Architecture History, Theory and Preservation

Prehistory to the Middle Ages

Arleen Pabón-Charneco

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429805790
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Architecture History, Theory and Preservation critically explores the historic development, theoretical underpinnings and conservation practices of architecture. Complete with 170 full color images, this volume presents architectural and urban examples, from Prehistory to the Middle Ages, chronologically and thematically examining contextual issues that provide each period with distinctive expressions. The special features, structural systems, materials and construction technologies are analyzed, as well as how the international community deals with the task of interpreting and preserving certain historicproperties.

This publication provides professors and students of architecture, art history, historic preservation and related fields withan integrated view of architecture using historical, theoretical and conservation perspectives. As an architect, architectural historian and preservationist herself, Dr Pabón-Charneco weaves a field of relationships regarding each building, creating a silent yet empowering bridge between past and present.

1 A Fixed Place Under the Sky

The Invention of Architecture

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, author of the oldest preserved architectural treatise (De architectura, 1st century BC), describes architecture as a fixed place under the sky. Indispensable to dwelling, its discovery took place during the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age), an era shrouded in mystery, separated from the present by a time chasm of gigantic proportions. Despite the vast quantities of unknowns festooning the period, archaeological studies have established that both stone tools and the fine arts – architecture, painting and sculpture – were invented at the time. While it was assumed that pictorial and sculptural expressions were produced first, relatively recent discoveries in France have proven otherwise. The interpretation of architecture’s origins is a multifaceted and complex enterprise requiring an intricate intersection of knowledge from varied fields. Multiple excavations and cross-referential academic interpretations reveal that the earliest examples are associated with European cave systems. It was within these natural shelters that hominoids first engaged in formal dwelling activities. Whittled by the forces of nature, the locales provided ready-made protection from the climate and animals.

Most of those who sought refuge in the mountainous cavities were hunter-gatherers, constantly on the move in search of food. Evidence found at the archeological sites of Atapuerca in Burgos and El Castillo Caves in Puente Viesgo, Spain, among others, substantiates that, for millennia, life took place at the entrances framed by protective outcrops. It is documented that as one group moved out, others took their place. According to mainstream scientific interpretations, hominoids from Africa settled in Europe before Asia and America. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the first architectural artifacts are European, a reality that impacts artistic production and its elucidation. Since innovation in architecture is highly appreciated, the first of a kind garners attention and accolades. Because Asian and American Paleolithic examples have a later date, at times they command less attention. This is a prejudiced perspective that needs to be taken into consideration as examples around the globe are studied.

Paintings or pictographs, rock manipulations and sculptural pieces found inside the caves evidence that the dark and mysterious interiors were associated with exceptional activities. Entrances, in turn, seem to have been reserved for everyday living. This functional segregation of areas and the complicated passage through shadowy interiors that, on occasion, include creeks, imbue these artistic works with special significance.

Figure 1.1 Göbeklitepe, Sanliurfa, Turkey

As mentioned, for decades the artifacts found in cavernous interiors supported the notion that the first arts invented were painting and sculpture. The assumption seems logical since architecture is a multifaceted endeavor of utmost complexity. Although it is possible to individually engage in the activity, more often than not, its inherent intricacy demands the collaborative effort of several individuals who share an interest in a particular three-dimensional conclusion. While a solitary person may paint a surface or sculpt a bone or a pebble, lifting large rocks to construct an architectural artifact demands more effort. In fact, at times, the physical energy and intricacy needed required working partners be sought from neighboring tribes. Evidence found at Göbeklitepe, a Neolithic site in Sanliurfa, Turkey (10th–8th millennia BC), reveals that several clans worked together in order to successfully complete the approximately twenty circular structures that organize the precinct. The earliest sections depict some of the oldest stone constructions in the world and include about 200 pillars measuring approximately 20 feet high and weighing up to 10 tons. Fitted into holes carved in the bedrock, the function of the posts still eludes experts. One thing is obvious: the structures represented something extremely important for groups to collaborate in their formation. Because of the gargantuan work necessary to fashion such a site, it is not surprising that it is interpreted as the first formal temple in history. Historic evidence demonstrates architectural artifacts dedicated to deities have always merited much attention.

The notion that architecture was the last fine art to be invented imploded in 1990 when an arrangement of structures was found 1,102 feet deep inside a French cave close to the village of Bruniquel. Two annular or ring-like constructions, measuring approximately 1 foot high and with diameters varying between 22 feet and 15 feet (the first one) and 7 feet wide (the smaller version), were found nestled in the darkness. Additionally, four accumulation structures used for fires are sited in close proximity. All six are made from one to four superimposed layers of speleofacts determined to be stalagmite sections that have no root or top or easily determined provenance. These natural calcium forms were segmented into stone “blocks” of approximately the same size used to build the structures. While most are laid horizontally, one on top of the other, others are placed vertically to provide structural support. This difficult to make and time-consuming precinct is approximately 176,000 years old, predating the earliest paintings known from the Lubang Jeriji Saléh Cave in East Kalimantan, Borneo, and the El Castillo Caves in Puente Viesgo, Spain, both dated to the 38th millennium BC.

