History of Architecture

Study Notes

A record of human effort to build beautifully, tracing the origin, growth, and decline of architectural styles across lands and ages.

Characterized by method and characteristics, manner of design prevailing at a certain place and time.

Structures built before written history, including early human shelters and monumental structures.
Periods of Prehistoric Architecture:
- Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age)
- Mesolithic Period (Middle Stone Age)
- Neolithic Period (New Stone Age)
- Bronze Age
- Iron Age

Materials used: natural materials like wood, stone, bone, and animal hides.
Shelters: caves and temporary huts.
Cultural Significance: Early human shelters reflect the nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gatherers.

Materials used: stone, mudbrick, wood, and thatch.
Types of Structures:
- Megalithic structures: menhirs, dolmens, stone circles
- Longhouses: large communal dwellings, typically elongated rectangular structures
Cultural Significance: Reflecting the transition from nomadic to settled agricultural communities.

As settlements became more permanent, hunters started farming communities, and new architecture was developed to represent communal and spiritual values.

Lascaux Cave (France, 13,000-8500 BCE): cave with wall paintings and engravings of Paleolithic humans.
Mammoth Bone Huts (Ukraine, 20,000-5,000 BCE): a winter settlement of Paleolithic hunters.
Pit house: semi-subterranean dwelling dug into the ground, supported by wooden posts.
Menhir (Brittany, France): a single structure consisting of an upright stone or aligned with others in parallel rows.
Kilclooney (County Donegal, Ireland): utilizes trabeation, with vertical supports called posts holding up horizontal elements called lintels.
Göbekli Tepe (Turkey): a Neolithic archaeological site with large circular structures containing massive stone pillars.
Stonehenge (England): a megalithic monument consisting of four concentric rings of trilithons and menhirs centered around an altar stone.
Jericho (Jordan): one of the world's oldest continually-inhabited cities, with stone houses, plaster floors, and high walls.
Khirokitia (Cyprus): the earliest Neolithic Village, with a complex architectural system built according to a preconceived plan, suggesting structured social organization.
Çatalhöyük (Turkey): the largest and most well-preserved Neolithic Village, with rectangular flat-roofed houses packed together into a single unit, with no streets or passageways.

Tipi: used by indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies in North America.
Beehive hut: some of the oldest known structures in Ireland and Scotland, dating back to 2000 BCE.
Trullo (Italy): traditional Apulian dry stone hut with a conical roof.
Wigman (North America): a type of house used mainly by Algonquian people.
Hogan (Ireland): stems from Irish roots and means "descendant of the young warrior."
Tumulus: a group of barrows dating to the Neolithic period.
Igloo: invented by the Inuit, a means for hunters to survive brutal winters in a vast area.