The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The beginnings of all these traditions is thought to be humans satisfying the very basic need of shelter and protection.Ching, Francis, D.K. and Eckler, James F. Introduction to Architecture. 2013. John Wiley & Sons. p13 The term "architecture" generally refers to buildings, but in its essence is much broader, including fields we now consider specialized forms of practice, such as urbanism, civil engineering, naval, military,Architecture. Def. 1. Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and landscape architecture.
Trends in architecture were influenced, among other factors, by technological innovations, particularly in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The improvement and/or use of steel, cast iron, tile, reinforced concrete, and glass helped for example Art Nouveau appear and made Beaux Arts more grandiose.
Paleolithic Humans and their ancestors have been creating various types of shelters for at least hundreds of thousands of years, and shelter-building may have been present early in hominin evolution. All great apes will construct "nests" for sleeping, albeit at different frequencies and degrees of complexity. Chimpanzees regularly make nests out of bundles of branches woven together; these vary depending on the weather (nests have thicker bedding when cool and are built with larger, stronger supports in windy or wet weather).McLester, E. (2018, July 26). Chimpanzee 'nests' shed light on the origins of humanity. The Conversation. Orangutans currently make the most complex nests out of all non-human great apes, complete with roofs, blankets, pillows, and "bunks".
It has been argued that nest-building practices were even more important to the evolution of human creativity and construction skill than tool use, as hominins became required to build nests not just in uniquely adapted circumstances but as forms of signalling.Verpooten, Jan, and Yannick Joye. "Evolutionary interactions between human biology and architecture: insights from signaling theory and a cross-species comparative approach." Naturalistic approaches to culture (2014): 101-121. Retaining arboreal features like highly prehensile hands for the expert construction of nests and shelters would have also benefitted early hominins in unpredictable environments and changing climates. Many hominins, especially the earliest ones such as ArdipithecusTim D. White, Berhane Asfaw, Yonas Beyene, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, C. Owen Lovejoy, Gen Suwa, and Giday WoldeGabriel. "Ardipithecus ramidus and the paleobiology of early hominids." Science 326, no. 5949 (2009): 64-86. and AustralopithecusAlemseged, Zeresenay, Fred Spoor, William H. Kimbel, René Bobe, Denis Geraads, Denné Reed, and Jonathan G. Wynn. "A juvenile early hominin skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia." Nature 443, no. 7109 (2006): 296-301. retained such features and may have chosen to build nests in trees where available. The development of a "home base" 2 million years ago may have also fostered the evolution of constructing shelters or protected caches.Isaac, Glynn. "The food-sharing behavior of protohuman hominids." Scientific American 238, no. 4 (1978): 90-109. Regardless of the complexity of nest-building, early hominins may still have still slept in more or less 'open' conditions, unless the opportunity of a rock shelter was afforded. These rock shelters could be used as-is with little more amendments than nests and hearths, or in the case of established bases —especially among later hominins— they could be personalized with rock art (in the case of Lascaux) or other types of aesthetic structures (in the case of the Bruniquel Cave among the Neanderthals)Jaubert, Jacques, Sophie Verheyden, Dominique Genty, Michel Soulier, Hai Cheng, Dominique Blamart, Christian Burlet et al. "Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France." Nature 534, no. 7605 (2016): 111-114. In cases of sleeping in open ground, Dutch ethologist Adriaan Kortlandt once proposed that hominins could have built temporary enclosures of thorny bushes to deter predators, which he supported using tests that showed lions becoming averse to food if near thorny branches.Kortlandt, Adriaan. "How might early hominids have defended themselves against large predators and food competitors?." Journal of Human Evolution 9, no. 2 (1980): 79-112.
