Early civilizations

The earliest structures were dwellings, burial sites, and temples that were built with whatever materials were available in prehistoric times. Eventually people began to live in large groups and form communities. As they did so their buildings became more elaborate. The great pyramids of ancient Egyptians were tombs for their leaders, whom they worshipped as gods. The pyramids, as well as their temples, were built of heavy stones. The temples were mysterious places, and Egyptian architecture was intended to be impressive and solemn.

A different kind of architecture grew up in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in western Asia. Among the huge buildings made with brick were artificial mounds, called ziggurats, which had temples at the top. The ziggurats were several stories high, and there were sloping ramps on the outside to provide a way to the top.

Many of the early civilizations were empires, founded on military conquest. People grew richer and society grew stronger by capturing more and more lands. These great empires also fought and traded with each other, and people even made their way, despite the hard journey, between western Asia and India and China, where other kinds of architecture could be seen.

The traditional architecture of China has remained the same for centuries. It has reflected the deep feeling of the Chinese people for the harmony and order in the world of nature. Religion and philosophy were important influences, particularly on the development of the pagoda, a tower stretching towards heaven. Temples and houses are built chiefly of wood and decorated with tiles. The pagoda derives from the stupa of ancient India, which was a dome-shaped commemorative monument, usually erected over the remains or relics of a holy man or king.

Greece

Architectural ideas also spread from Egypt, across the Mediterranean, to Greece. By the 5th century BC great writers and philosophers were working in Athens and great artists and sculptors were decorating the city. Architecture was beautiful and elegant. Architects still used the same simple structures, of flat beams supported on columns, as the Egyptians did, but they had learned to design them more simply.

They placed a special emphasis on the design of temples, to honor their many gods and goddesses. A Greek temple consisted of a room where there was a statue of the god or goddess. Behind this there was another, smaller room called the treasury, and these two rooms made the temple an oblong shape. There was a large porch called a portico all the way across the building at both ends. The whole temple was surrounded by columns that supported the roof. Temples were built on stone platforms rising up in steps. One of the best representatives is the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens.

The Greeks developed several styles, or orders, that are defined by the type of columns they use as a basic unit. A column consists of a shaft together with its base and its top, or capital. The main orders were Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. With modifications these were adopted by the Romans in the 1st century BC and have been used ever since in Western architecture.

Roman styles

The Romans used round arches and other structural methods that allowed them to build enormous public buildings. One of the most famous structures from this period is the Flavian amphitheater, known as the Colosseum, which was built in about AD 70 for gladiatorial displays.

During this period the Christian religion was established and began to take hold in Rome. Although the early Christians were mistreated, in 313 the Roman emperor Constantine the Great issued an order that made it lawful to be a Christian. Many of the pagan temples were later altered to become churches. In time the shape of the Roman basilica became the most common shape for new Christian churches all over Europe. (See also Christianity.)

Middle Ages

In 330, Constantine moved the capital of the empire from Rome to Byzantium (now Istanbul). His empire became the Byzantine Empire, and the church there eventually split from the western church to become the Eastern Orthodox church. A special style of building grew up as well that was influenced by the religion. Domes, often placed on top of square rather than round buildings, are the most obvious part of Byzantine architecture. The most famous building in this style is the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, completed in 537. As Christianity spread to Greece, eastern Europe, and Russia, domed churches were built there, too. (See also Byzantine Empire.)

The Roman Empire came to an end in the 5th century AD. The period that followed was known as the Middle Ages, and during this period the western Christian church, which became known as the Roman Catholic church, became one of the most powerful influences in western Europe. As Christianity spread throughout Europe many churches were built. In the 10th and 11th centuries, some of these copied the style of the Romans and used their round arches. This style is therefore known as Romanesque. Surviving Romanesque churches can be seen in France, northern Spain, and Italy. Another form of architecture that developed during this period was the castle. Many such structures were built throughout Europe.

In the Middle East another new religion, Islam, developed during this same period. The religion soon spread beyond the region to northern Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and parts of Europe. Islam became an entire way of life, and architecture became the most important expression of Islamic art. This is especially true of the many mosques, or places of worship. Among the earliest monuments are the famous Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (finished in 691) and the 8th-century Al Aksa mosque also in Jerusalem. Two masterpieces of Islamic architecture in Spain are the Alhambra Palace at Granada and the Great Mosque of Córdoba.

Turkey has many mosques. The Turkish architects accomplished symmetry by means of one large dome, four semidomes, and four small domes among them. In the Indian subcontinent, Muslim architecture came to include Hindu, Persian, and Islamic elements. The most famous example of Muslim architecture in India is the Taj Mahal, a tomb built for the wife of the ruler Shah Jahan in the early 1600s. (See also Islam.)

The gothic period

About the year 1200, for the first time since the end of the Roman Empire, cities once again began to grow. This time, their wealth was based not on conquest and slavery, but on banking and trade. They were now run not by emperors, and not so much by the church, but by wealthy merchants. Architecture too began to change, and the great churches in the cities became symbols of the new age.

The pointed arch was introduced in place of the round one. New techniques allowed for thinner walls with large windows. This enabled the interiors to be much taller. The windows were filled with stained glass depicting biblical scenes and saints. These figures, in deep red and blue colors, glowed as daylight beamed through. The glass was held in place by thin stone arches and also by stone ribs built across the windows. This style came to be known as gothic. It originated in France but spread to England and elsewhere.

The Renaissance

The gothic style did not become as established in Italy, however. There a new tradition began in the early 15th century. This period was known as the Renaissance. It saw extensive activity in painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature.

