History of Architecture and culture - I

Unit 1 – Pre Historic Age

CULTURE: AN INTRODUCTION

Culture Derived from Latin – Cult or cultus

[ Cultivating or refining and

worship
]
In sum it means cultivating and refining a thing to such an
extent that its end product evokes our admiration and
respect.
What do we mean by culture ?

What comes into your mind when we say -

Tamilian Culture
Rajasthani Culture
Western Culture
Hindu Culture

Muslim Culture
So we understand culture consists of-

Dance form Art Food Festivals

Traditions Philosophies Religion way of
living Language Dress styles
• In very simple terms, we can say that culture is the
embodiment of the way in which we think and do
things. It is also the things that we have inherited
as members of society.

• However, culture also includes the customs,

traditions, festivals, ways of living and one’s
outlook on various issues of life.

• Culture thus refers to a human-made

environment which includes all the material and
nonmaterial products of group life that are
transmitted from one generation to the next.
• The essential core of culture thus lies in those
finer ideas which are transmitted within a group-
both historically derived as well as selected with
their attached value.

• Culture is the expression of our nature in our

modes of living and thinking. It may be seen in
our literature, in religious practices, in recreation
and enjoyment.
• Culture has two distinctive components, namely,
material and non-material.

MATERIAL NON- MATERIAL

Dress Ideals
Food Thoughts
goods Belief
Philosophies

• Culture varies from place to place and country to

country. Its development is based on the historical
process operating in a local, regional or national
context. In other words, the people of any country
are characterised by their distinctive cultural
traditions.
[ Culture Vs Civilization ]
What do we mean by civilization ?

‘Civilization’ means having better ways of living

and sometimes making nature bend to fulfil
their needs.

• It also includes organizing societies into politically

well-defined groups working collectively for improved
conditions of life in matters of food, dress,
communication, and so on.
 •Thus some groups consider themselves as
civilized and look down upon others. This
disposition of certain groups has even led to
wars and holocausts, resulting in mass
destruction of human beings No ..! I am a better
civilization

I am a better
civilization
Whereas Culture is -
‘Culture’ refers to the inner being, a refinement of
head and heart.
• Higher pursuits of human life which are also
classified as cultural activities.

I have money, I am better

better place to educated, I am an
live, latest artist, I am
gadgets and intellectual and a
facilities. I am better human
more civilized being. I am more
than you cultured than you.
What are the basic points of civilizations-
1. Cities - Population centres that are larger and more organised than
towns and villages.
2. Organised Governments – Governments which co-ordinate large
scale projects such as food production, construction, establishing laws
and defense systems.
3. Complex religions – Systems of beliefs which includes rituals and
worship of one or more gods/ goddesses.
4. Job Specialization – Different types of job in a society and one
individual focuses on only one type of job.
5. Social Classes – ranked groups within society that are determined
by jobs or economic standing.
6. Arts and architecture – Various types of both which expresses the
talents and beliefs of a people in a society.
7. Public Works – Large Scale projects which benefits the city and its
residents.
8. Writing – A structured writing systems used to record important
information.
The evolution of civilizations-
EVOLUTION OF WORLD CIVILIATION

Byzantine
Egyptian

Greek Roman Early Christian Romanesque Gothic Renaissance 18th-19th C: 20th C:

Revival Modern
Pre-Historic

Near East
Islamic

Indian Chinese & Japanese

The evolution of civilizations-
PRE HISTORIC ARCHITECTURE
 PALEOLITHIC
Old Stone Age 2 million years ago

MESOLITHIC
Middle Stone Age 20000 BC to 9500 BC

NEOLITHIC

New Stone Age 9000 BC – 4500 BC

PALEOLITHIC AGE
• The term was coined by
John Lubbock in 1865

• Greek word palaios

which means "old" and
lithos which means
"stone"

• People at this age who

inhabited the continents
of Europe, Asia, and
Africa
• They were nomads.

• Hunting and collecting

food for survival were
there basic functions

• They used stones for

hunting. Learned to
make tools and fire.
• Paleolithic Stone Age The time
between the end of most recent
period of glaciation and the
beginnings of agriculture.

• Paleolithic art appears to have

taken three principal forms:
o Portable sculptures of women and
animals,
o Paintings on the walls and ceiling
of caves and
o The decoration of artifacts with
geometric designs.
 Paleolithic Age Tools

•To hunt for food, early

humans formed spears

•First by sharpening the ends

of sticks, but later by attaching
a sharp stone spear-tip to
wood using animal is new.
Paleolithic Culture
• Living in groups.
• Collective hunting.
• No specific form of
worship.
 Paleolithic Art

•Tools were made for a wide

range of purpose and art
continued to develop.

