Scribd Logo
Hochladen

Welcome to Scribd!

  • Prehistoric Architecture

    Uploaded by

    Gela
    4 views2 pages
    History of Architecture 1 #ARCHITECTURE GUIDE FOR ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS

    Original Title

    PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Report this Document
    History of Architecture 1 #ARCHITECTURE GUIDE FOR ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    4 views2 pages

    Prehistoric Architecture

    Uploaded by

    Gela
    History of Architecture 1 #ARCHITECTURE GUIDE FOR ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    When did Western architecture begin?

    Long before the magnificent structures of


    ancient Greece and Rome, humans were designing and constructing. The period
    known as the Classical Era grew from ideas and construction techniques that
    evolved centuries and eons apart in distant locations.
    This review illustrates how each new movement builds on the one before.
    Although our timeline lists dates related mostly to American architecture, historic
    periods do not start and stop at precise points on a map or a calendar. Periods
    and styles flow together, sometimes merging contradictory ideas, sometimes
    inventing new approaches, and often re-awakening and re-inventing older
    movements. Dates are always approximate—architecture is a fluid art.

    11,600 BCE to 3,500 BCE — Prehistoric Times

    Archaeologists "dig" prehistory. Göbekli Tepe in present day Turkey is a good


    example of archaeological architecture. Before recorded history, humans
    constructed earthen mounds, stone circles, megaliths, and structures that often
    puzzle modern-day archaeologists. Prehistoric architecture includes monumental
    structures such as Stonehenge, cliff dwellings in the Americas, and thatch and
    mud structures lost to time. The dawn of architecture is found in these structures.
    Prehistoric builders moved earth and stone into geometric forms, creating our
    earliest human-made formations. We don't know why primitive people began
    building geometric structures. Archaeologists can only guess that prehistoric
    people looked to the heavens to imitate the sun and the moon, using that circular
    shape in their creations of earth mounds and monolithic henges.
    Many fine examples of well-preserved prehistoric architecture are found in
    southern England. Stonehenge in Amesbury, United Kingdom is a well-known
    example of the prehistoric stone circle. The nearby Silbury Hill, also in Wiltshire,
    is the largest man-made, prehistoric earthen mound in Europe. At 30 meters high
    and 160 meters wide, the gravel mound is layers of soil, mud, and grass, with dug
    pits and tunnels of chalk and clay.1 Completed in the late Neolithic period,
    approximately 2,400 BCE, its architects were a Neolithic civilization in Britain.
    The prehistoric sites in southern Britain (Stonehenge, Avebury, and associated
    sites) are collectively a UNESCO World Heritage Site. "The design, position, and
    inter-relationship of the monuments and sites," according to UNESCO, "are
    evidence of a wealthy and highly organized prehistoric society able to impose its
    concepts on the environment." To some, the ability to change the environment is
    key for a structure to be called architecture. Prehistoric structures are sometimes
    considered the birth of architecture. If nothing else, primitive structures certainly
    raise the question, what is architecture?
    Why does the circle dominate man's earliest architecture? It is the shape of the
    sun and the moon, the first shape humans realized to be significant to their lives.
    The duo of architecture and geometry goes way back in time and may be the
    source of what humans find "beautiful" even today.

    You might also like