In 2000, archaeologists at the Meiji University in Tokyo claimed to have found 2 pentagonal alignments of post holes on a hillside near the village of Chichibu, interpreting it as two huts dated around 500,000 years old and built by Homo erectus."World's Oldest Building Discovered." BBC News, March 1, 2000. Currently, the earliest confirmed purpose-built structures are in France at the site of Terra Amata, along with the earliest evidence of artificial fire, c. 400,000 years ago. Due to the perishable nature of shelters of this time, it is difficult to find evidence for dwellings beyond hearths and the stones that may make up a dwelling's foundation. Near Wadi Halfa, Sudan, the Arkin 8 site contains 100,000 year old circles of sandstone that were likely the anchor stones for tents.Chmielewski, Waldemar. "Early and Middle Paleolithic sites near Arkin, Sudan." The prehistory of Nubia;[final report] papers assembled and (1968): 110-147. In eastern Jordan, post hole markings in the soil give evidence to houses made of poles and thatched brush around 20,000 years ago.Maher, Lisa A., Tobias Richter, Danielle Macdonald, Matthew D. Jones, Louise Martin, and Jay T. Stock. "Twenty thousand-year-old huts at a hunter-gatherer settlement in eastern Jordan." PloS one 7, no. 2 (2012): e31447. In areas where bone — especially mammoth bone — is a viable material, evidence of structures preserve much more easily, such as the mammoth-bone dwellings among the Mal'ta-Buret' culture 24–15,000 years ago and at Mezhirich 15,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic in general is characterized by the expansion and cultural growth of anatomically modern humans (as well as the cultural growth of Neanderthals, despite their steady extinction at this time), and although we currently lack data for dwellings built before this time, the dwellings of this era begin to more commonly show signs of aesthetic modification, such as at Mezhirich where engraved mammoth tusks may have formed the "facade" of a dwelling.Baitenov, Eskander. "New Interpretation of the Engraving Discovered at Mezhirich Upper Paleolithic Site." In 3rd International Conference on Architecture: Heritage, Traditions and Innovations (AHTI 2021), pp. 85-93. Atlantis Press, 2021.
10,000–2000 BC
Architectural advances are an important part of the Neolithic period (10,000-2000 BC), during which some of the major innovations of human history occurred. The domestication of plants and animals, for example, led to both new economics and a new relationship between people and the world, an increase in community size and permanence, a massive development of material culture and new social and ritual solutions to enable people to live together in these communities. New styles of individual structures and their combination into settlements provided the buildings required for the new lifestyle and economy, and were also an essential element of change.
Although many dwellings belonging to all prehistoric periods and also some clay models of dwellings have been uncovered enabling the creation of faithful reconstructions, they seldom included elements that may relate them to art. Some exceptions are provided by wall decorations and by finds that equally apply to Neolithic and Chalcolithic rites and art.
In South and Southwest Asia, Neolithic cultures appear soon after 10,000 BC, initially in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) and from there spread eastwards and westwards. There are early Neolithic cultures in Southeast Anatolia, Syria and Iraq by 8000 BC, and food-producing societies first appear in southeast Europe by 7000 BC, and Central Europe by c. 5500 BC (of which the earliest cultural complexes include the Starčevo-Koros (Cris), Linearbandkeramic, and Vinča).
Neolithic settlements and "cities" include: Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, ca. 9,000 BC Jericho in Palestine, Neolithic from around 8,350 BC, arising from the earlier Epipaleolithic Natufian culture Nevali Cori in Turkey, ca. 8,000 BC Çatalhöyük in Turkey, 7,500 BC Mehrgarh in Pakistan, 7,000 BC Herxheim (archaeological site) in Germany, 5,300 BC Knap of Howar and Skara Brae, the Orkney Islands, Scotland, from 3,500 BC over 3,000 settlements of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, some with populations up to 15,000 residents, flourished in present-day Romania, Moldova and Ukraine from 5,400 to 2,800 BC.
Antiquity Mesopotamian
Assyrian palaces had a large public court with a suite of apartments on the east side and a series of large banqueting halls on the south side. This was to become the traditional plan of Assyrian palaces, built and adorned for the glorification of the king. Massive amounts of ivory furniture pieces were found in some palaces.
Mesopotamia is most noted for its construction of mud-brick buildings and the construction of ziggurats, occupying a prominent place in each city and consisting of an artificial mound, often rising in huge steps, surmounted by a temple. The mound was no doubt to elevate the temple to a commanding position in what was otherwise a flat river valley. The great city of Uruk had a number of religious precincts, containing many temples larger and more ambitious than any buildings previously known.
The word ziggurat is an anglicized form of the Akkadian word ziqqurratum, the name given to the solid stepped towers of mud brick. It derives from the verb zaqaru, ("to be high"). The buildings are described as being like mountains linking Earth and heaven. The Ziggurat of Ur, excavated by Leonard Woolley, is 64 by 46 meters at base and originally some 12 meters in height with three stories. It was built under Ur-Nammu (circa 2100 B.C.) and rebuilt under Nabonidus (555–539 B.C.), when it was increased in height to probably seven stories.
Ancient Egyptian
Modern imaginings of ancient Egypt are heavily influenced by the surviving traces of monumental architecture. Many formal styles and motifs were established at the dawn of the pharaonic state, around 3100 BC. The most iconic Ancient Egyptian buildings are the pyramids, built during the Old and Middle Kingdoms (2600–1800 BC) as tombs for the pharaoh. However, there are also impressive temples, like the Karnak Temple Complex.