure

Openings in Space-Defining Elements

Qualities of Architectural Space

6: Fundamentals of Architecture: Order

How Is Architecture Organized?

Organization of Form and Space

Space Within a Space

Interlocking Spaces

Adjacent Spaces

Spaces Linked by a Common Space

Spatial Organizations

Centralized Organizations

Linear Organizations

Radial Organizations

Clustered Organizations

Grid Organizations

Circulation Governed by Organization

Ordering Principles

Axis

Symmetry

Hierarchy

Datum

Rhythm

Transformation

7: Elements of Architecture: Types, Systems, and Components That Inform Design

What Are the Components of Architecture?

Building Types

Basic Elements of a Building

Roof

Ceiling

Room

Wall

Brick

Window

Door

Floor

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing Systems

Structure

Foundation

Building Site

8: The Design Process: Tools and Techniques for Generating Ideas

What Is the Design Process?

Speculative Drawing

The Creative Process

Thinking on Paper

Diagramming

Modeling

Developing Concepts

9: Materials of Architecture: Their Qualities, Characteristics, and Behaviors

How Do Materials Affect Design?

Building Materials

Concrete

Masonry

Steel

Nonferrous Metals

Stone

Wood

Plastics

Glass

10: Methods of Construction What Are the Implications of Construction Methods on Architectural Design?

Foundations

Floors

Walls

Roofs

11: Building Structure: Resisting the Forces That Act against Buildings

How Does an Understanding of Structures Affect Design?

Structural Design

Structural Forces

Structural Elements

12: Building Systems How Do Buildings Work?

Building Systems Outlined

Foundation Systems

Floor Systems

Wall Systems

Roof Systems

Mechanical and Electrical Systems

Water Supply Systems

Electric Power

13: Architectural Practice and Communication What Are the Responsibilities of a Professional Architect?

Building Codes

Multiview Drawings

Plans

Elevations

Section Drawings

14: Allied Disciplines: Interior Design

How Is Interior Design Related to Architecture?

SPACE

Architectural Space

Shaping Interior Space

Outside to Inside

Interior Space

Interior Design

Human Factors

Programming

Finish Materials

15: Allied Disciplines: Urbanism

How Is Urban Design or City Planning Related to Architecture?

Urban Taxonomy

Make-Up of a City

Zoning

Architecture in the City

Glossary

Index

Introduction to Architecture

Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:Ching, Frank, 1943-Introduction to architecture / Francis D.K. Ching, James F. Eckler.pages cmIncludes index.ISBN 978-1-118-14206-6 (pbk.); 978-1-118-33033-3 (ebk); 978-1-118-33100-2 (ebk); 978-1-118-33316-7 (ebk); 978-1-118-42641-8 (ebk); 978-1-118-42644-9 (ebk)1. Architecture--Textbooks. I. Eckler, James, 1982- II. Title.NA2520.C48 2012720--dc232012031379

Preface

Architecture is a multifaceted subject. It was born from the necessity for shelter, forged by the science of materials and energy, and made into an art form by our creative instincts and search for meaning. It reflects culture and society as it responds to real and imagined human needs.

Architecture is an integral part of our lives. Good design, often unnoticed, quietly facilitates the activities of everyday life. It is the architect’s challenge to create spaces that are perfectly attuned to the activities that take place within them. This text seeks to illuminate some of the tools and techniques at the architect’s disposal in facing this challenge. Perhaps, after studying the pages of this book, some of the qualities of buildings that were previously unnoticed will become apparent.

To compile an introductory text that covers the many facets of architecture in a concise and coherent manner, we have compiled material from the following publications, all from Wiley. Additionally, all-new information has been generated for this text that addresses the relationship between architecture and its urban context.

A Global History of Architecture

by Francis D. K. Ching,Mark Jarzombeck, and Vikramaditya Prakash.This text illustrates the evolution of architecture in the context of world events that motivated it to change. Brief segments of this text are included to introduce the reader to a small part of architecture’s rich past, diversity, and cultural significance.

Architecture: Form, Space and Order

by Francis D. K. Ching.This text presents characteristics fundamental to all architecture. Content from this text is included for the reader to be made aware of some of the design principles and strategies employed by architects.

Building Codes Illustrated

by Francis D. K. Ching and Steven R. Winkel.Building codes are important legal constraints for architectural design. This text details the legal requirments of architecture. This content is included to provide the reader with a better understanding of some of architecture’s legal and social responsibilities.

