History of Architecture

Lecture 1-Prehistoric Architecture

Excerpted from Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History and Meaning By Rose M.
Leland, Westview Press; 2nd edition (2006).
And A History of Architecture on the comparative Method , By Sir Banister Fletcher (1905)

Department of Architecture and Urban Planning

Instructor Wondwossen M.
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Introduction

What is Architecture?

“Architecture is what nature cannot make.”

Louis Kahn

Architecture is a physical representation of human thought and aspiration, a

record of the beliefs and values of the culture that produces it.
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Introduction

For Le Corbusier, ‘Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses seen in
light’. For him Architecture with a capital A was an emotional and aesthetic experience

if we restricted our definition of architecture solely to those buildings that raised our spirits, then
we would end up with rather a short list.

some views there is a clear distinction between architecture, building and engineering, and
architecture is seen as ‘art’, whereas building and engineering are seen as utilitarian.
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Introduction

Can we say Traditional house are architecture ? If so Who is the Architect?

Can we call termites homes architecture?
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Introduction

The essence of Sketch

Drawing an object, building or townscape forces you to engage more directly in the subject
than as a mere Photographer.

Drawing has two functions for the designer – it allows him or her to record and to analyze
existing examples, and the sketch provides the medium with which to test the appearance of
some imagined object.
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Introduction

Why we need to study History of Architecture?

 To understand technological, sociological, aesthetic, and artistic influences which

determine our built environment.
 To get an holistic knowledge about development of architectural language

 Helps understanding the inception and growth of towns and cities, and the influences
that have shaped their urban forms and their architecture;
 To study and understand the patterns and characteristics of human settlements and
individual structures built according to local traditions
 To Understand behavioral, social, and cultural factors in design.
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Introduction

• Prehistory is the ancient period, before written records of events were made.
• Pre history begins as early as 35,000 BC and extends about 3000 BC in the lands of
eastern Mediterranean , and well after 2000 BC in parts of western Europe.
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The Earliest Dwellings

• According to Vitruvius man in his early stage began to imitate nests of birds
and animal resting places.
• The most know primitive Dwellings are caves , the Huts and tents

Dwelling Human Activities

Caves Hunting and fishing

Huts Agriculture

Tents Pastorals and nomadic life

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The Earliest Structures

1. Menhirs single upright stones

2.Dolmens consisting of one large flat stone supported by upright stones.

3.Cromlechs a series of upright stones arranged in a circle & supporting horizontal slabs.

4.Tumuli burial mounds,

5.Lake Dwellings

Dolmens .Cromlechs Lake Dwellings Menhirs

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Time line

Years in B.C

750,000 400,000 300,000 44,000 12,000 8,000 5,000

Hearth/ Terra Amata Cro-Magnons‘ House

Early settlements
Fire (Nice, France)
Jerico
Megalith construction

Catal Huyuk
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Example 1.Terra Amata (Nice, France)

• 400,000-300,000 B.C
• what might be called the First Architecture.
• a springtime camping ground for a group of Homo erectus hunters
• twenty-one huts, eleven of which were rebuilt on the same spot year after year
• Oval in plan, measuring about 6.06m to 14.9 m in length by 3.96 to 6.06m in width
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Example 1.Terra Amata (Nice, France)

• Side walls made of a palisade 1of branches

• In each hut was a central hearth, with a windbreak of stones.
• The fire suggests the gathering of the group, of the establishment of a
community.

1
a fence of stakes or iron railings, forming an enclosure or defence.
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Example 1.Terra Amata (Nice, France)

• What makes Terra Amata the first Architecture ?

• The first steps toward architecture -the deliberate shaping of the living environment-had
been taken.
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Example 2. Cro-Magnons’ House

• Cro-Magnon humans- our Homo sapiens grandfathers,

• The first humans species to describe nature and beliefs in paintings
• The colors were achieved using pigments of powdered minerals-
• Practiced their religion in the inner sanctuaries of their earth mother.
• They seem to have become aware of a cycle of life,
• also buried their dead with elaborate ceremony
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Example 2. Cro-Magnons’ House

• Dwelling sites found in East Europe

• These dwellings may have accommodated extended family groups,
• Houses were perhaps domed or conical in shape
• with frames of wood covered presumably with hides
• braced at the bottom with massive mammoth bones and skulls
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Example 3. Neolithic Dwellings and structures

• humans increasingly settled in one place, building permanent settlements.

• Hunting gathering Activities slowly disappeared

Neolithic settlement of about 4500 B.C. had straight vertical walls

Houses supported by a central ridge pole and the
and a double-pitched, or gable, roof; the houses had walls made of
floors of the huts were of packed earth plastered woven wood mats covered with mud plaster, perhaps with a roof
hard around a central stone-lined hearth. of thatch..
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Example 3. Neolithic Dwellings and structures

• the domestication not only of the human species itself but also of animals and plants,
especially a number of grasses.
• settled communities early developed a complex social structure
• suggested by evidence of a division and specialization of labor.
• the values of the community expressed in durable and symbolic ways.
• As a result Megalith construction appeared

Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, England 2900-

1400 BC
Perhaps the most famous Monument from prehistoric Times,
Stonehenge exemplifies the ability of early civilizations to organize
workers & materials to create evocative ceremonial
Places.
Even if its original purpose remains unknown, its believed that
Stonehenge was a great observatory for determining the solstices
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Earliest cities

Jericho, Israel(8000 BC)

 Fortified with a stone(10 acrs,27 ft thick wall)
 Circular mud huts may having conical roofs
 Inhabitants were hunters & farmers
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Earliest cities

Catal Huyuk (6500-5700)in Anatolia,Turkey

• inhabited by 6500 people
• Unfortified
• Dense packages of dwellings
• No street ( access through roof in the hole and also smoke of the central hearth)
• Mud brick walls& post & lintel timber
• framework enclosing rectangular spaces
• High openings in the walls for ventilation
• Windowless shrines containing decorative motifs of bull & cult statuettes of deities
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Earliest cities

Catal Huyuk (6500-5700)in Anatolia,Turkey

Reconstruction view of buildings, Catal Huyuk,

Anatolia,6500-5700BC
The central figure on the left-hand wall represent a
female Figure giving birth, while the horned bull
skulls suggest Masculine properties. Without
written documentation, it is difficult
To understand completely the significance of the
architectural Figures, such as the stepped floor
levels
Thank you