•Cave paintings representing

the life of Paleolithic age and
their hunting techniques.

Lascaux is a complex of caves in

southwestern France famous for its
Paleolithic cave paintings.
The Lascaux Caves, a cave complex in southwestern France,
contain some of the most remarkable Paleolithic cave paintings
in the world. Known as "the prehistoric Sistine Chapel," the
Lascaux paintings are at least 15,000 years old.
Depiction of Paleolithic gatherer making
cave painting, Europe 10000 BC .

BISON at salon Della Grotta in France

13000-11000 BC
PALEOLITHIC AGES

Division of Labor
-Men hunting game animals
-Women gathering fruits, berries, and
other edibles.
Developed simple tools
-Spears & axes made from bone & stone

Spirituality and Religion may have begun

to develop

Nomadic hunters and food gatherers

ART FORMS AND EVOLUTION OF SHELTER
This was the type of
architecture invented
by the primeval man
to get shelter and
protection :

•From variable
extreme weather
conditions.
•From wild beasts and
enemies.
 PALEOLITHIC DWELLINGS
Structures created in wood and stone.
• Fire used on paved hearths.
• No buildings for any special purposes
but dwellings.

CAVES
The oldest and most common types of
dwellings.
•Natural underground spaces, large enough
for a human.
•Example: Rock shelters, Grottos, Sea
caves.
HUTS
Located in southern French cities.

•Oval in shape(8m-15m X 4m-6m).

•Built close to sea shores.
•Built using stakes with stones as
supports.
•Stout posts along axis.
•Floor made of organic matter and
ash.
MOLODOVA

A more sophisticated sought.

•Wood framework covered

with skins, held in place by
rough oval mammoth bones,
enclosing 15 hearths.

MEZHIRICH
•Consisted of foundation wall
of mammoth jaws and long
bones, capped with skulls.
•Roofed with tree branches,
overlaid by tusks.
LEANTOS
•Erected against one wall of cave.
•Defined at base by stones(12m x 4m).
•Skin curtain and roof draped over posts.
•May have two compartments, each having
an entrance on the longer side.

TENTS
Skirts weighed down with pebbles.
•Paved interiors.
•Open air hearths.
•Wooden posts driven into earth
covered with skins.
•At a later stage, were secured by
reindeer antlers.
 MESOLITHIC DWELLINGS
HUTS
Villages arranged systematically.
The structure mainly comprised of
•Houses aligned in rows.
bamboos.
•More regular plans.
•Plans were trapezoidal in shape.
•Artifacts came into existence.
•The size varied from 5.5-30m.
•Settlements began around water
•They had wide entrances facing
bodies.
the water bodies (rivers).
•Fishing, cultivation of cereals and
•Floors were plastered with lime.
vegetables began. •Posts were reinforced with stones.
•Animals were domesticated,
farming tools were developed.
•Dwellings were more durable as
compared to that in the Paleolithic
age.
PIT HOUSES

•More common in eastern Europe

with severely low temperatures.
•Oval trapezoidal, pear shaped
size(5m-8m x2.5m-3.5m).

•Central post holes indicating

existence of roof.
•Constructed by making shallow
depressions in the ground
surrounded by a ring of mammoth
bones and tusks.
 NEOLITHIC CULTURE
• Neolithic or New Stone Age (c. 6800-2500 BC) that is the
period from the beginnings of agriculture to the widespread
use of metal tools; the Bronze Age (c. 2500-1250 BC); and the
Iron Age (c.1250 BC to AD 1).
 NEOLITHIC CULTURE
•It was characterized by • This is the final stage of cultural
stone tools shaped by evolution or technological development
polishing or grinding, among prehistoric humans.
dependence on
domesticated plants or
animals, settlement in
permanent villages, and the
appearance of such crafts as
pottery and weaving.
New Stone Age is most
frequently used in connection
with agriculture which is the
time when cereal cultivation
and animal domestication was
introduced.

Because agriculture developed

at different times in different
regions of the world, there is no
single date for the beginning of
the Neolithic.
NEOLITHIC AGES
10,000 BCE:
•Humans cultivate crops and domesticate
animals
•Villages continued to divide work
between men and women
•Women's status declined men took lead
in most areas of early societies
 NEOLITHIC DWELLINGS

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.
TIMBER FRAMED HOUSES
•Square plans:25’ x25’
•Mud walls with 3’ deep footings.
•These were more durable as
compared to the earlier ones.
•Pitched and thatched roofs with
overhanging caves.
•Interiors raised, plastered with
sunken hearths.

Rectangular plans(20’ x26’-150’).

