The Americas.

The Americas consist of North America, Central America, and South America. The inhabitants of these regions originated from Asia by crossing the land bridge that stretched between Asia and Alaska. Although a lot of the Pre-Colombians remained as hunter-gatherers, there were several massive civilizations that formed across the Americas.

Maya: The Maya of the Classic Period date from 300-900 C.E and resided in what is today, Southern Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, and Guatemala. Most of the building created by this civilization were religious structures (religious temples on top of pyrammids). The most identifying characteristic of the Mayan temples and pyramids are their steep slopes. El Castillo is the central pyramid at Chichen-Itza, Mexico, which was a sacrificial temple that related to the solar calendar.




Aztecs: The Aztecs were a cultural and political entity, located in Mexico. The capital of these peoples was Tenochtitlan, or what is today, Mexico City. The Aztecs formed their capital city in 1325 and had a population of approximately 200,000. The religion of this culture was polytheistic and their main god was the sun god and god of war. The most memorable piece of furniture was the Throne of Motezuma, also known as Teocalli. The reason that this seat is so famous is because it has one of the very few representations of Huizilopochtli, the sun god of the Aztecs, on the backrest of the throne.




Inca: The Inca civilization was located in Peru, dating its presence from 1438- 1532. The Inca are known for their precision of their stone-masonry. They would have giant blocks of stone cut so perfectly that they were able to line up next to one another without any mortar between. The building process consisted of chiseling away a block, fitting it into its eventual space, then removed, then nibbled away, then replaced, until a perfect shape was achieved. The Inca also tended to follow earth's naturalistic form when constructing their buildings.

 

Modern Day Examples:

Very close laid stone, similar to the Inca.

 



















A Pre-Columbian influenced home.

Peer Reviews: Gothic.

Karri: I like how Karri went into explaining the reason as to why the pointed arch was beneficial: the pointed arch helped balance the pressure downwards, since the rest of the structure was pushing upwards. This also helped allow for thinner walls, which made it easier to cut into them for windows and stained glass.

Haley H: I thought it was interesting that Haley shared about the black plague killing so many people, and how the need for faith among people increased due to all of the despair that surrounded them, leading to a need for larger churches to hold the increase of worshipers.

Gothic.

The Gothic Design was the last style of the medieval period before the Renaissance style was formed; it was a bridge between the Romanesque and the Renaissance period. Abbot Suger was the head of the monastery of St. Denis (Saint Denis being the patron saint of France, as well as the man responsible for converting Gauls to Christianity in the third century. Denis ended up being tortured on a hot grill and decapitated for his influence of Christianity because the conversion to the new religion was not a smooth one). However, Suger was the man who had the church remodeled and redefined religious architecture that is now known as Gothic.

The architecture of the Gothic style involved pointed arches, similar to the Islamic styled arches. These arches have a point at the top center of the arch which gives it a more narrow, taller appearance. Suger's Remodeling of St. Denis also affected the architecture of the Gothic period, in that he believed that the most expensive materials were appropriate for the buildings that housed the ritual of celebrating masses. This use of nicer materials was copied and hence began the movement of building churches throughout France.

Churches:
Because so much detail was put into the Romanesque and Gothic churches, it took hundreds of years of building and rebuilding to complete the structures. That is why a lot of Romanesque churches actually have Gothic additions, since the periods style changed within the building process. Notre Dame is one of the most famous of the Churches that were built during this time in France due to its amount of detail as well as its location on an island sitting in the middle of Paris.



Portals:
Unlike the Romanesque churches were entryways were ornamented with torture and evil scenarios, the Gothic and more on the positive side of religion ("Come, enter through these doors. Heavenly salvation awaits"); since the murals' and carvings' purpose was to tell stories to the illiterate.



Flying Buttress:
The buttress, in its simplest form, was used to prop up a leaning wall. Eventually, architects started putting in the buttress from the start. This is called separating the wall from the structure and allowed for the stained glass walls to remain without the structure collapsing.



Modern Day Gothic:

   

Islamic.

Islamic design, like the Romanesque design, is centered around religion; without Islam there is no Islamic design. And just as the Romanesque architecture surrounded the building of Churches, Mosques were the most important structure during the Islamic period.





Mosques:

As opposed to Christian Churches where the priest preaches to a congregation, the Islamic religion is more based on individual prayer. Because of the individual prayer focus, the apse of a mosque is significantly smaller than the apse of a Church; the main reason for this apse is to signal to the direction of Mecca for worship purposes.



During these times of worship, everyone sat on the floor; men in the front, women in the back, and the children sat in between. Mats, carpets, and pillows would be on the floor to provide a little more comfort, since the way the Islamic faith worships mostly involves kneeling and sitting on the ground.

Furniture:

The Islamic design followed where ever the religion traveled, so a lot of the main design stems from the middle eastern culture. Because the weather is so warm in the middle east, there was no real need for chairs to lift a person off of the cold ground; therefore, mats, carpets, and pillows were often used as seating rather than chairs. However, as I mentioned, the Islamic design followed where ever the religion took root, meaning, in other areas of the world where Islam grew, the use of chairs may have been more often used rather than mats or pillows. In addition to the alteration of seating due to geographical location, the Islamic design was also altered slightly to more fit the region.



