This has been a long unit this time around. Hundreds and Hundreds of years of design and architecture crammed into just a few weeks.
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| Notre Dame |
When we last left off Rome had fallen, the dark ages had begun and people were turning to god more then ever. So much, that people were building huge structures or cathedrals to serve as their worship spaces. Their very construction mimicked all kinds of things that related to their holiness, and it pretty much became a standard in how to construct the buildings too. The buildings were shapes of the holy trinity and tall towers were constructed to look as if they are reaching up to the very heavens.
The dark ages were a period that didn't get it's name for no reason, things were pretty dark and chaotic. Order did not seem to exist, a place of worship was the only space people felt was comfortable and safe.
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| St. Peter's |
Arts and Sciences progressed and we came into the period we all know and love called the "Renaissance". It is a resurgent of the arts and sciences from the previous Greek greats. This period lead to many changes in architecture. Those Gothic cathedrals that we talked about earlier have now changed. They seem to have become softer around the "religious symbolism" edges, and become more fluid and have much more context about the changes and time period at hand. It was also about the combination of eastern and western meeting to form new styles never before seen.
With these expansions it allowed for many newer ideas to be used and older ideas to be expanded upon. It was a new age of design where many old rules were been broken and tons more being created and used all over Europe and the world.
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| Versaille |
Semiotics and new ideologies were everywhere and it seemed like everyone had their own. France was enjoying the ideals of building large short buildings with elaborate grounds to show the idea of one owning all of the landscape possible, like Versaille.
Italy was playing with these ideas too, of large country homes that expanded across the landscape.
In England the spread of the English ideals through colonialism and they had influences coming and going all over the world. This also applied to the United States, or the colonies at that time period. I am not going to bore one with what happened, but a war broke out and the colonies created their own country, America.
The America's had to start working on their own design ideas and techniques not only to rub it in England's face, but to also catch up with the great nations of Europe.
The ideas we began to use in our designs were based upon the ideas of Greeks and Romans. Columns to show importance and huge domes. This can easily be seen on our governmental buildings. Like the Capitol building.
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| The Capitol Building |
A lot of the same elements can still be seen, but they have changed in ways. The way we build has changed too. Stone has given way to steel and cast iron, which allowed buildings to grow and change in ways never seen before.
Wrapping up the unit we are brought to the world fairs of the world. We use them to show off our progress as nations to the rest of the world. It allowed us to see and show other places our designs and the technologies we had created. We had come from the ages of darkness to everything we do being a new way of thought and vision. We came 1,000 of miles from where the millennium started, but our ideas had never been better, and they still have places to go.
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| 1904 World Fair |