Building Construction Illustrated

by Francis D. K. Ching.This text details the many materials and methods of construction commonly used in buildings today. This content is included for the reader to understand the impact of construction methods on design descisions made by architects.

Design Drawing

by Francis D. K. Ching and Steven P. Juroszek.This text illustrates various drawing techniques used by architects to represent and communicate their ideas. This content is intended to present the architect’s required range of skill as well as provide the reader with an understanding of the complexity of the design process from idea through final construction.

Interior Design Illustrated

by Francis D. K. Ching and Corky Binggeli.This text explains the discipline and profession of Interior Design. Content from this text is included to provide the reader with an understanding of the professional, disciplinary, and philosophical relationships between architecture and interior design.

A Visual Dictionary of Architecture

by Francis D. K. Ching.This text assembles a comprehensive list of architectural components, elements, and systems. It provides detailed definitions of their use or importance as well as graphic illustrations. This content is included to provide the reader with a better understanding of the components that make up a building and to expand his or her architectural vocabulary.

Language of Space and Form: Generative Terms for Architecture

by James Eckler.This text assembles a comprehensive list of architectural design principles and concepts. It outlines ways in which these principles can be used to generate ideas in the early stages of the design process. This content is used to introduce and link the diverse topics presented in

Introduction to Architecture

.

We hope that this compilation will both inspire and instruct as it introduces students to the art and discipline of architecture. If at any time more information about a certain topic is needed, we recommend that the reader consult any of the above publications.

Metric Equivalents

The International System of Units is an internationally accepted system of coherent physical units, using the meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, and candela as the base units of length, mass, time, electric current, temperature, and luminous intensity. To acquaint the reader with the International System of Units, metric equivalents are provided throughout this book according to the following conventions:

1

Introduction:

Object, Space, Building, City

The mother art is architecture.

Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.

— Frank Lloyd Wright

What Is Architecture?

Architecture is a very complex discipline. Most people live their lives in constant contact with architecture. It provides a place to dwell, work, and play. With so much responsibility for determining our experiences, and with such a variety of uses, architecture has too many forms to be precisely categorized. One house is used essentially the same way as any other, but how many different sizes, shapes, or configurations are possible for a house? There is no single correct formula for determining the perfect layout of a house, or any other type of building. At the same time as architecture is indefinite, it also has a responsibility to facilitate specific functions.

Because of the diverse forms architecture can take and the need for it to function in specific ways, it should be considered both an art and a science. It is an artistic discipline that seeks to invent through design. It is also a technical profession that relies on specific techniques of building construction.

Artistic Discipline and Technical Profession

Architects can use almost any techniques for drawing or making models to develop their ideas. However, they must document and communicate those ideas using a universally understood graphic language.

Creative Process and Construction Method

Architects go through many versions of an idea to perfect it. They experiment with different materials and modes of representing their ideas in order to develop them. However, all of the ideas that are layered into the design of a building must be realized using conventional methods of building construction. As the idea develops, it must remain something that is possible to build.

Intuitive and Academic

Many of the architect’s ideas occur spontaneously, or through the act of making a drawing or model. Many also come from study and research and the accumulation of knowledge over time.

The Ancient Greeks called these two sides of architecture episteme and techne. Episteme is the pursuit of knowledge. Techne is a craft or artistic pursuit. To understand architecture one must realize that these two notions are intertwined and are often overlapped in ways that make them interchangeable.

The two parts of architecture are realized through what architects refer to as “the design process.” The design process is the series of steps that are taken to develop a building from initial idea through the final proposal. While designing, architects must continually move back and forth between the creative act of architecture and the technical understanding of how a building is built.

Episteme

Architectural episteme lies in the inquiry that is intrinsic to the design process. In the design process many questions are asked. Those questions define the problem that a design is meant to solve. To answer these questions, the architect must rely on a body of knowledge to inform design decisions. In designing a building, the architect tries many different versions of an idea in order to test and refine it. Through this process, new ideas can be generated as discoveries are made—many of which are unexpected but can still be traced to a fundamental knowledge of architecture and its contributing disciplines.

The following are aspects of architecture that refer to a pursuit of knowledge.

History

Theory

Human behavior

Human perception

Techne

Architectural techne lies in the craft of building and the application of technique in design. It is the art and craft of building. In the design process, discoveries are made through the act of making. The architect must know how to draw and represent an idea before he or she can see if it adequately solves the design problem. Different techniques for representing an idea can allow the architect to investigate it in a variety of ways and better understand how it works. Additionally, an understanding of construction techniques and technologies can yield a more feasible building at the end of this process.