At Bruniquel, stalagmite sections are organized into three-dimensional geometric patterns that separate a section of space transforming it into place, a conversion considered architecture’s paradigmatic role. This relationship may be represented in the following diagrammatic manner.

Scholars have established that space represents freedom while place epitomizes security (Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place The Perspective of Experience, 1977). Although reliant on place, which makes dwelling activities possible, humans constantly yearn for the other, paradigmatically represented by nature. Limitless space is unable to provide shelter and, therefore, dwelling. In spite of this limitation, both space and place are needed in order to achieve a balanced and contented existence. Although hominoids appropriated caves for their use millennia before the structures at Bruniquel Cave were constructed, as of today, deliberate conversion of space into place first took place in the French cavern. This adaptation was achieved by means of the three-dimensional structures that intimately relate to the cave’s configuration, as well as to a particular use. In the French cavern, space is transformed into place by means of architecture.

At Bruniquel, structures are erected near the middle of the long cavern, in an appropriate place for an arrangement of such a size, a functional specificity also found at the El Castillo Caves. In this locale, black and red linear arrangements of squares and dots are principally found along long passageways while clusters of stenciled human hands are massed in alcove-like chambers. A relatively common representation, another example of stenciled hands adapted to rock formations is found in the Cueva de las Manos in Santa Cruz, Argentina (c 11th–7th millennia BC). These and similar examples around the world indicate a universal interest in adapting the expressions, be they architectural or pictorial, to specific three-dimensional contexts.

Regardless of locale or intention, the creators of the above-mentioned architectural and pictorial artifacts were capable of representation, the competence of giving physical shape to ideas.

An essential human competency, representation allows humans to create three-dimensional symbols capable of embodying life’s situations. As such, architecture is able to concretize intangibles, such as feelings and emotions. Some architectural concretizations of human needs are listed below.

INTANGIBLE ESSENTIALS	ARCHITECTURAL CONCRETIZATIONS
TO BE HEALTHY	HOSPITAL, CLINIC…
TO FEEL SAFE	HOME, JAIL…
TO DEVELOP OUR INTELLECT	SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY…
TO LOVE, BE LOVED AND ACCEPTED	CHURCH, HOME…
TO BE HAPPY	PARK, MALL…
TO CONNECT WITH OUR SPIRITUALITY	TEMPLE…
TO MARK DEATH	TOMB…

The different architectural typologies provide three-dimensional shapes to humans’ most relevant needs, creating the three-dimensional talismans required to exist both physically and spiritually.

An essential tool in the formation of architecture, as well as the other fine arts, until recently it was assumed representation was an exclusive Homo sapiens sapiens aptitude. As a result, the invention of art was attributed to this hominid. Experts date the expressions found at Bruniquel and El Castillo Caves to the time of the Homo Neanderthal, a predecessor and probable contemporary of our species. If the uranium-thorium dating provided by scholars is correct, the first artifacts classifiable as architecture and painting need to be credited to a different species than our own. Although by no means a settled issue, Homo sapiens shared the Neanderthal aptitude for representation, as well as this hominoid’s interest in construction and aesthetics.

Figure 1.2 Replica of Altamira Cave, Santander, Spain

At the Altamira Cave in Santander, Spain (36th–12th millennia BC), rock outcrops were creatively reinterpreted and painted to represent bison, hinds and horses in a poetic effort to depict the life of the animals. As you enter the cave, one by one, the images appear floating in the uncertain beam of the artificial light required to see them. As the visitor reaches the end of the cave and turns around towards the entrance, a series of manipulated rock formations provide an eerie finale, framing the collection of paintings and the cavern’s only opening. The arrangement strongly suggests that the interior was interpreted in a holistic manner, as one entity, a silent text that although partly illegible at the present time, still has the power to mystify and move us.

Experts construe that the paintings found at the Lascaux Cave in Montignac, France (c 18th–16th millennia BC), also form a text merging painted as well as natural and manipulated rock formations. Drawn at different times, scholars believe that meaning was conceived as the product of all the images and not each in isolation as thought for decades. Visible for miles around when foliage was sparser, the Abri du Cap Blanc, a few kilometers outside Eyzies-de-Tayac in France, was planned 15,000 years ago. The approximately 40 feet long, 3 feet high frieze depicts a parade of animals that includes horses, bison and an ibex, carved in an open rocky outcrop. (The site is now inside a small museum constructed to protect the carvings.) Because of the size and height of the particular rock formation into which the animal band is sculpted, experts believe the figures decorating the Abri du Cap Blanc would have been visible for miles around. This reality underscores the possibility that the site’s meaning was understood by many. The female buried under the figurative strip further validates this idea. Her intricately woven shell head cap and necklace suggest she was a respected and honored person. (The bones of the so-called Magdalenian Girl or Magdalenian Woman are found at present in the Chicago Natural Museum in Illinois.) These and similar willful appropriations and transformations of the natural environment reveal complex design strategies leading to the first experimentations in the creation of place by means of three-dimensio...