Since I will be writing about two course studies in the same diary, I will just make entries about one and then simultaneously about the other.
I'll start off with inserts about my History of Interiors class first. I loved this class! We began our studies with prehistoric and early civilizations, working all the way through to Modernism -- so about 15,000 B.C.E to 1970. We didn't really get into Contemporary design, though, so I may or may not make entries about that period. I'll make entries here about a couple of periods at a time -- highlighting some of the things from our book and from my notes that I find most intriguing or interesting about each period -- beginning with prehistoric periods of the Paleolithic (old stone age) to the Neolithic (new stone age).
We have archaeological evidence that the very first shelters were found - as in caves, for example - or were made with materials that could easily have been assembled by bare hands or with the use of very simple tools. The number of caves is limited; and evidently, caves exist in only certain places. Although we can tell from famous cave paintings that early people did in fact
these caves, no real evidence exists to substantiate that they were actually used as dwelling spaces. Here is one famous cave painting found in France:
The intention of the paintings was probably not actually to decorate the natural spaces of the caves, but rather to provide images that might grant mystical power over hunted animals.
Constructed shelters from prehistory have survived only where they were made from durable materials such as small objects of stone (i.e. arrowheads or spear points) or large arrangements of stones set up in patterns or assembled into structures. The arrangement of stones called
are examples.
The arrangement of a large stone on top of two or three upright stones seem to have created the inner chamber of a tomb that depicted an artificial hill. Where the earth has eroded away, the stone dolmen remains; and where the earth is still in place, it forms the kind of tomb called a
Some of them that still survive can be entered; and although they are dark, mysterious, but likely very impressive, it is still possible to find carved or incised patterns cut into the stones.
Estimating dates for prehistoric sites used to be mere guesswork until radio-carbon dating came into (fairly recent) development, in which measurements of organic materials gives a measure of their age. One of the most famous ancient constructions is
Stonehenge; dated with confidence at about 2750-1500 B.C.E. All such construction from the prehistoric era is designated as the
stone age.
We have evidence of various "primitive" tribal cultures using shelters found in Terra Amata in southern France and believed to be about 400,000 years old. The most minimal remains suggest a form of hut made from tree branches and/or animal skins; called a
Wigwam or
Tepee, and may have even contained an exterior layer (or plastering) of mud.
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| Wigwam |
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Tepee
In the Arctic, similar structures were built up of blocks of snow in a dome-like form that we call an Igloo. |
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| Igloo |
Many "primitive" shelters were quite small and were almost always round. They were small due to the limited availability of materials and the need to conserve efforts; however, they were also round as a mere reflection of the reality that nature rarely offers straight lines or squared edges. A circle is also the geometric shape that will enclose most area with the least perimeter. Although this concept may have not exactly been understood in theoretical terms back then, it must have been grasped intuitively in the process of constructing a building or dwelling space.
Common among "primitive" buildings were that they were temporary and easy to take down, pack, and transport when the migratory hunting users needed to follow the herds that were their food supply. Another such portable construction was the
Yurt or
Ger, which is actually still in use today.
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| Yurt |
The round, portable structures that were built by migratory people were typically stand-alone -- each house was a single unit; however, more complex houses of several rooms were used in villages in locations where climate, water, and food sources were sufficiently consistent, making constant relocation unnecessary. These types of villages -- like what would have been found in places like Africa --actually had individual rooms with special functions, such as a living space, kitchen, store room, or a stable, for example.
Still other types of "primitive" house types which were not round, but more with walls or with a more-or-less box-like form were the
A-Frame form of the Dawi ceremonial chief's house, the dwellings of the people of New Guinea,
packed-mud houses in Yemen,
Pueblo building in the American southwest, some wigwams of the early European settlers, and many house-types built by South American natives. In Apulia in southern Italy, there exists an ancient form of a house that still exists today, known as a
Trulli.
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| Trulli |
The Trulli is topped by a round dome built by laying rings of stone in gradually diminishing circles until a single stone can cover the topmost opening.
An underground house of the Sahara, was another such early house that had different "rooms" for different functions; called a
Matmata house. This was a house made up of a central court -- a deep open-topped pit dug into the desert which gives access to surrounding rooms that are totally underground. A long, sloping tunnel was used to gain entrance and no other materials were needed for the fully insulated dwelling. It remained cool enough against the desert heat during the day and warm enough for the extremely cold temperatures at night. The central court, open to the sky, was the only room that received light and heat because it was deep enough to cut off the sun from shining in on any other rooms.