The following are elements of architecture that refer craft or technique:

Construction methods

Material attributes

Building technology

Representation and communication (through drawing or model)

Design Thinking

Taken together, these qualities of architecture inform design thinking. They define the way an architect generates ideas for a building. They also provide the architect with the tools necessary for design in a more general sense of the word. The priority of architecture is habitation—a design of the way people will occupy and use an environment. This has a broad range of applications that demand that the architect design at a variety of scales—from the size of a doorknob to that of a city block.

The Scale of Design

The domain of architecture is not just buildings. The architectural design process is one that translates to a variety of scales and is applicable to the design of objects, spaces, and even cities. Of course, the primary role of the architect lies in designing buildings, but there are many aspects of a building that require the architect to design at both smaller and larger scales. Architecture is a discipline of design, and the following are other facets of architectural design.

Designing Objects

Building design ranges from considerations of site down to the detail. Building details are designed toward specific functions of space. They also require the skills necessary to design as a very small scale. In addition to the detail, the architect can apply these skills toward the design of objects. Those objects might be directly related to building design, such as an ornament or a door handle. They might also be isolated projects that tap the skill sets possessed by an architect.

Furniture design requires the architect’s design sensibility and knowledge of ergonomics.

Lighting design requires an architect’s understanding of the behavior of light and desire to create a particular experience with light.

Sculpture and painting are often pursued by architects because of the similarity of compositional principles and crafting technique.

Designing Spaces

One of the fundamental qualities of architecture is space. The architect is not just required to design a building but to configure the spaces within that building so that they can be used for a specific function. Designing spaces requires the architect’s understanding of proportion, organization, light, and material.

A room requires an architect’s understanding of design to be configured for a specific function.

An outdoor space requires an architect’s understanding of composition to define its edges without fully enclosing it.

Buildings are experiential constructs. Experience is dependent on the configuration of spaces to inform the way it is perceived. This requires the architect’s understanding of material, proportion, color, texture, and the way environments are sensed.

Designing Buildings

The first understanding of the role of the architect is at the scale of building. Buildings have specific purposes and must be organized to fulfill those purposes. The architect also has the obligation to configure spaces within the building and to position the building within its surroundings. Both of these influence the success of the building in fulfilling its designed purpose.

The architect positions a building on its site to define relationships with the buildings around it.

The architect configures a building for a specific function.

The architect distributes spaces within the building to adequately support its function.

Designing Cities

Cities share many of a building’s characteristics. They are spatial constructs, experiential environments, and designed with specific functions in mind. These similarities place the architect in an ideal position to influence the design, growth, and development of urban environments. Architects are also responsible for the buildings that compose a city, and through their design they can affect the urban environment directly.

The design of space is the specialty of architects and is applied at the scale of cities for the development of public space and streetscapes.

Buildings compose a city, placing architects in a position to define the development of the city.

The zoning of a city determines the relationship between its various functions, requiring an architect to understand programmatic relationships.

Allied Disciplines

Architecture is a very old and multifaceted discipline. It touches on many subjects that influence the way we live.

Architecture is a fine art. It shares many of the same compositional principles that are applied to painting, sculpture, music, and literature. Through those principles of design and composition, it is allied with the other artistic disciplines.

It is also responsible for creating products that work to facilitate the way we live. This aligns architecture with other design disciplines such as interior design, urban design, and industrial design. With their emphasis on inhabitable environments, interior design and urban design are historically rooted in architecture.

Architecture is also a construction-based science that employs a knowledge of form and material to realize buildings and predict how they will act under stress. This allies architecture with the various construction industries and physical sciences. It also employs knowledge of human behavior, perception, and culture to create spaces that support the way of life of those who inhabit it. This allies architecture with the social sciences.

Architects must have a general understanding of these allied disciplines even if they are not experts. This knowledge plays a crucial role in determining the success of a building. It enables the architect to make functional, humane designs that positively affect our ways of life.

The Anatomy of This Text

This text is intended to provide a brief overview of the issues and practices of architecture. It is a very old, complex, and diverse discipline, and the subject matter of this book presents only its most basic aspects.

The format of this book follows the distinction between episteme and techne as described previously. The first chapters of the book are dedicated to the histories and theories of architecture as well as design elements and process. The second portion of the text is dedicated to the technical aspects of the contemporary profession of architecture.

