HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTURE: The design of buildings to meet the needs of the people who use them.
HISTORY : A systematic often chorological narrative of significant events as relating to a particular
people, country or period often including an expiation of their causes.
•Different parts of the world and periods in history have their own characteristic styles of
architecture.

Period
Place
Materials Climate
Tradition STYLE Activity of
the people
Culture
Logic / Hierarchy
Reasoning
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE:
•The earliest known form of ARCHITECTURE evolved from the interaction between the basic
survival needs and the available resources.
•Through the process of trial and error and gradual technological evolution and process with the
help of improvisation and replication, architecture took the form of a craft.
•Traces the changes in Design of various building types and functions, Structure, Construction
method and other architectural elements. Through various traditions, regions, stylistic trends
from the Primitive phase till the present day.
Stone age – human learning techniques and the development of hunting stone tools

shelter and protection : From variable extreme weather conditions, wild beasts and enemies.

CAVES : The oldest and most

common types of dwellings.
Natural underground spaces,
large enough for a human.

Architecture is imitation of nature Mammoth Bone dwellings

HUTS : frameworks
made of branches
that were thatched
with grass

Availability of Water Fragile tent Boundary wall Moat

•Three primitive types of human dwelling : CAVES, TENTS and
HUTS.

crannog
Tepee Wigwam Hogan Yurt

Igloo
Pit Dwelling

Kiva Trullo Pueblo

•Built self-sufficiently by their inhabitants rather than by specialist builders, using locally available
materials and traditional designs and methods which together are called vernacular architecture.
•Neolithic revolution, people moved from social systems based on hunting and gathering to much
more complex communities that depended on agriculture and domestication of animals. This led to
the rise of permanent settlements and eventually, urban civilizations.
OVAL HUT at NICE - TERRA AMATA
•Earliest remains of architecture are found in France. Dated to 300,000 years ago.
•These are huts made from posts, reinforced with stones.
•Built using stakes with stones as supports.
•8-15Mts in length and 4- 6Mts in width, with large central posts.
•Opening on one end. Built close to the water edge.
•Floor made of organic matter and ash.
•The interior included a working surface and hearth probably at the top an opening was left to let the
smoke out.
•The space inside each
hut had been organized
so that different
activities (preparing and
cooking food, tool
making, sleep, etc.)
should take place in
distinct zones, similarly
to modern dwellings.
•The hut was used by a
band of people for
limited hunting days.
•It is left to collapse after
use and new huts built
over by the next years
hunting season
MESOLITHIC PERIOD - Pre agricultural habits (Domestication)
•Transitional period from hunting- gathering techniques to primitive agriculture.
•Settlements began around water bodies.
•Fishing, cultivation of cereals and vegetables began.
•Animals were domesticated, farming tools were developed.
•Dwellings were more durable as compared to that in the Paleolithic age.

LEPINSKI VIR PIT HOUSES :

•The structure mainly comprised of •Shallow oval pits 6m-9m long and 2-5m wide.
bamboos. built in shallow pits 15 to 20 centimeters deep.
•Plans were trapezoidal in shape.
•The size varied from 5.5-30m. •Frameworks
•They had wide entrances facing the water made of
bodies (rivers). branches that
•Floors were plastered were thatched
with lime. with grass, and
•Posts were reinforced simple dirt floors
with stones. that contained
small hearths.
Lepinski vir
HUMAN SETTLEMENT : collection of man made structures erected with the intention of
habitation and socio-economic use, which forms a spatial unit for human interaction.

•Architecture was still mostly in the nature of crude fabrications of organic and impermanent
materials such as timber, straw, wattle and mud.