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| Matmata |
So, we move ahead from houses or dwelling spaces that were historically defined primarily due to their environmental realities, proximity to available food, materials, and resources, and best suited to protect against the weather or climate, etc. towards spaces built out of more refined functional necessity; with more purposeful meanings, and for designating identity within a society, tribal loyalties, and for religious or mythic references.
The beginning of "design" started to occur with the integration of patterned woven baskets, rugs, and clothes as alternatives to the use of animal skins for everything. Colors came from nature and dyes were created. Painted pottery began to appear.
The first permanent settlements occurred once people learned to grow their own food and had to stay put to harvest it. For this reason, portable housing was no longer the need; but instead, houses that would last and accommodate growing populations.
With more people around, various skills among them were realized and developed; and so, trade began. Around 4000 B.C. larger towns appeared, and a system for recording things was developed -- "recorded history". With food and shelter adequately assured, people could use their energy on more complex inventions and the arts. Although all of this took place at different times, at different rates, and over thousands of years, two specific areas where this early complexity developed was in the
Nile Valley of Egypt and the region in the
Near East between the
Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in
Mesopotamia.
Around 3500 B.C. in
Mesopotamia: Sumeria, a system of picture writing appeared, which showed signs of a settled civilization that sustained itself with agriculture and an irrigation system. Excavations have uncovered clay tablets, pottery, various other artifacts, and traces of buildings and cities. These cities were in layers. Because mud bricks were used for construction, cities would eventually crumble and erode and become destroyed, and so another city would be built on top of the old one. In the Sumerian city of Ur, excavations showed traces of 4,000-year-old closely packed neighborhoods of houses with several rectangular rooms around an open court. This house type has continued to be used in many warm-climate regions up to the present time.
Arched or
vaulted roofs of mud or clay brick may have been used, and glazed wall tile was used on the surfaces of walls. Mud-brick houses with
domed roofs (similar to the Italian
Trulli mentioned earlier) are still in use in regions of
Iraq and
Syria, suggesting that this house form may also be of very ancient origin. The ancient temple, viewed by its builders as a house of a deity, tended to just be an enlarged and elaborate version of the local house type. The
White Temple in Uruk is such an example because of its whitewashed walls, and is a rectangular block with a number of rooms surrounding a central space that may have been either a covered or an open court.
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| Ruins of the White Temple in Uruk |
Pre-Columbian America: Before the arrival of Columbus on the American continent in 1492, there were a number of established communities, but they were totally unconnected with developments in Europe and elsewhere in the world. The pre-Columbian Americans were of a number of differing groups quite isolated from one another.
The Europeans arriving on the East coast of North America encountered a number of tribal native people that came to be known by various names such as
Seminoles,
Cherokees,
Iroquois,
Onondagas,
Hurons,
and
Eries, among others. Most of these groups had fixed settlements because of agriculture. Their dwellings were typically built of wood with grass roofs, leaves, bark, or thatch. Round structures called
wigwams (like the ones mentioned above) were common; however, rectangular structures called "
longhouses" were also built. Interiors were strictly kept simple, with the only variations being among rugs and blankets dyed different colors, introducing color into their interiors.
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| Seminole Longhouse |
The tribes in the
Central Plains were hunters, so their structures were portable, such as the
tepees mentioned above. In the Southwest, towns with as many as 200 hundreds rooms were built on shelves on cliff edges. The
Anasazi moved from these locations around 1300 C.E., leaving only impressive ruins such as those at
Mesa Verde, CO.
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| Mesa Verde, Colorado |
Other tribes like the
Hopi,
Taos, and
Zuni adopted agriculture, so they built more permanent structures
, forming villages made up of the rectangular structures known as
pueblos. Walls were built of adobe brick while roofing was made from wooden poles that supported smaller wood members.
Navajos built round structures with walls of stone supporting a tepeelike roof. The making of baskets, pottery, and woven materials provided some color and variety within the strictly functional dwellings.
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| Taos Pueblo |
All of these native
North American cultures are pre-Columbian and were discovered by European explorers.
I'll stop here for now, but will pick back up as soon as possible, because there's much more to share about these early civilizations and dwelling spaces!
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