Even within these subsets, however, one can see the interrelationship between the knowledge and craft of building. It is not possible to divide the two facets of architecture. In the first portions of the text, which detail design concepts and process, it is not possible to remove the aspects of craft and knowledge upon which those concepts are built. Similarly, in the later chapters, which detail technical aspects of the profession, it is not possible to completely remove the artistic desire from the act of construction. For that reason, one can understand the book’s structure as a division between design thinking and design execution, knowing that neither is ever isolated from its artistic or academic foundations.

The chapters that detail architectural design thinking are:

Origins of Architecture

—Chapter 2 addresses the ancient history of architecture. It looks at the formation of the discipline and the factors that motivated its early development. Rather than providing a specific history, this chapter focuses on the events that surrounded and motivated the earliest developmental stages of architecture.

A Concise History of Architecture

—Chapter 3 addresses the history of architecture from the Renaissance to the contemporary period. It also focuses on the different global events that shaped the profession as opposed to supplying a detailed historical accounting.

Fundamentals of Architecture: Form

—Chapter 4 discusses form as one of the fundamental design considerations of architecture. It is the physical nature of architecture. This chapter details the ways in which it is understood and used in the design process. It also looks forward to the way formal thinking prefigures an understanding of material, construction, and other acts of making.

Fundamentals of Architecture: Space

—Chapter 5 discusses space as one of the fundamental design considerations of architecture. It is the experiential and habitable nature of architecture. This chapter details the ways in which space can be understood and used in the design process. It also looks forward to the way spatial composition prefigures issues of programming and experience.

Fundamentals of Architecture: Order

—Chapter 6 discusses order as one of the fundamental design considerations of architecture. It is the organizational nature of architecture. This chapter details ways in which organization and ordering can be used in the design process. It also looks forward to the way arrangement and composition of architectural elements prefigures programmatic relationships and spatial sequencing.

Elements of Architecture

—Chapter 7 discusses the elements that comprise architecture. It looks at the anatomy of a building and different ways in which different elements can be combined to spur innovation as a part of the design process.

The Design Process

—Chapter 8 discusses the design process as the primary means by which an architect generates design ideas about a project. It looks at considerations of the design process; it also addresses the iterative and heuristic nature of design. This chapter discusses in more detail the various representation techniques and drawing types that can be applied throughout the design process.

The chapters that detail architectural design execution are:

Materials of Architecture

—Chapter 9 discusses the use of material in architecture. It details material as a means of affecting the perceptions of space. It also addresses the behavior of material as it is used in construction and influenced by a variety of factors that affect a building as it ages.

Methods of Construction

—Chapter 10 details various methods of construction and the ways in which these techniques might influence design decisions. It addresses the advantages and disadvantages of common construction types.

Building Structure

—Chapter 11 discusses the structural considerations of building design and construction. It addresses the forces and loads that affect buildings and architectural elements. It also addresses the behavior of common structural systems for buildings.

Building Systems

—Chapter 12 discusses building mechanical systems. These systems enable a building to function appropriately by providing electrical service, plumbing, and mechanical control over temperature, ventilation, and other factors that influence the interior environment.

Architectural Practice and Communication

—Chapter 13 discusses the profession of architecture and the role of the architect in the realization of a building. It provides an overview of legal responsibility and techniques for organizing and communicating with the various members of a design team.

Allied Disciplines: Interior Design

—Chapter 14 discusses interior design as an allied discipline to architecture. It addresses the priorities of interior design and the way they relate or overlap with those of architecture.

Allied Disciplines: Urbanism

—Chapter 15 discusses urban design and urban planning as allied disciplines to architecture. It addresses characteristics of the city. It discusses the priorities of urban planners and the way they relate or overlap with those of architecture. It also discusses the influence the architect has over the development of a city and the role one might play in defining strategies for its advancement.

2

The Beginnings of Architecture:

Early History— from Ancient Times to the Renaissance

What Is the First Architecture?

The origins of architecture have long fascinated both its practitioners and scholars. Understanding the first incarnations of architecture helps shed light on its most basic motives. Looking back to the very first example of building one can see architecture as a tool; it is an invention intended to satisfy the most basic needs of human beings: shelter, protection, and control over one’s environment. The earliest architecture teaches us what it means to dwell in the simplest meaning of the word. We see humankind’s desire to not only seek shelter, but also to create a new environment according to each individual’s own wants. We see the motivation to create place—architecture, even in its earliest manifestations, is something that speaks to the identity of the people who dwell within it. It is a symbol of social ties, a place for interaction.