BUILDING MATERIALS
•Earliest form of building with earth was to dig or cut into it. – Pit House (China)
•Unbaked mud provided the most common building material.
•Cob technique - Mixing soil, water, straw, reeds & leaves into balls that can be stacked.
•But Neolithic settlements reveal a surprising
range, which two examples will illustrate.
•CATAL HUYUK
•JERICHO

NEOLITHIC PERIOD
•Many changes took place.
•Production of food.
•Developments in agriculture lead to settling
down.
•Dwellings became more sustainable.
•Houses were built with square / rectangular
plans, with sections divided with animal skins.
CATAL HUYUK
•Anatolian plains , present day Turkey. 6000.B.C.
•Utilitarian structure.
•A highly organized ‘City’ with specialized craft, and extensive
economy partly founded on trade, and elaborate agricultural
features, Including the first known religious shrine.
•Roughly rectangular in plan,
•Single storey high
•Walls were made of sun dried shaped mud bricks.
•Compact arrangement.
CATAL HUYUK
•The interior spaces were divided into a living and attached store room.
•The living space was designed with “Built in” benches along the walls and
floor hearth.
•Flat roof, total absence of openings, the entry and exit to the house was
through the opening in the roof.
•Movement from one house to another was through the roof.
•Houses were packed into continuous cellular structures.
•The houses had a plain solid blank wall to the outside.
•Successful settlement.
•Destroyed by floods from the near by river.
JERICHO, Palestine
•One of the first continuously used permanent settlements in the world.
•Pre-pottery community. Skilled in stone vessels.
•They made portrait head of ancestors by sensitively modeling plaster over the skulls of the
deceased.
•Architecture included – Most of them are round houses consist of a single room, but a few have
as many as three - suggesting the arrival of the social and economic distinctions which have been
a feature of all developed societies.
•Houses were sun-dried clay huts with mud plaster. They were often only 5Mts in length. They
were about 70 separate dwellings in the area.
•The settlement was enclosed with
powerful stone walls, with
defensive towers constructed with
surprising Technical skills
•Population could have been
between 2000 – 3000 people.
•Agriculture based community.

•More than shelter was a

monumental construction.
MEGALITHIC : Monumental Neolithic Construction •Vertical upright support
•Huge stone blocs assembled without mortar, merely leaning and a horizontal beam.
against one another. •This is still the most
significant structural
member.
•Utilitarian (purely functional requirement)
•Monumental (impression on people).
•POST and LINTEL
•Masonry of Sub megalithic small scale blocks - Corbelling
•Solid roof for space between the walls.
•Dome like ceiling.

MEGALITHIC STRUCTURES

TOMBS NON SEPULCHRAL FORMS

•Chamber tomb •Either single stones standing alone or in rows.
•Passage grave MENHIRS
•Gallery grave •Stone groups, often circular in plan
CROMLECHS or HENGE MONUMENTS
Chamber tomb : DOLMEN TOMBS

•Location - Carnac, Brittany

•Burial features – Single burial tomb.
•Two or more upright stones supporting a large horizontal
capstone. Held together by shear weight
•Remains of the deceased were placed in the chamber
formed by the massive blocks and the entire structure was
covered with a mound of earth material, called a Barrow.
•Post Lintel Method of construction.

Gallery Grave Passage Grave

•Elongated, rectangular chambers. •Polygonal chamber approached through
•No dedicated entrance passage. entrance passage.
•Mass Burial – frequently divided into subsidiary units •Mass burial.
•Covered by earth mound after burial. •Long passage leading to burial chambers
HENGE MONUMENT
•Circular arrangement of stones, usually in concentric rings.

STONE HENGE
•Concentric rings of stone, at the center was an ALTAR.
•Around it in Horseshoe plan, were originally 5 Trilithons (2 upright stone pillors supporting a colossal
lintel)
•Around was a circle of smaller upright stones – “Blue” Stone blocks, exported from mountains of
South Wales 200kms away.
•Outer enclosing circle 106’ in dia – sand stone monoliths (once continuously connected with lintels)
•Beyond this was a circle of small movable “markers” set in 56 equally spaces pits.
•The monument is isolated from the surrounding landscape by a trench.
•Long avenue marked by Menhirs. A tall isolated single stone pointed top “Heel stone” at the end of
the avenue.
•Most profound connection with nature – a powerful cult of sun worship.

SAND STONE MONOLITHS

BLUE STONES

TRILITHONS
ALTAR