In architecture there was a revival of classical Greek and Roman styles. Buildings and bridges featured columns and round arches, tunnel vaults, and domes. Among the famous Italian Renaissance architects were Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Bramante, Michelangelo, and Andrea Palladio. Alberti and Palladio both studied the writings of the Roman architect Vitruvius and wrote their own influential books. Alberti's De re aedificatoria (Ten Books on Architecture), published in 1485, stressed the need for harmony and order in architecture. The Renaissance style spread from Italy to the rest of Europe.

In England the style was introduced in the early 1600s by Inigo Jones, who was one of the first people in England to be considered an architect rather than just a builder. He was greatly influenced by Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura (1570; Four Books of Architecture), and the style he created is known as Palladian.

The baroque period

Baroque art dominated southern Europe from the early 17th century to the mid-18th century. It emphasized the dramatic and the imaginary with vivid colors, hidden light sources, and luxurious materials. Architecture, painting, and sculpture were combined in decorative groupings. Ceilings of baroque churches and palaces, for example, were covered in richly painted scenes.

Unlike Renaissance buildings, which were designed to stand alone and be seen equally from all sides, baroque buildings had a main viewpoint. A baroque building was also often part of an ensemble that included all the buildings on a square facing it as well as the approaching streets and the surrounding landscape.

In France and England the baroque was more subdued and was often mixed with the classical style. In the 1660s King Louis XIV of France set a team to work on an ensemble in Versailles. Huge expanses of formal gardens on one side and three monumental avenues on the other led to a vast palace. The building is classical in design but baroque in its vast size and elaborate decorations. Versailles became the model for building palaces throughout Europe and the Americas.

After a major fire destroyed much of London in 1666 Christopher Wren was given the job of rebuilding much of the city. He designed some 50 churches, including St. Paul's Cathedral, which features both classical and baroque elements.

Neoclassicism

In the 18th century some artists reacted against the baroque style by returning to a more classical style. This new classicism, or neoclassicism, was also influenced by the discovery and exploration of sites from ancient Greece and Rome, including the city of Pompeii. In England the ancient form of the Roman villa was adapted to suburban and country houses. This return to other forms included an interest in exotic forms from the East, as well as from Gothic architecture.

In the 19th century Gothic revival churches were built throughout England and the United States, ranging from the richly decorated Church of All Saints in London, to modest wood and stone churches in the rural United States.

Architects also began to use classical forms in more decorative and pictorial ways. The rich decorations of Charles Garnier's Paris Opéra (1861–75) reflected the prosperity of contemporary society. In the United States the Renaissance and baroque became favored styles for houses, buildings, and public institutions.

Modern developments

With the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century architects began to doubt the relevance of ancient forms in modern society. Factories, mills, and warehouses demanded spaces that were unobstructed by big vertical supports. These structures were made possible by the development of new technology and materials—particularly cast iron, wrought iron, and steel.

In the cities growing population and increasing land values made it necessary to put tall buildings on small lots. This was difficult to do using the standard building practices of the time, however, because the walls had to support the whole building. As buildings got taller the walls had to become stronger. In 1885 William Le Baron Jenney designed the Home Insurance Company Building in Chicago, Illinois. It was the first building in which the exterior walls were entirely supported on an internal steel frame. This allowed buildings to be much taller and led to the skyscraper age. The American innovations were soon adapted in Europe.

One of the most influential architects of the skyscraper was Louis Sullivan, who was based in Chicago. He sought a new style of architecture that he called organic, in which the buildings would reflect the social and physical environment in which they were built. He used ornamentation based on natural forms, such as flowers and trees, on many of his buildings. At the end of the 19th century other architects shared some of these same ideas. They were part of an art movement known as art nouveau. These architects, including Victor Horta in Belgium, Hector Guimard in France, and Antoni Gaudí in Spain, designed buildings based on forms found in nature.

The 20th century and beyond

One of Sullivan's students, Frank Lloyd Wright, was one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. His Prairie style became the basis of 20th-century residential design in the United States.

A new style of architecture that developed after World War I (1914–18) was called the International Style. The buildings tended to be nonsymmetrical in form with flowing interior spaces, flat roofs, and large windows in plain walls.

Two leading architects of this period were Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, in France and the German Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Le Corbusier organized houses around modern domestic life and sought to devise a standard form.

One of the most famous of Le Corbusier's houses—the Villa Savoye of 1929 at Poissy, near Paris—represents his style. Smooth white walls enclosing nonsymmetrical spaces were raised off the ground by slender, cylindrical columns. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who moved to the United States in the 1930s, designed mainly steel and glass structures in simple geometric forms. His buildings for the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and his high-rise office and apartment buildings set new standards.

The 1960s saw growing dissatisfaction with the simple, plain buildings of the modernist movement. Traditional forms and styles once again took center stage. Among the leading architects of this so-called postmodern style were Philip Johnson, Robert Venturi, and Michael Graves. They used classical features such as arches and columns in new ways.

These and other architects also continued to use steel and glass, but they adapted the rectangular forms and irregular silhouettes of the modernist style. The Chinese-born U.S. architect I.M. Pei was notable for his bold and skillful arrangements of groups of geometric shapes. In 1997 he designed a museum in Japan that was a modern glass-and-steel structure but with triangular roofs that recalled the shapes of traditional Japanese temples.

In the late 20th century several architects moved away from traditional vertical walls and right angles in their designs. Buildings such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, by U.S. architect Frank Gehry featured a free-form style consisting of seemingly random curves and tilts.