Studying early architecture, as a result of both pragmatic demands for shelter and social demands for gathering, provides understanding of the connection between form and function.

This chapter looks at the earliest known architecture along with the events of the time that likely influenced its development and characteristics. The following is a time line of events and architectural developments that ranges from its origins to its emergence as a complex discipline addressing, not just the basic needs of shelter, but also those of society and culture. This time line begins with the events that shaped architecture in the earliest known civilizations and advances to those in the pre-Renaissance.

Early Cultures

By 12,000 BCE, human beings had distributed themselves over much of the globe, having started from Africa, moving into west Asia, Europe, south and east Asia, Australia, North America, and finally, along the West Coast to the southern tip of South America. They eventually created societies of villages and hamlets near caves or along shores and streams, allowing for a combination of farming and hunting. The domestication of animals and plants followed, requiring an understanding not only of the seasons, but also of ways to hand down that knowledge from generation to generation. It is in that same spirit that the building arts and their specialized uses for religious and communal purposes began to develop and to play an increasingly important role. Whether it was using mud for bricks or mortar, reeds for thatch, bitumen as a coating, stone as foundations, or wood as post and beams, specialized tools and social specialization were essential. The results were by no means uniform. Some societies were more pragmatic than others, some more symbolic. Some emphasized granaries, others temples. In some places, the crafts associated with building were controlled by the elite. In other places, the building arts found more common expression. Architecture, like civilization itself, was born in our prehistory, and much as with the other arts was plural from the beginning.

Paleolithic human beings created animal paintings on the walls and ceilings of numerous cave sites, such as at Lascaux and Chauvet, in present-day southwestern France and northern Spain from 30,000 to 10,000 BCE.

Aboriginal rock painting represents the longest continuously practiced artistic tradition in the world. The rock faces at Ubirr have been painted and repainted for millennia, from ca. 40,000 BCE to the present.

2500 BCE

By the beginning of the third millennium BCE, the various river-oriented civilizations were primed for rapid cultural development. There were at the time five principal cultural hubs, China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Margiana, and the Indus, which when taken together have to be understood as a supra-regional civilizational entity. Egypt was less prone to invasions by well-armed enemies and, thus, developed a consistent set of religious traditions. Furthermore, because of the seasonality of its agriculture, farm workers could be summoned by the pharaohs to perform forced labor on building projects. Zoser’s temple complex, built on an unprecedented scale, was one of the first monumental stone buildings in the world. It was also a building of great complexity, answering to the intricate cosmology used by the Egyptian builders. From that point of view, the Egyptians were the first to modernize their cosmology to fit the needs of their culture and economy. In Mesopotamia, the divergent cultural elements and stretched-out trade networks made it difficult for one stable, central power to emerge. Cities, dedicated to various deities, were political entities in their own right. Irrigation canals placed a great deal of wealth in the hands of the new generation of rulers who operated in close alliance with a priestly class, ruling out of temples that were built as artificial mountains, rising in colorful terraces above the plains from the center of cities. Unlike in Egypt, the Mesopotamian irrigation system was more difficult to maintain and required greater coordination.

The trend to urbanization also took place along the shores of the Indus and the Ghaggar-Hakra rivers. The cities built there were particularly sophisticated in terms of planning and water drainage. Instead of a ziggurat or pyramid at the center of the town, there were huge public baths, such as the one at Mohenjo-Daro. There was extensive trade with Mesopotamia, up the Persian Gulf, and with Margiana. Indeed the entire area from Mesopotamia to the Indus and from the Caspian Sea to Arabia was what archaeologists call a “zone of interconnection.” This zone went up to Derbent on the Caspian Sea, where granaries and a fortified city from the third millennium BCE were recently uncovered.

The fourth civilization zone developed around the Oxus River and is known as the Adronovo Culture. It was based at first around small villages, but eventually here, too, large cities developed in today’s Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan that were much more urban and socially organized than previously thought. The cities were not only of great size, but were designed with great geometrical precision. In China, the first recorded dynasty, the Xia dynasty, emerged around 2100 BCE. Nonetheless, we still find a horizontal civilization of villages and towns unified around common ritual centers.

In Europe, we see the impact of the Beaker People, whose origins are still debated, but who most likely came from either Spain or the Balkans. Known for their advanced metal-working skill, they left their traces in various locations. They arrived in England, where they encountered such sites as Stonehenge, which they took over and redesigned, orienting it to the sun rather than to the moon. While physically this was largely a matter of “fine-tuning,” the cultural implications that this reorientation presupposes are imponderable.

