Architecture is probably the oldest of the fine arts (see \Tart\t). Certainly it is the most useful and in some respects is a prerequisite for the other arts. Most early sacred texts associate buildings with deities; architecture was not only considered the highest art form, to which other arts were adornments, but some buildings were viewed as representing another, higher realm. In medieval \Tilluminated manuscripts\t, God was frequently shown armed with compasses and a mason's square, as Architect of the Universe. Architecture can be defined in at least four ways, all valid, all interrelated, and none truly satisfactory. It is the art and method of erecting structures; it is a planned entity, the result of a conscious act; it is a body or corpus of work; it is a way to build. A good definition was provided by the Roman architect \TVitruvius\t in the 1st century AD and was translated from the Latin into English during the 17th century by Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639). Vitruvius said that architecture was a building that incorporated utilitas, firmitas, and venustas, which Wotton translated as "commodotie, firmness, and delighte." This definition recognizes that architecture embraces functional, technological, and aesthetic requirements: it must have commodotie (utilitarian qualities), firmness (structural stability and sound construction), and delighte (attractive appearance). Because the history of architecture concerns buildings substantial enough to survive (at least in part) or important enough to be recorded in some way (by drawings or written description), in practice it has been the history of significant buildings--\Lcastle\ls, \Tcathedrals\t, PALACES, \Ltemple\ls, and major institutional monuments. This discussion will concentrate on the development of Western architecture. Nonwestern architecture, as well as more detailed consideration of each epoch in Western architecture, are treated elsewhere in the encyclopedia and may be found by culture, by country, by style, by type, by architect, and by building or monument. Architects Much more is known of ancient buildings than of the people who designed and built them. The names of a few Egyptian, Greek, and Roman architects have survived, but the identities of the great cathedral builders of the Middle Ages are mostly unknown. They are generally described as master masons, but they regarded themselves as architects and sometimes incorporated a \Tlabyrinth\t in their own memorial plaques to signify a link with \TDaedalus\t, the legendary first architect of the Greek world and the designer of the \TMinotaur\t's labyrinth. The names of architects first began to be known in Italy during the \TRenaissance\t in the 15th and 16th centuries. The idea of a professional architect with formal training and academic qualifications is a product of the 19th century. In 1819 architecture courses were instituted at the \TEcole des Beaux-Arts\t (School of Fine Arts) in Paris; in 1847 a night school was established at the Architectural Association in London; courses in architecture were first offered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1868, at Cornell University in 1871, and at the University of Illinois in 1873. Until World War I, however, most architects were trained while working in the offices of practicing architects, and governments were slow to insist upon qualification tests. The state of Illinois passed the first licensing law for architects in 1897; Great Britain did not follow until 1931. The Study of Architecture Just as the architect as a professional is a recent phenomenon, so too is the evaluation of architecture itself. Not until the late 18th century did ancient \TGreek\t and \TRoman\t \Tarchitecture\t cease to be regarded as an unassailable criterion of excellence throughout the Western world. Only when the hegemony of the classical styles began to be challenged did architects and scholars begin to consider the whole of the subject. The traditional approach was based on a closely observed study of architectural style, with considerable emphasis on the differences of detail treatment from one country to another. An alternate approach based on \Tdeterminism\t has been developed over many years by a group of German-speaking scholars (including Jakob \TBurckhardt\t, Siegfried \TGiedion\t, Sir Nikolaus \TPevsner\t, and Heinrich \TWolfflin\t) who established an interpretation of architecture as an expression of the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the age. Burckhardt and Wolfflin introduced the Zeitgeist concept in their studies of the Italian Renaissance, but Giedion and Pevsner applied it to \Tmodern architecture\t, which they saw as expressing the spirit of a technological era. Another approach seeks to understand architecture in the same way as did the people who built it. During the 19th century this associative school of thought became central to architectural theory. Contemporary architects and scholars emphasize the influences of technology on the development of buildings. The use of iron and steel beams and columns released the wall from its traditional load-bearing function and allowed architects to incorporate enormous windows and wide, open-plan floors, two of the most significant characteristics of modern architecture. No large modern building, however, would be practicable without the parallel development of \Lelevator\ls, central \Theating\t and VENTILATION \Tsystems\t, and electric \Tlighting devices\t. ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY Architecture is most readily grasped by studying its development in successive historical periods, noting the general characteristic of each, the development of building techniques from one era to the next as well as from one culture to the next, and noting the evolution of each successive architectural style. Following are brief summaries of the ten major cultural epochs in Western architecture from ancient Egypt and the Near East to the present time. Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern Architecture The construction of the most famous Egyptian structures, the \Tpyramids\t, began in the 3d and 4th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom (c.2686-2498 BC). Temples in stone were built during the Middle Kingdom (c.2133-1786 BC), but most of the surviving examples date from the New Kingdom (1570-1085 BC) and the Ptolemaic Period (323-30 BC). Permanent building in stone was restricted to TOMBS, temples, and the associated statuary (\Lobelisk\ls and avenues of \Lsphinx\les and lions), but the forms of these monumental stone structures seem to have been influenced by those of primitive Egyptian domestic architecture. Houses were formed of mud-brick walls with columns made from bundles of reeds lashed together. Thus, the walls of stone buildings were generally battered (thicker at the base and tapered), and the columns were short in proportion, seldom more than six times their diameters. The column heads or capitals were carved to represent lotus flowers or buds, palm leaves, and papyrus heads; the column shafts often had decorative bindings recalling the primitive lashed reeds. Stone and timber were rare in the alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; so \TMesopotamian\t \Tarchitecture\t was necessarily based on the use of clay \Lbrick\ls with an outer skin of often highly colored glazed bricks, exemplified by the \Tziggurat\t at UR (c.2500 BC). Farther up the Mesopotamian rivers in \TAssyria\t, stone was available, but it was used primarily as a wall covering to be decorated with \Tbas-relief\t sculpture and inscriptions, from which much of the knowledge of Assyrian history is derived. The architecture of both the Babylonian (c.1900-c.1550 BC) and the Assyrian empires (c.1100-612 BC) was based on massive brick platforms raised above the floodplain and often further terraced to give the characteristic ziggurat form. The ancient Persian Empire (538-333 BC) adopted these features and supplemented them with the extensive use of columns, as in the palaces at \TPersepolis\t (518-c.460 BC). Greek Architecture Any consideration of Greek architecture must begin with mention of \TAegean civilization\t, typified by the great Minoan palaces on the island of \TCrete\t, in particular the huge complex of \TKnossos\t and the magnificently sited structures at \TPhaistos\t (both c.1700-c.1400 BC). Constructed of massive masonry, they were several stories high and incorporated large pillared halls, dozens of labyrinthine smaller rooms, sweeping terraces looking to the sea, and plumbing arrangements of astonishing modernity. The walls were decorated with brilliantly colored frescoes (see \Tfresco painting\t) and STUCCO bas-reliefs. The Minoans were conquered by the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece, whose architecture was subsequently strongly influenced by Cretan prototypes. This early Greek architecture (3000-700 BC) is characterized by the use of massive stone blocks for walls and by the occasional use of corbeled masonry to make primitive forms of vaults and domes, as in the Lion Gate and so-called Treasury of Atreus at \TMycenae\t (1400-1200 BC). Columns sometimes were also used to frame doors and gateways and to provide internal colonnades for palaces, as in the courtyard at \TTiryns\t. It was, however, the column and the beam--\Tpost and lintel\t--that formed the basis of classical Greek architecture and that gave it the simple, straightforward character that, together with its details, has led many scholars to speculate on its origins in the construction of primitive wooden huts. The Greeks developed a vocabulary of architectural detail in stone that was fundamental to European architecture for more than 2,000 years. The Greek "language of architecture" reached its zenith during the 5th century BC. Classical Greek architecture consisted of three orders--the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. Each represented the assembly of the basic components of a simple rectangular building with a pitched roof, that is, \Tcolumn\t, \Tcapital\t (or column head), \Tentablature\t (the "beam" connecting the columns), and \Tpediment\t (the triangular gable of the roof). Different proportions and decorative conventions imparted a distinctive character to each order, regardless of the bright colors applied to the original buildings or the subject matter of the sculptured decoration along the \Tfrieze\t or in the triangular pediment (\Ttympanum\t). The proportions of each order were fixed within narrow limits, and, strictly speaking, the components of each order could be correctly assembled in only one way. The Greeks never mixed