Unit Summary 1 - Foundations: Elements of Order

A single foundational theme emerges from early architectural history: ORDER.

The objects, buildings, spaces and places that have persisted through the ages are expressions of how we humans have tried to bring order to our lives and our afterlives. Both the Neolithic stone circles in Europe (Roth, pp. 171-176) and early dwellings of Asia Minor (Ching, pp.17-18, 34-37) demonstrate the need for an organized orientation to the cosmos. Structures and their openings were created to follow the predictable paths of the stars, planets, the sun and moon. Early civilizations looked outward to find meaning to their lives and this was no more clearly represented than through the pyramid tombs of Egypt (Ching, 64-73). Starting from below ground the leaders of Egypt were compelled to reach into the heavens with their architecture as they sought to understand and express the hierarchy of the living and how that order persisted even after death.

Moving progressively from the outer cosmos through the indeterminate spaces of faith and religion toward the individual early civilizations built solid and permanent reminders of how they viewed the world. Early Greek architecture is an example of how this ordering of faith is expressed in form. Temples large and small appeared on the landscape paying tribute the numerous god and goddesses of Greek religion. The order of importance for these gods was expressed by the size, intricacies, maintenance, and placement of these temples (Ching, 121-138). We also see the most prominent expression of bringing order to people and their faith in the layout Greek cities as they were intentionally planned and ordered in a grid pattern around the most prominent temples (Roth, 222-226).

As time passes and people begin to migrate, trade, and conquer the basic elements of building are seen across civilizations. The basic principle of bringing order remains as consistent as the architectural elements represented by circles, stacks, and groves and are repeated across the globe.  In the forms as they were built we see prototypes of circles in the Stupa of India (Ching, pp. 177-179) and the tombs in Mayan North America (Ching, pp. 186-188); stacks in Xianyang Palace in China (Ching, pp.148-150) and the pyramids of Teotihuacan in present day Mexico (Ching, pp. 225-228); and groves in the form of Egyptian (Roth, pp. 203-206), Greek (Ching, 121-129) and Roman columns (Roth pp. 264-271). While the fundamental forms of circles, stacks, and groves are pervasive their expression is always unique to the culture in which it is created (Hall, p. 3).

This compelling desire to bring order to our space and our lives has persisted over the centuries so that the forms used especially from ancient Greek and Roman Empires continue to be referenced and used in present-day architecture. Especially in public places like universities, government buildings, and community spaces the archetypes of the Roman column and the palace stacks of China are repeated. We, as humans, continue to find ways to bring order to our space. Because the foundational drive to create order is the same there is every reason to expect that the expression of that drive has changed so little.