In the Americas, the Andean population inhabited a thin sliver of a coastline between the Pacific Ocean and a desert. Although these communities could easily have become a forgotten niche culture, the currents of the Pacific Ocean, with their rich bounty of marine life, helped sustain settled life until the inhabitants learned to tame the rivers, descending from the Andes mountains by canalization and terracing. Very recently, archaeologists have dated a large ceremonial complex above the Supe Valley in the Peruvian Andes to about 2750 BCE. This discovery has overturned Andean chronology and required a redating of large-scale ceremonial architecture to a much earlier time period than had previously been thought. Large tracts of Andean sites have still not been explored and carbon-dated, so their stories remain to be told.

1500 BCE

In the middle of the second millennium, Central Asia from the BMAC society in Turkmenistan to the Indus Ghagger-Hakra region in the south went into a period of turmoil and decline. The ecological disaster of the drying of the Indus Ghagger-Hakra River certainly played a part as it created a political vacuum. During the middle of the second millennium BCE, large groups of people who called themselves “Aryas,” or “Aryans,” as they are now known, moved into northern India and introduced novel cultural elements. Since their structures were built of wood rather than brick, very little tangible evidence of this period of conflict and turbulence has survived. The newcomers brought with them iron and sacred oral texts that are among the oldest in the world. Around 1500 BCE, these were assembled and written down. This was the so-called Vedic period, named after the Vedas, a Sanskrit Indo-European word that means “knowledge”; this period lasted approximately to 500 BCE.

Western Asia also experienced a state of flux and instability. Assyria, Babylon, and other Mesopotamian cities were overrun by invaders of unknown provenance, the Mitanni and Kassites, who had moved in from the north and east. A similar situation existed with the so-called Sea-People, who progressed eastward along the coast of the Mediterranean conquering the Nile delta. Among the newcomers there were also the Hittites, who settled in Anatolia, where they founded a capital in north central Anatolia, Hattusas, with numerous temples. They brought in scribes from Syria to maintain their records in cuneiform script, creating voluminous state archives. They recognized the importance of the camel as a beast of burden so that, by the middle of the second millennium BCE, caravans with as many as 600 animals were plying the trade routes across the desert plains. The Hittites and the Egyptians became the preeminent land powers in Western Asia, with Egypt embarking on a remarkable period of temple architecture epitomized by the constructions in Luxor.

In 1650 BCE, the Bronze Age Shang Dynasty in China, controlled a large area in northeast and north central China, with cities arising, such as Zhengzhou and Anyang, the former encompassing a region of roughly 1 1/2 by 2 kilometers; it was one of the largest planned cities in the world at that time. The period is noted for its extraordinary bronze vessels used to hold wine and food in rituals linking rulers with their ancestors. Chinese iron technology differed from that of the West insofar as the Chinese did not forge the metal but cast it, using multiple ceramic molds.

The region of coastal Louisiana on the Gulf Coast of North America, now called Poverty Point, emerged as the center of an important chiefdom. The inhabitants built enormous earthworks as part of an artificially constructed, sacred landscape. Unlike other Native American tribes in the region who relied only on local raw materials, the Poverty Point people developed an extensive trade network. Meanwhile, in the Andes, improvements in irrigation technology enabled farmers to move upstream, away from the ocean, expand their economies, and build large sites such as Cardal in present-day Peru. Among the numerous aspects of their agriculture, it was the development of cotton that was most revolutionary. The ritual centers that were built involved enormous U-shaped complexes, the architectural elements of which would remain part of the Peruvian architectural language for millennia. The Andeans had neither the wheel nor beasts-of-burden.

800 BCE

By 1000 BCE, the agricultural and water canalization techniques that had been developed in the coastal communities of South America were now also being applied in the highlands from which it was easier to control trade. Several ritual centers were founded, such as Chavín de Huántar, which was located at the intersection of important trade routes. In Central America meanwhile, the Olmecs had drained the tropical, marshy lands of Veracruz and converted them into thriving agricultural fields, yielding crop surpluses. Around this time, and probably because of Olmec ingenuity, maize or corn, which was to change the culinary world of the Americas, was developed. The resulting prosperous trading economy formed the basis for the first major ritual centers of Central America such as San Lorenzo and La Venta in modern-day Mexico.

