Pangasinan State University

Urdaneta City Campus

Department of Architecture

History of Architecture
Quiz 1

1. Describe the Architectural character of Ancient Egypt, (25 points)

2. Enumerate 5 Egyptian Architecture examples. (25points)
3. Describe the Architectural character of Near East or the West Asiatic, (25 points)
4. Enumerate 5 Near East or West Asiatic Architecture examples. (25 points)

1.) ANCIENT EGYPT

- Egyptian Architecture

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE

• Afterlife - life and house on earth is temporary, the tombis permanent
• For sustenance and eternal enjoyment of the deceased
• Religion is the dominant element in Egyptian architecture

MATERIALS
• Stone was abundant in variety and quantity
• Used for monuments and religious buildings
• Durability of stone is why monuments still exist to this day
• Other materials, metals and timber were imported
• Mud bricks: for houses, palaces (reeds, papyrus, palmbranch ribs, plastered over with
clay)

ROOF & OPENINGS

• Roof was not an important consideration
• Flat roofs sufficed to cover and exclude heat
• No windows
• Spaces were lit by skylights, roof slits, clerestories
WALL
• Batter wall - diminishing in width towards the top forstability
• Thickness: 9 to 24m at temples
• Unbroken massive walls, uninterrupted space forhieroglyphics

DECORATIONS
• Mouldings such as "gorge" or "hollow and roll" wasinspired by reeds
• Torus moulding
• Hieroglyphics were pictorial representations of religion,history and daily life
• Derived from the practice of scratching pictures on mud-plaster walls
• Common capitals used were the lotus, papyrus, palmwhich echoed indigenous
Egyptian plants, and weresymbols of fertility as well
• The shaft represented bundle of stems

EXAMPLES OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE

Step Pyramid of Zoser, Saqqara

Pyramids at Gizeh
Great Temple of Abu-Simbel
Great Temple of Ammon, Karnak, Thebes
Temple of Khons

NEAR EAST OR THE WEST ASIATIC

NEAT EAST ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF NEAR EAST OR WEST ASIATIC

MATERIALS
• Only materials readily available was clay, soil, reeds,rushes
• Bricks made of mud and chopped straw, sun-dried orkiln-fired
• Timber, copper, tin, lead gold, silver imported

DECORATION
• Colossal winged-bulls guarding chief portals
• Polychrome glazed bricks in blue, white, yellow, green
• Murals of decorative continuous stone

EXAMPLES OF NEAR EAST ARCHITECTURE

Great Ziggurat at Ur
Apadana Palace
Palace of Sargon, Khorbad
City Of Babylon
White Temple Uruk