different orders on the same building. This, and other rules, were modified in Roman architecture. The Romans created two additional orders, the Tuscan and the Composite, and employed all five orders as decoration for buildings constructed on principles different from those the Greeks used. The basic building material of the classical period was \Tmarble\t, a strong stone that could be shaped to give great precision of line and detail. The basic temple form was also very simple: a rectangular chamber with a shallow-pitched gabled roof, surrounded by a row of columns (or fronted by a columned porch), standing on a podium of three steps. Given the simplicity of the construction system and the building form, the essential achievement of the Greeks was the refinement of the building and its components into an architectural system of proportion and decoration--exemplified by the buildings on the Athens \TAcropolis\t, in particular the \TParthenon\t (447-32 BC)--that remained the basis of the Western European architectural tradition until the mid-19th century. Roman Architecture During the 2d century BC the Romans, in conquering North Africa, Greece, Anatolia, and Spain, absorbed the architectural traditions of those areas (most significantly that of Greece), to which they added the constructional skills of the \TEtruscans\t, their immediate neighbors in central Italy. The most significant achievements of the Romans were in their technology of building, their use of a much wider range of materials (including concrete, \Tterra-cotta\t, and fired bricks), and their refinements of the \Tarch and vault\t and the \Tdome\t--all of which had been pioneered by the Etruscans. Roman temples generally remained modeled on those of Greece, with the common addition of a high plinth (base or platform) and the frequent omission of the side and rear columns, typified by the \TMaison Carre\t at \TNimes\t, France. Roman civic monuments included a number of building types of unprecedented size and complexity, which could not have been built using the Greek beam-and-column construction system. \Laqueduct\ls, thermae (such as the Baths of \TCaracalla\t), \Lbasilica\ls (law courts), theaters, \Ltriumphal arch\les, amphitheaters (such as the \TColosseum\t), circuses, and palaces involved enclosing much larger spaces or bridging much greater distances than could be achieved by the use of timber or stone beams. The Roman use of domed construction in mass concrete is best represented by the well-preserved \TPantheon\t in Rome (constructed AD 120-24), which subsequently became a Christian church. Later Roman or \TEarly Christian\t churches, however, generally took their form from the basilica, whose central \Tnave\t, side aisles, \Ttriforium\t, and \Tapse\t became characteristic features of the Romanesque and Gothic church. Emperor \TConstantine I\t built huge basilican churches at all the major Christian sites in the Roman Empire in the 4th century, thus firmly establishing the basilica as the predominant form of Christian church architecture. Byzantine Architecture \TByzantine\t \Tarchitecture\t developed in the \TByzantine Empire\t founded by Constantine I when he moved the capital from Rome to \TByzantium\t (subsequently Constantinople--present-day \TIstanbul\t) in the 4th century. In southern and eastern Europe, in particular in those parts of Italy, Greece, and Anatolia that remained under the sway of the Byzantine Empire, the continuity of Roman plans and techniques was strong. Only slightly modified Roman basilican plans were used for such Italian churches as Sant' Apollinare in Classe, \TRavenna\t (534-39); in Constantinople itself huge domed churches, such as \THagia Sophia\t (532-37), were built on a scale far larger than anything achieved by the Western Roman Empire. Romanesque Architecture In northern Europe, where Roman remains were less frequently encountered, greater freedom of experiment existed in \TMerovingian\t, \TCarolingian\t, and \TOttonian\t \Tarchitecture\t, as the early periods are known. From the mid-10th to the mid-12th century greater progress was made toward the development of a successor style--the Gothic. The primary characteristics of \TRomanesque\t \Tarchitecture\t (or \TNorman architecture\t, as northern Romanesque is often known) were Roman in origin, however: large internal spaces were spanned by barrel vaults on thick, squat columns and piers, windows and doors had round-headed arches, and most of the major churches were laid out on the basilican plan, modified by the addition of \Lbuttress\les, \Ltransept\ls, and towers. The buildings are solid, heavy, and, because of the comparatively small windows, dimly lighted, exemplified by \TDurham Cathedral\t (begun 1023) in England. Portals, capitals, and altars are embellished with sculpture of superlative skill and powerful effect; \Tstained glass\t first appeared in Europe, but on a limited scale, because of the restricted size of window openings. Gothic Architecture From the mid-12th century to the 16th century northern European architecture was characterized by the use of flying buttresses, pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and traceried windows. The thin walls, slender columns, and the very large areas of glass in Gothic buildings gave an impression of lightness that contrasted markedly with the Romanesque. \TGothic\t \Tarchitecture\t originated at the royal abbey church of \TSt. Denis\t, built by Abbot \TSuger\t between 1137 and 1144. It was refined in the great churches of northern and central France, such as \TAmiens Cathedral\t (1220-70), notable for its great height and the slenderness of its columns, and the \TSainte-Chapelle\t in Paris (1247-48), in which exceptionally large wall areas were filled with glass and tracery. Indeed, Gothic architecture was most fully developed in France and England, where the style spread in the late 12th century. The spread of Gothic to Germany was delayed until the mid-13th century, and in this country only a few cathedrals, such as the one in Cologne (begun 1248), approached the size and quality of the northern French prototypes. The most thorough application of northern Gothic to Italy was in the Milan Cathedral, built at the end of the 14th century by French and German masons. In general, the Italians tended to use Gothic as a decorative feature rather than as a total building system. Many Gothic secular buildings survive, some of the finest examples being the Bruges Town Hall (1376-1420) in Belgium, the Palazzo Pubblico (begun 1298) in Siena, Italy, and the Pont Valentre (early 14th century) in Cahors, France. The greatest concentration of Gothic secular buildings is in Belgium, in what was then the most prosperous part of northwest Europe. Renaissance Architecture During the early 15th century, European culture became inspired by the rediscovery, known as the Renaissance, of classical literature, art, and architecture. Italy was the center of this rebirth, and in Florence, where the movement started, architecture was influenced by the use of the orders, the round arch, the barrel vault, and the dome--all Roman features. In northern Europe, where Gothic continued to flourish well into the 16th century, the Renaissance at first made only a superficial impact and was for a much longer time confined to decorative changes. In both France and England a truly classical style was not established until the first half of the 17th century: in France by Francois \TMansart\t and in England by Inigo \TJones\t. The Florentine Renaissance did not initially mean the complete break with traditional practice that was implied in the Gothic north. For the church of Santo Spirito (begun c.1436), Filippo \TBrunelleschi\t used a basilican plan, round arches, and a flat ceiling; but these traditional Italian Romanesque elements were combined with a new sense of proportion, the use of Corinthian columns, and a dome over the crossing of nave and transepts. Brunelleschi's later design for the vast, still unfinished cathedral of Santa Maria degli Angeli (also called the Duomo of Florence) took the form of a domed octagon with eight radiating chapels, a centralized plan that became the ideal among his contemporaries in Florence (Leon Battista \TAlberti\t and \TMichelozzo\t) and his followers in Rome. There, during the 16th century, a more monumental version of the style was developed by Donato \TBramante\t, \TRaphael\t, and \TMichelangelo\t, as in their various plans for \TSaint Peter's Basilica\t. Baroque and Rococo Architecture In the 15th century Florentine architecture relied for effect upon proportion, simple straight lines, and the correct use of classical details. During the 16th century, however, architects such as Michelangelo and \TGiulio Romano\t abandoned this restraint for a more exciting, idiosyncratic version of the style, now called \TMannerism\t, in which the classical rules were deliberately flouted for effect. Giovanni Lorenzo \TBernini\t and Francesco \TBorromini\t further developed the style by introducing curvilinear forms and by incorporating sculpture and painting in their buildings to give a rich and dynamic version, known as \Tbaroque\t, which spread during the 17th and 18th centuries from Rome to much of southern Europe and to South America. In northern Europe, especially in Austria and Germany, baroque architecture achieved an exuberance and freedom unmatched elsewhere, climaxing in the \Trococo\t, as in the \TWurzburg Residenz\t in West Germany. In France baroque and rococo were tempered by \Tneoclassicism\t, with a resultant elegance and refinement in both architecture and decoration, exemplified by the 18th-century sections of the palace of \TVersailles\t. The spread of neoclassical architecture during the 17th and 18th centuries was due in no small measure to the illustrated books that brought it to the attention of educated patrons. Although fine architecture has never been created by untalented architects, the rules of the classical orders enforced systematic convention in design that enabled many moderately competent architects to produce well-proportioned and finely detailed buildings. In part this explains the extraordinary success of the Palladian (see \TPalladio\t, Andrea) interpretation of Romanized Greek architecture. It was, for example, the source of almost all country-house building in England during the 18th century, as well as of numerous mansions, courthouses, state capitols, and universities along the eastern seaboard of North America. The Age of Revivals During the late 18th and 19th centuries, Europe and America witnessed a series of stylistic revivals. The period was dominated by the proponents of the classical (themselves