The Great Ages Of World Architecture is a comprehensive book for architecture undergraduates. The book introduces students to a concise study of the history of architecture, covering the various principles, qualities and factors therein. The book explains the schools of architecture that have been found around the world, explaining what is unique and stylistic about each age. It explains how architecture has changed from the time of the Egyptians and draws parallels between various styles from across the world at the same era. In addition it brings students an understanding of modern architecture and how it has evolved from all the other families that have been passed down. The book is indispensable to architecture students as it introduces them to Landscape Architecture as well, forming a base for higher study in the subject.
\r \tThe Great Ages Of World Architecture is a comprehensive book for architecture undergraduates. The book introduces students to a concise study of the history of architecture, covering the various principles, qualities and factors therein. The book explains the schools of architecture that have been found around the world, explaining what is unique and stylistic about each age. It explains how architecture has changed from the time of the Egyptians and draws parallels between various styles from across the world at the same era. In addition it brings students an understanding of modern architecture and how it has evolved from all the other families that have been passed down. The book is indispensable to architecture students as it introduces them to Landscape Architecture as well, forming a base for higher study in the subject.
Under the caliphs, great cities such as Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus fostered a vibrant intellectual and cultural life. Poets, scientists and philosophers wrote thousands of books (on paper, a Chinese invention that had made its way into the Islamic world by the 8th century). Scholars translated Greek, Iranian and Indian texts into Arabic. Inventors devised technologies like the pinhole camera, soap, windmills, surgical instruments, and an early flying machine. And religious scholars and mystics translated, interpreted and taught the Quran and other scriptural texts to people across the Middle East.
Around 1200, church builders began to embrace a new architectural style, known as the Gothic. Gothic structures, such as the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis in France and the rebuilt Canterbury Cathedral in England, have huge stained-glass windows, pointed vaults and pointed arches (a technology perfected in in the Islamic world), and spires and flying buttresses. In contrast to heavy Romanesque buildings, Gothic architecture seems to be almost weightless. Medieval religious art took other forms as well. Frescoes and mosaics decorated church interiors, and artists painted devotional images of the Virgin Mary, Jesus and the saints.
Building first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (shelter, security, worship, etc.) and means (available building materials and attendant skills). As human cultures developed and knowledge began to be formalized through oral traditions and practices, building became a craft, and "architecture" is the name given to the most highly formalized and respected versions of that craft. It is widely assumed that architectural success was the product of a process of trial and error, with progressively less trial and more replication as the results of the process proved increasingly satisfactory. What is termed vernacular architecture continues to be produced in many parts of the world.
The architecture of different parts of Asia developed differently than Europe; and each of Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh architecture had different characteristics. Unlike Indian and Chinese architecture, which had great influence on the surrounding regions, Japanese architecture did not. Some Asian architecture showed great regional diversity such as Buddhist architecture, in particular. Moreover, other architectural achievements in Asia is the Hindu temple architecture, which developed from around the 5th century CE, is in theory governed by concepts laid down in the Shastras, and is concerned with expressing the macrocosm and the microcosm.
In many Asian countries, pantheistic religion led to architectural forms that were designed specifically to enhance the natural landscape. Also, the grandest houses were relatively lightweight structures mainly using wood until recent times, and there are few survivals of great age. Buddhism was associated with a move to stone and brick religious structures, probably beginning as rock-cut architecture, which has often survived very well.
When modern architecture was first practiced, it was an avant-garde movement with moral, philosophical, and aesthetic underpinnings. Immediately after World War I, pioneering modernist architects sought to develop a completely new style appropriate for a new post-war social and economic order, focused on meeting the needs of the middle and working classes. They rejected the architectural practice of the academic refinement of historical styles which served the rapidly declining aristocratic order. The approach of the Modernist architects was to reduce buildings to pure forms, removing historical references and ornament in favor of functional details. Buildings displayed their functional and structural elements, exposing steel beams and concrete surfaces instead of hiding them behind decorative forms. Architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright developed organic architecture, in which the form was defined by its environment and purpose, with an aim to promote harmony between human habitation and the natural world with prime examples being Robie House and Fallingwater.
Urban design is the process of designing and shaping the physical features of cities, towns, and villages. In contrast to architecture, which focuses on the design of individual buildings, urban design deals with the larger scale of groups of buildings, streets and public spaces, whole neighborhoods and districts, and entire cities, with the goal of making urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable.[39]
Naval architecture, also known as naval engineering, is an engineering discipline dealing with the engineering design process, shipbuilding, maintenance, and operation of marine vessels and structures.[41][42] Naval architecture involves basic and applied research, design, development, design evaluation and calculations during all stages of the life of a marine vehicle. Preliminary design of the vessel, its detailed design, construction, trials, operation and maintenance, launching and dry-docking are the main activities involved. Ship design calculations are also required for ships being modified (by means of conversion, rebuilding, modernization, or repair). Naval architecture also involves the formulation of safety regulations and damage control rules and the approval and certification of ship designs to meet statutory and non-statutory requirements.
Cathedrals, collegiate churches, and monastic churches like those of abbeys and priories, often have certain complex structural forms that are found less often in parish churches. They also tend to display a higher level of contemporary architectural style and the work of accomplished craftsmen, and occupy a status both ecclesiastical and social that an ordinary parish church rarely has. Such churches are generally among the finest buildings locally and a source of regional pride. Many are among the world's most renowned works of architecture. These include St Peter's Basilica, Notre-Dame de Paris, Cologne Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Antwerp Cathedral, Prague Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral, the Basilica of Saint-Denis, Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica of San Vitale, St Mark's Basilica, Westminster Abbey, Saint Basil's Cathedral, Antoni Gaudí's incomplete Sagrada Família and the ancient cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, now a mosque.
The earliest large churches date from Late Antiquity. As Christianity and the construction of churches spread across the world, their manner of building was dependent upon local materials and local techniques. Different styles of architecture developed and their fashion spread, carried by the establishment of monastic orders, by the posting of bishops from one region to another and by the travelling of master stonemasons who served as architects.[1] The successive styles of the great church buildings of Europe are known as Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, and various Revival styles of the late 18th to early 20th centuries, and then Modern.[2] Underlying each of the academic styles are the regional characteristics. Some of these characteristics are so typical of a particular country or region that they appear, regardless of style, in the architecture of churches designed many centuries apart.[2]
Among the world's largest and most architecturally significant churches, many were built to serve as cathedrals or abbey churches. The categories below are not exclusive. A church can be an abbey church and serve as a cathedral. Some Protestant parish churches like Ulm Minster have never served as any of these; since the Reformation many Western Christian denominations dispensed with the episcopate altogether and medieval churches lost, gained, or lost again their cathedral status, like St Giles', Edinburgh or St Magnus', Kirkwall. Some great churches of the Middle Ages, such as Westminster Abbey, are former abbeys; others like Ripon Cathedral and Bath Abbey were built as monastic churches and became cathedrals or parish churches in recent centuries; others again were built as parish churches and subsequently raised to cathedrals, like Southwark Cathedral. Some significant churches are termed "temples" or "oratories". Among the Roman Catholic churches, many have been raised to the status of "basilica" since the 18th century.
aa06259810