Whereas Mesoamerica had just entered the Bronze Age, the Eurasian world was entering the Iron Age. By 1000 BCE, iron smelting had become fairly widespread, having been introduced by the Hittites. Its usage spread all the way to China. Iron weapons changed the power structure and were, presumably, the cause for much of the upheaval and displacement of the period. New cultures arose and flourished, almost all of them iron-making cultures. In northern Italy, we find the Etruscans; in Greece, the Dorians; and along the coast of Turkey, the Ionians; in Armenia, the Urartu; and in southern Egypt, the Nubians. In the eastern Mediterranean, cities such as Biblos and Sidon flourished, as did the Israelite kingdom centered in Jerusalem.

It was within this context of improved weaponry that the Dorians established their hold on the Mediterranean ports and extended their power toward the west by founding colonies in Sicily and Italy to secure the newly developing, grain-producing regions. Magna Graecia, as it was called, was so strong that, by the year 500 BCE, one has to view it as a single economic and cultural continuity. It was, thus, in Sicily and Italy that one finds some of the most highly developed early Greek experiments in stone architecture.

The ninth and eighth centuries saw the rise of the regional importance of Palestine in relationship to the Kush in Nubia, and the Sabaean Kingdom in Yemen. Kush was an important source of metal, and its kings for a period took control of Egypt. The Sabaean kingdom in Yemen had a monopoly on the production of frankincense, an oil that derived from a plant that grew only there. Frankincense, which was very expensive, was a requirement in many religious ceremonies. In order to reach the markets, it was brought to Palestine with its connections to ports and trade routes.

Between the eighth and the sixth centuries BCE, the Assyrians and Babylonians established themselves as the controlling powers of western Asia, but although their empires were extensive and their new cities famous, their inability to establish coherent financial and trade policies made them vulnerable. The fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia in 539 BCE marked the beginning of the end of a Mesopotamia-centered culture that had, for over two millennia, been one of the dominating regenerating forces, culturally, economically, and politically, in Eurasia. With this collapse, and the power shift to Persia, one could argue that from this time on East and West developed along different tracks. Further to the east, in India, the Vedic Indo-Aryan invaders, who had imposed themselves as a ruling class in previous centuries, had by this time occupied large sections of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, where they established 16 mahajanapadas, or kingdoms. Initially the state of Kashi, with its capital at Varanasi, gained supremacy, but it was subsumed by Koshala. Varanasi, however, remained an important center of learning and became home to scholars from all the mahajanapadas.

In 1046 BCE, the Zhou replaced the Shang, establishing the longest- lasting dynasty in Chinese history. They built two of China’s four great cities, Xi’an and Luoyang, codifying urban planning principles that were cited, if not always adhered to, in all subsequent Chinese capital cities. Little, however, remains of these cities since they were constructed largely of wooden buildings on earth platform foundations. The Zhou created the ideology of imperial rule as the “Mandate of Heaven,” which was later to be extolled as the model of governance by Confucius and others. They also began a process of consolidation, which resulted in the exile of “barbarian” tribes, mainly to the south, who became the ancestors of the Thai, Burmese, and Vietnamese.

400 BCE

During this period, ethical and civic notions of government and of personal conduct began to take root in many parts of Eurasia. In China, for example, Confucius (551–479 BCE) envisioned a world governed by reason and proper conduct, while Daoism, which existed alongside Confucianism, stressed a sort of quiescent noninterference and the paradox of complementary opposites. In India, Buddha and Mahavira challenged the highly stratified world of the Vedic orthodoxy, emphasizing the discipline of self-abnegation. Buddhism might have remained tangential to history had it not been made a state religion by Asoka (304–232 BCE), the creator of the first empire of South Asia. Since Buddhism at the time was largely an ascetic practice, Asoka did not order the construction of large temples, but set up pillars with the teachings of the Buddha etched onto them. In Western and Central Asia we find Zoroastrianism, an ethically based religion that perceived of the world as a struggle between good and evil. Man is viewed as a potential helper of God, capable of eradicating evil. In Greece, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others engaged in vigorous debates about democracy, law, and social philosophy. Athens, adopting democracy, became seminal in prefiguring the modern state. In other words, from China to Greece, religious, ethical, and social thinking was undergoing various evaluations that contrasted with centuries-old traditions that accepted the notion that power was imposed from top rather than be examined from a theoretical point of view.