•Oak posts made the framework
covered with clay.
•Floors were defined with layers of
clay over a base of logs.
•It consisted of 3 types of plans:
TRIPARTITE:
•Entrance facing the east.
•Central part being the living room.
•The third part containing deep storage
area.

BIPARTITE:
•Entrance
•Living room combined with storage.

SINGLE BAY HOUSES:

•Having living rooms only.
DOME SHAPED HOUSES

•Cul a Bhail, was found on Jura, an

island off the west coast of Scotland.

•The tholoi on Cyprus had stone

foundations and mud brick domes,
and in Mesopotamia they were made
from mud brick.

•The mud brick was plastered over

with adobe, while this house was
made of stone, wood and thatch but
the basic idea is the same.
DRY STONE HOUSES
Stone built houses with 3m
thick cavity walls.

•Inner, outer caves were

made of dry stones and the
interiors were covered with REMAINS OF SKARA BRAE
domestic refuse.

•Rectangular plan with

circular corners.

•Thatched roofs with a

smoke hole at the top
positioned over central
hearth.
EVOLUTION OF TOMBS IN NEOLITHIC PERIOD
DOLMENS are Two or more stones supporting a
large one at the top.
•Burial features.
•Settlements lead to building of monumental
stone architecture.
•These were mainly collective tombs.
• PASSAGE GRAVES
• GALLERY GRAVES
 PASSAGE GRAVES
Covering mound (38m x32m) surrounded
by wide space with wide ditch beyond.
•Entrance passage 1m wide and 1.5m
high. burial chamber(5sqm)
•Smooth walls built with rectangular
blocks and fine joints.
•Three cells at three sides of the
chamber. Built mainly with mason walls
and corbelled roof.
Corbeled vault of the main chamber
in the passage grave, New grange,
Ireland, ca. 3200-2500 BCE
BURIAL MOUND
Single grave burials.
•Variable forms in exterior
and interior forms and
arrangements and groupings.
•In their simplest form,
barrows consisted of earth or
stone.
•Others were timber
mortuary houses or stone
cists.
EARTHEN LONG BARROWS
A long barrow is a prehistoric monument usually dating to the
early Neolithic period.
•They are rectangular or trapezoidal tumuli or earth mounds
traditionally interpreted as collective tombs.
•Long barrows are also typical for several Celtic, Slavic, and Baltic
cultures of Northern Europe of the 1st millennium AD.

Gussage Down in the Cranborne Chase area of

Dorset, U.K.
STONE HENGE (3100-2000 BC) Wiltshire, England
•Circle is 97’ in diameter; trilithons 24’ high.
•The circles of trilithons at Stonehenge probably functioned as an
astronomical observatory and solar calendar.
•The sun rises over its “heel stone” at the summer solstice. Some
of the megaliths weigh 50 tons.
•Post and lintel construction
•Megaliths are 21 to 24 feet tall, including height of lintel, and buried
four feet in the ground
•Solar and lunar orientation
•Stones dragged from far away to this site
•Circle of megaliths embrace structure, enclosing it
•Inside circle of megaliths is a larger horseshoe-shaped group of
megaliths which frame an “Altar Stone”
•Horseshoe-shaped stones face midsummer sunrise over “Heel Stone”
•“Altar Stone” is a green sandstone taken from a mine in Wales, over
200 miles away
•Heaviest stones 50 tons apiece, hauled by sledges (sleds)
•Tools for building: ropes, levers, rollers, axes
•Each stone had clearly
been worked with the
final visual effect in
mind; the pillars widen
slightly towards the top,
in order that their
perspective remains
constant when viewed
from the ground.
•The lintel stones curve
slightly to continue the
circular appearance of
the earlier monument.
•The inward-facing
surfaces of the stones
are smoother and more
finely worked than the
outer surfaces.
The lintels (horizontal monoliths) were fitted
to one another using a woodworking
method, the “tongue-and-groove joint”
bluestones

