World off art 8th edtion by henry m sayre chapter 14

WORLD OF ART
EIGHTH EDITION

CHAPTER

14

Architecture

World of Art, Eighth Edition
Henry M. Sayre

Copyright © 2016, 2013, 2010
by Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates.
All rights reserved.


Learning Objectives
1. Describe the relationship between
architecture and its environment.
2. Outline the architectural technologies
that predate the modern era.
3. Describe the technological advances
that have contributed to modern and
contemporary architecture.
4. Describe how the idea of community
serves as a driving force in architecture.


Introduction
• American architect I. M. Pei won the

commission for a plan to expand the
Louvre Museum.
 This resulted in the underground center
topped with a now-iconic glass pyramid.

• The "look" of buildings depends on two
factors: environment and technology
(materials and methods available to a
culture).


I. M. Pei, Glass Pyramid, Cour Napoléon, Louvre, Paris.
1983–89; in front of the 17th-century Denon wing of the museum. Pyramid height 69',
width 108'.
© Tibor Bognar/Corbis. [Fig. 14-1]


Environment
• A building's form may echo or contrast
the world around it, or respond to
climate.
• The significance of the pyramids of
Egypt may rely upon the image of the
god Re, symbolized by rays of sun
descending to the earth.


Pyramids of Menkaure, Khafre, and Khufu Pyramids of Menkaure (ca. 2470 BCE), Khafre
(ca. 2500 BCE), and Khufu (ca. 2530 BCE).
Original height of Pyramid of Khufu 480', length of each side at base 755'.

© Free Agents Limited/CORBIS. Photo: Dallas and John Heaton. [Fig. 14-2]


The Impact of Climate
1 of 2

• The View of Mulberry House and Street
shows slaves' houses, which featured
steeply pitched roofs in a style similar
to the thatched-roof houses found in
West Africa at the time.
 Since the climate was similar, it made
sense; the design allowed warm air to
rise in the interior so cool air could be
trapped beneath it.


Thomas Coram, View of Mulberry House and Street.
ca. 1800. Oil on paper. Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.
Carolina Art Association, 1968.18.0001. © Image courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of
Art/Carolina Art Association. [Fig. 14-3]


The Impact of Climate
2 of 2

• The Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde in
Colorado reflects the relationship of the
Anasazi people to their environment.
 The cave provided security.

 A kiva was a round, covered hole in the
center of the communal plaza where all
ceremonial life took place.
• It featured horizontally laid logs built up
to form a dome with an access hole.


Spruce Tree House, Mesa Verde.
ca. 1200–1300 CE. Courtyard formed by restoration of the roofs over two underground
kivas.
Photo: John Deeks/Photo Researchers, Inc. [Fig. 14-4]


Cribbed roof construction of a kiva. [Fig. 14-5]


"Green" Architecture
1 of 2

• Architects conscious of climate change
have created a more environmentally
friendly and sustainable practice known as
green architecture.
• Green architecture is characterized by
smaller buildings; integration and
compatibility with the surrounding
environment; energy efficiency and solar
orientation; and use of recycled, reusable,
and sustainable materials.

Obie Bowman, Brunsell Residence, Sea Ranch, California.
1987.
© Obie Bowman Architect. [Fig. 14-6]


Adam Kahn, Brockholes Visitor Center.
Lancashire Wildlife Trust reserve, Preston, UK, 2011.
© Ashley Cooper/Corbis. [Fig. 14-7]


"Green" Architecture
2 of 2

• The New York MoMA sponsored Rising
Currents: Projects for New York's
Waterfront in an effort to combat
effects of rising sea levels.
 Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang's New
Aqueous City explored buildings
accessed from above with bridges that
rise on vertical support structures.


[Fig. 14-]

Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang, nARCHITECTS, New Aqueous City.
2010. From Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront, a workshop-exhibition
sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 24–October 11, 2010.
Courtesy of nARCHITECTS. [Fig. 14-8]

Early Architectural Technologies
1 of 2

• Walls may employ one of two basic
structural systems.
 The shell system involves one basic
material providing both structural
support and outside covering.
 The skeleton-and-skin system
consists of a basic interior frame that
supports a fragile outer covering.


Early Architectural Technologies
2 of 2

• Walls of the lower floors must also
support the weight of upper floors.
• Tensile strength is the ability of a
building material to span horizontal
distances without support or buckling in
the middle.


Load-Bearing Construction
• Load-bearing walls bear the weight of
the roof.
 Structures are usually solid all the way

through.

• The Anasazi kiva is built from adobe
bricks with a roof of wood.
 Downward pressure exerted on wooden
beams by stones on top of them above
the outside wall counters buckling.


Post-and-Lintel Construction
1 of 5

• Post-and-lintel construction consists
of a horizontal beam supported at each
end by a vertical post or wall.
• The Lion Gate at Mycenae in Greece
features stones so large that ancient
Greeks believed it could have only been
built by mythological Cyclopes.


Lion Gate, Mycenae, Greece.
1250 BCE.
© Konstantinos Kontos/Photostock. [Fig. 14-9]


Post-and-Lintel Construction
2 of 5

• This type of construction is fundamental

to Greek architecture.
 Each column in the First Temple of Hera
is made of several pieces of stone called
drums.
 Grooves in the columns are called
fluting and run the vertically.
 Each column tapers slightly at the top
and bottom, known as entasis.


Post-and-Lintel Construction
3 of 5

• Greek temples were situated on an
elevated acropolis, the center of civic
life.
 Colonnades, or rows of columns, were
constructed according to the rules of
geometry, equality, and proportion.

• Three types of Greek columns are
Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian.


First Temple of Hera, Paestum, Italy.
ca. 550 BCE.
Canali Photobank, Milan, Italy. [Fig. 14-10]


Post-and-Lintel Construction

4 of 5

• The vertical elevation of the Greek
temple is composed of the platform,
the column, and the entablature.
 The relationship among these units is
called the order.

• The elevation of each order begins with
its floor, the stylobate.
• The column in the Doric order consists
of the shaft and the capital.