split between "Greeks" and "Romans") and the northern Gothic. Buildings were also designed in self-conscious imitation of Byzantine, Oriental, Egyptian, Venetian Gothic, and Florentine Renaissance architecture, however. This was not, of course, the first time that ancient styles had been revived; the Italians of the 15th century and the architects of Charlemagne's court in the 9th century had incorporated classical motifs in their buildings. Both the revived classical and the \TGothic Revival\t, however, were essentially different from the architecture that inspired them. The country mansion of England and colonial America bore a classical portico, but it was attached to a type of building never seen in ancient Rome or Greece. The revived Gothic applied during the 19th century to private houses, office buildings, railroad stations, hospitals, and waterworks was by no means the same as the Gothic architecture of the northern medieval cathedrals. New engineering techniques and modern materials--in particular in \Tcast-iron architecture\t--removed many of the age-old practical constraints on building design. Rapid urban growth during the 19th century produced a great many fine and essentially original buildings, the quality of which is only beginning to be appreciated. Modern Architecture Contemporary architecture takes a bewildering variety of forms and makes use of a far wider range of materials than ever before. The \TInternational Style\t, promulgated by Walter \TGropius\t, \TLe Corbusier\t, and Ludwig \TMies van der Rohe\t in theory and practice, has dominated architecture in this century until very recently. Most of the earlier buildings by these architects were small private houses, usually rectangular, with undecorated walls, flat roofs, and large areas of glass set in metal frames. Conscious avoidance of any previous styles or recognizable antecedents was combined with highly sophisticated proportioning to achieve sleek, elegant structures, such as Mies's German Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona Exhibition. To the dismay of its originators, the International Style was enthusiastically adopted by far lesser talents and profit-minded builders to produce numerous "modern" office buildings, apartment complexes, hospitals, and motels all over the world. Not all contemporary architects subscribed to Mies's dictum of "less is more," and hence their work is difficult to classify as "modern." Frank Lloyd \TWright\t, probably the outstanding native American architect of this century, Kenzo \TTange\t of Japan, Alvar \TAalto\t of Finland, and the Finnish-Americans Eliel and Eero \TSaarinen\t produced many buildings of great beauty and originality. Although some of their work does reflect the International Style, most of their buildings are instantly recognizable in their individuality, as were the great buildings of the past. In short, these architects and others like them seem to be part of a continuing architectural tradition rejected by the practitioners of the International Style. The social turmoil of the 1960s was emphatically reflected in architecture. Complexity and Contradiction in Modern Architecture (1968) by the architect Robert \TVenturi\t was a revolt against the ubiquitous glass boxes of the modernists, and it signaled the emergence of \Tpostmodern architecture\t. Since that time, architects have found new strength in the traditions of the past, as well as in the vernacular architecture seen all about them. \TStephen\t BAYLEY AND \TSimon\t \Tpepper\t Bibliography: \TGeneral\t \TWorks\t: Fleming, John, Honour, Hugh, and Pevsner, Nikolaus, eds., A Dictionary of Architecture, rev. ed. (1976) and Pelican History of Art, 50 vols. (1953- ); Fletcher, Bannister, Sir Bannister Fletcher's A History of Architecture, 18th ed., rev. by J. C. Palmes (1975); Giedion, Siegfried, Space, Time, and Architecture, 5th ed. (1967); Kostof, Spiro, The Architect (1977) and A History of Architecture (1985); Mumford, Lewis, Architecture As a Home for Man (1975); Trachtenberg, Marvin, and Hyman, Isabelle, Architecture: From Prehistory to Post-Modernism--The Western Tradition (1986); Watkin, David, A History of Western Architecture (1986). \Thistorical\t \Lperiod\ls: Banham, Reyner, The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment, 2d rev. ed. (1984) and Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, 2d ed. (1960; repr. 1980); Benevolo, Leonardo, History of Modern Architecture, 2 vols. (1971; repr. 1977); Boethius, Axel, and Ward-Perkins, John B., Etruscan and Roman Architecture (1970); Collins, Peter, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture (1965); Clark, Kenneth, The Gothic Revival, 3d ed. (1962); Frankl, Paul, The Gothic: Literary Interpretations through Eight Centuries (1960); Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1971); Lawrence, A. W., Greek Architecture (1957; repr. 1984); Mumford, Lewis, ed., Roots of Contemporary American Architecture (1972); Pevsner, Nikolaus, Pioneers of Modern Design, rev. ed. (1975; repr. 1986); Simson, Otto von, The Gothic Cathedral (1956; repr. 1988); Venturi, Robert, Complexity and Contradiction in Modern Architecture, enlarged ed. (1977). See also: \Tcolonial styles in North America\t; \Thistoric preservation\t; \Thouse in Western architecture\t; \Tlandscape architecture\t; \Turban planning\t.