Politically, the major player in Central and Western Asia was Persia. Filling in the vacuum created by the collapse of the Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian empires, it extended its reach from northern India to Greece, giving rise to new architectural forms in the expansive capitals of Pasargadae and Persepolis. The Mediterranean, however, remained firmly under Greek control with the Greeks, in the fifth century, developing an architectural vocabulary that was to become foundational for European and west Asian architecture. Persia’s unsuccessful attempt to conquer Greece, however, was to have unintended consequences in so far as it stimulated the fantasy and ambitions of Alexander (356–323 BCE), who conquered Persia and its territories with the help of the highly trained infantry of hoplites and their fearful phalanx fighting techniques. For a while it seemed that the Greek Empire would stretch all the way to the Indus, but Alexander’s ambitions were cut short by his premature death in 323 BCE in Babylon. The conquered lands, divided among his generals, turned into quasi-independent states and regional power centers. The strongest of these was Egypt, ruled by the Ptolemies, who ruled from Alexandria. An equally important city was Pergamon in Anatolia. The tiny island trading city of Delos overtook Athens as the cosmopolitan trading hub for the Mediterranean. The aesthetic of the time, in retrospect called Hellenism, tended to realism, delicacy, and emotional expression; it left its imprint, especially on architecture and sculpture, on countries as far away as India and China.

In China, during the unstable Later Zhou period, warring regional entities competed against each other in the construction of large palaces, introducing the imperial tomb as a sign of prestige and power. By the third century BCE, the various factions were consolidated were unified by the Qin (Ch’in) Dynasty, which gave China its name.

In North America, the first complex cultures developed in the eastern woodlands along the Ohio River and its tributaries. The ground was fertile, fish and game abounded, and the waterways facilitated trade. In this environment, the people known as Mound Builders emerged. In South America, the most important cultural developments were well-organized societies that inhabited the Peruvian lowlands, the Moche civilization to the north and the Nazca tribes to the south. The Olmecs, who had been the most influential culture in Mesoamerica for some time, were in decline by 400 BCE, having been replaced by the Maya and Zapotec peoples, who were making the transition from chiefdoms to small states.

1 CE

At this time, Eurasia was dominated by China and Rome, interconnected by a vast system of land and sea trade routes, known in their entirety as the Silk Route. As a consequence of these far-flung trade-systems, two cultures in particular came into focus, the Gandharans in Afghanistan and the Nabateans in Jordan. The latter served as the connecting link to India, allowing the Roman traders to avoid Parthia. The Nabateans were remarkable for their spirit of innovation in regard to architecture.

Initially, the ascendancy of Rome, in economic terms, cast a pall over West Asia and very little of consequence was built during the first century BCE. Soon, however, Rome was able to impose a cohesive appearance over its expanding domains. Roman emperors from Augustus to Trajan changed the architectural face of the European and West Asian world, building impressive temples, forums, villas, and cities, all with the typical Roman imprint.

In China, the Qin dynasty, systematically annexing all competing states, created a centralized government with a corresponding bureaucracy. For this achievement the Qin emperor, Shi Huangdi is known as the First Emperor. It is, in fact, from the word Qin (Ch’in) that the name China derives. After Shi Huangdi’s death, the dynasty quickly collapsed and was replaced by the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), which was marked by a long period of peace and is traditionally referred to as China’s Imperial Age. Although more transparent and accountable, the Han maintained the Qin’s ambition for a unified and centralized empire. Han architecture established precedents that were followed by subsequent dynasties. Although little remains of their actual palaces, cities, and monumental stone sculptures, clay models and literary references contain vivid descriptions, as for example those of the first century CE “spirit roads” with their stone monuments, which line the approach to imperial tombs. In central Asia, because of the disintegration of the Mauryan Empire in India, around 200 BCE, the nomadic Yueh-chi from Mongolia established the Kushan Empire (first century BCE– third century CE) that stretched from parts of Afghanistan and Iran to Pataliputra in the central Gangetic Plains in the east, and down to Sanchi in the south. Because of its unique location, this empire became a melting pot for people and ideas from India, Persia, China, and even the Roman Empire.

Looking now at the Americas, the Hopewell Culture in North America became the first large-scale culture in that region, spreading a web of cities and villages along the Ohio River. In Mexico, Teotihuacán in the Valley of Mexico and Monte Albán in the Valley of Oaxaca had rapidly risen to power. An interconnected network of villages in the Yucatan Peninsula had also begun to develop into the distinctive Mayan culture that would dominate Central American in the coming millennium. On the Mexican Pacific Coast, in the area around central Jalisco, shaft tombs reveal a new culture of death. Built into the heart of settlements, these tombs integrated the dead into the daily life and activities of the community. In Peru, the Chavin was in decline, with the pieces redefining themselves under the Moche and Nazca.

200 CE