Open end
Facing East

Sarsen Lintels
stones
SETTLEMENT DEVELOPMENT
• Natufian dwellings were
two types flimsy brush
wood shelters or
windbreaks built in front
of caves on stone
pavements or more
frequently circular or
oval dry stone huts built
in open settlements
near water sources in
the limestone uplands.
• The transition to
rectangular mud bricks
began in this period and
continued into the
Neolithic period.
•At Ain Mallaha near Lake Hulen,
Israel (9000-8000 BC) there were
about 50 dry-stone huts on an open
site of 2000 Sqm.
•They are circular, semi
subterranean and rock-lined, from
3m to 9m Dia.
• The beehive forms were
constructed of reeds or matting and
were probably supported on posts.
• The huts were dug into the bank on the upper side to a depth of
1.3m, and the entrance were located on the lower side.
• The huts had stone paved floors, and wall finished with lime plaster
painted with red orche.
• Similar kind of huts were found at Wadi Fallah, Nahal Oren & Beidha.
• The Khirokitia culture of the
aceramic, Neolithic period in Cyprus
(c. 5650 BC)
• This comprised about a thousand
houses and approached by stone
paved road.
• The houses are Circular 3m to 8m in
diameter, lower parts of the walls
were made of local lime stone and
dome superstructure of pise or
mud brick.
• Some houses had double walls the
outer leaf acts as a retaining wall.
• Lofts supported on stone pillars and
number of outbuildings used for
grinding corn, storage, cooking and
workshops.
• Beehive shaped tholoi were built in Mesopotamian lowlands during the
Neolithic period at Arpachiyah (c.5000 BC)
• Dwellings which are keyhole shaped plan had walls up to 2m thick.
• Rectangular anteroom were up to 19m long and dome chamber upto 10m
across.
• The walls were of plastered tauf occasionally painted red and roof were
thatched.
CATAL HUYUK
•Occupied between 6300 BC to 5400 BC
•Supported a population of upto 6000 people.
•It was the largest & most cosmopolitan city of its time.
•It had an extensive economy
based on specialized craft &
commerce.
•The city was a trading center.
•The size of the city & its wealth
are a product of its status as a
trading center.
•Physically it was highly organized
with elaborate architectural
features.
•Houses were packed in one
continuous block punctuated by
courtyards.
•Houses were of one story mud
construction.
•No streets in settlement and
access to houses was through the
roof.
CATAL HUYUK- SHRINES & DWELLINGS
•Many Houses have cult rooms
decorated with bull heads
•Some Houses appear to be shrines
for worship.
•Houses had main rooms with in
built clay furniture, fire places and
ladder to the roof.
• Houses of Imiris Gora (c. 4660 – 3955 BC) in Transcaucasia were round or
oval, 3m to 4.5m in diameter and were built of mud brick on stone
foundation
• As in Natufian dwellings many were semi subterranean.
• Several of the houses had keyhole shaped plan, with internal buttresses to
take the thrust where the domes abutted, and others had out houses
arranged round courtyards.
• Latterly two roomed houses evolved with buttressed walls and flat roofs
supported on timber posts.
• The village had a population estimated at 200 – 250.
• In Jericho (c. 8350 – 7350 BC) of lowest Neolithic levels many round
and oval shaped houses spreading over 4 ha (10 acres) were found.
• Each house of about 5m in diameter have evolved from Natufian
drystone tradition, but they were built of loaf-shaped mud bricks with
indentation on the convex face to give a key to the clay mortar.
• The bricks supported domed superstructure of branches covered
with clay.
•The houses are pre pottery Neolithic township encircled by a stone
wall 3m thick, 4m high and over 700m in circumference.
•The houses with solid walls and wide doorways with rounded jambs.
•Closely packed but seem to have intercommunication through screen
walls and courtyards.
•They had highly burnished lime plaster floors laid on gravel and
stained red, pink and orange, and plastered walls with red painted
dados.
•Some of the walls were also decorated with geometric designs
• Tell Ramad at Syria(c.
6000 BC) south west of
Damascus, round or oval
semi subterranean house
were superseded late in
Neolithic period.
• Rectangular one roomed
houses of mud brick on
stone foundation which
were separated by narrow
alleys.
•In the aceramic Neolithic period at Hacilar (c.
7500 – 6000 BC) in Anatolia, rectangular dwelling
were built of mud brick on stone foundation .
•No complete house plans have survived, but they
appear to have been multi roomed, plastered
internally and painted in cream and red bands.
•Later in the period at Hacilar (c. 5400 BC)
more substantial rectangular mud brick houses
10 m x 4 m were built with walls over a meter
thick.
•In its final stage (c. 5400 – 5000 BC) Hacilar was fortified with a stone
wall, which enclosed an area 70 m x 35 m.
•Its central courtyard was ringed by blocks of two storey houses, with
roof access and separated from each other by small fenced yards.
• Jarmo (IRAQ)(c. 7090 -
5000 BC) in the Zagros
Mountains had a
population about 150
people and was made
up of 20-30 small,
rectangular mud
houses.

• The lower levels of

0ccupation dating from
6500 – 6000 BC were
built of tauf with mud
floor laid on reeds.
• Each house had an open courtyard measuring roughly 3 m x
4m and comprised several small rectangular rooms, packed into a
space about 5 m x 6 m.