Modern Islamic Influence:

The low pillow seating is influenced by the Islamic design.














The arches and columns in this interior are very much of an Islamic Influence. (Horseshoe Arch)






















The pointed arch was used a lot in the Islamic design.

Romanesque.

Churches:

During the Romanesque period a minimum of 1,587 churches were built between the years 1000 and 1100. The structures of these churches were as such:

• Roofing was masonry not wood
• Walls were painted rich colors, such as greens, blues, and purples
• Walls were adorned with tapestries
• Intricate carvings into the stone walls and entry ways that described literature to the illiterate of people and stories to explain their beliefs 

Furniture:

There were two memorable chairs during the Romanesque period: Folding chairs (which resembled the X-frame chair that existed in Egypt, Nubia, Greece, and the Byzantine Empire) and Charlemagne's throne.

Folding Chairs: These chairs were very useful for military campaigns because they were more portable. Dagobert was a ruler between 605 and 639 and his "throne" was basically a fancier version of the X-Frame chair.

Charlemagne's Throne: This throne was famous mostly for the man who sat upon it; however, it did portray a sense of authority because of its height and the materials used to make it. It sat on a raised platform to increase the height even further and was made of marble sheets. This throne also had its own set of steps leading up to the seat.

Modern Romanesque Influence:

Although this chair most likely does not fold as the Romanesque X-Frame chairs did because today's culture does not necessarily have much use of portable furnishings; the structure of this bench is clearly influenced by the classic X-Frame seat.

An outdoor seating chair would be a more realistic example of the real purpose of a Romanesque folding chair, since outdoor chairs are more likely to be moved around.

In this example, the use of the tapestry on the wall makes the Romanesque influence relevant to this interior.

Peer Review: Byzantine.

Sammy: I enjoyed how Sammy pointed out that the Byzantine empire focused more towards Eastern Europe cultures, rather than the Western European cultures as the Early Christians did. I also liked how Sammy talked about the furniture of this time and how it was influenced by the Romanesque, Islamic, and Gothic periods.

Allysia: I loved all of the mosaic tile in Allysia's current day applications of the Byzantine period. I also found it interesting that the building of the large structure in the photo below her information only took five years to build!

Peer Reviews: Early Christian.

Cally: I liked how Cally incorporated the information of the use of Roman architecture in the Early Christian architecture. I also liked how she specifically laid out the information about all the parts of the buildings (i.e. Roofs: are gabled on basilicas and domed on central plans).

Alecia: I liked how Alecia shared the history of the Christian religion to provide the beginnings of this form of design, in addition to how the religion rose and formed the Early Christian designs. I also enjoyed looking at the pictures of furniture from this time.

Byzantine.

The Byzantine style comes from the Byzantine Empire, which was politically and economically based. While Early Christian referred to "The West", the Byzantine, in contrast, referred broadly to "The East". There were three major Byzantine cities: Constantinople, Venice, and Ravenna. The beginning of this Empire came from the Roman emperor Constantine officially converting the empire to Christianity and moving his new capital to what had been Byzantium. Because Christianity was the new religion, most artists stayed away from creating statues or idols, as that is against the Christian religion to worship an idol; instead, they created wall mosaics so as not to make the same mistakes the Romans made by worshiping idols. This is also why there is such a smaller amount of statues from this time.




Modern Day Examples:

Early Christian.

Early Christian architecture and design  refers to the first Christian communities. The geography of this style is so wide and unspecified that it has been generalized as "The West". Since Christianity is a religion, it only makes sense that the architecture and design of this period would surround the churches of this time. The most productive time of the building of these churches were during the fourth and fifth centuries, where we saw Early Christian churches built throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.



Italy:
Sant' Apollinare in Classes, Ravenna, 535-538 c.e., is one of the examples of how the architects of this time started with the basilica form and changed it to better fit that of the Christian services. The Apollinare is an elongated rectangle with an apse at one end which forms the focal point of the church and an alter is placed underneath.

 

Modern Day Examples:

Peer Reviews: Rome.

Allison S: I appreciate how Allison mentioned the level of economic power that Rome had; that definitely helped with the evolution of architecture because they were more ahead on the technology spectrum than most other nations of this time.

Maggie R: I enjoyed reading about the furniture in her blog about how, although similar in structure to the Greek's, the Roman's furniture was far more detailed and used, not only as furnishings to sit on, but as stand alone decorative pieces of art.

Peer Review: Greece.

Samantha: I like how Samantha shared pictures of the Greek styled furtitue; the throne, kline, klismos, and diphros. I found the use and creation of furniture to be the most interesting aspect of the Greek's history within the interior design world.

Katie K: I like what Katie shared about how the religion influenced the Greek's architecture and design processes of this time. Many temples were built during this time, making it a very important piece of the Greek culture.