China Peer Review

Katie: I liked how you compared China and India to each other.  It was nice seeing the similarities and differences.

Savannah: I liked how you went into detail about The Great Wall and why it was made.

The Americas Peer Review

Haley: I really liked how she touched on all of the main groups instead of just talking about one.  It was cool seeing the similarities and differences between each group.

Holli: It was cool, yet gross that you described why they did human sacrifice.  It makes them seem a little less crazy for doing that.

China

When you think of China you think of the Great Wall.  Qin Shi Huangdi, declared himself emperor and decided to build the Great Wall.  The wall's length is about 3000 to 4000 miles. The wall follows the ridge lines of mountains and hills.  The wall is made up of two main things the defensive walls and the towers.  The walls and towers were built at two different times.  They were also remodeled at two different times.  The towers occur every hundred yards.  They have arrow slits for protection; they didn't just use arrows they also shot cannons.  The wall was built to keep Mongol and Turkic Raiders at bay.  The Great Wall was never meant to be such a great monument.

The Great Wall

Chinese first sat on mats on the ground.  Tables were also low to ground, this made furniture types very limited.  Then there were three major developments in furniture in China.  The first was a framework with an infill panel, the second was furniture played a key part in interior layouts, lastly the sitting on a tall chair with legs pendant became popular.  The reason why tall chairs became popular is still unclear.  It may be from several reason such as: function, comfort, and status.  Women needed to sit in high chairs because when they would weave needed their feet to be free.  

Yoke-Back Chair

Current Applications

Extra Credit:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JldL56NgeF8

The Americas

The Americas contributed largely to society with their temples and pyramids.  The larges buildings in North America can be found in Teotihuacán.  Teotihuacán is a major place for agriculture and trade.  It was one of the largest cities with a population of approximately 200,000.  There are two pyramids that are surrounded by lower temples, platforms, and palaces.  These pyramids are the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun.  The Pyramid of the Sun is built on top of a cave.  The Pyramid of the Moon is not very big however it is constructed beautifully.

Pyramid of the Sun and Moon

The palaces they had were more like apartments than palaces.  They focused around a courtyard with rooms that were open to the sky.  In order to keep up with these amazing buildings they needed a lot of mason, carvers, painters, and potters.  The markets sold the goods that the artists made.  Artists were admired, but were on the lower end of the economic scale.  The stone walls of buildings were painted with bright colors, mainly red, but have faded over the years.

Apartments

Current Applications

Extra Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmFJyzFaLf8

Gothic Peer Review

Angie: I liked how she talked about the black plague because we didn't really cover it that much during class.  I liked all her images showing what kind of structures and techniques were popular at this time.

Becca: I liked how she listed all the characteristics of the gothic period.  She also did a good job of explaining this idea of 'new light.'

Gothic

In 1250 European design began to change drastically.  It all began in France.  The Gothic period grew out of the Romanesque period.  Gothic architecture relies on pointed arches.  It came from two adjacent, but separate circles.  Flying buttresses were also invented at this time.  They helped support structure that needed a little more support.  Many Early Christian and Romanesque churches fell because they did not have buttresses to give their churches extra support.

The Notre Dame de Paris is one of the most famous Gothic cathedrals.  It sits on an island in the middle of Paris.  It was one of the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress.  Originally the cathedral was not going to use flying buttresses, but the walls started to put outward so they needed more support.  There were many statues around the outside of the cathedral.  They were put there to serve as column supports and water spouts.  Many of the statues were colored, but the paint wore off.  It took almost two hundred years to complete the cathedral.  During the French Revolution the cathedral was damaged.  Tombs and stained glass windows were destroyed.  The north and south rose windows were not damaged.  Many of the treasures in the cathedral were destroyed.  The statues of the kings of Judah were beheaded.  Later the heads were found and the statues were restored.  Surprisingly none of the bells were melted down.

Current Applications

Extra Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4jzDkRYVJY

Romanesque Peer Review

Haley: I found it interesting that homes were made out of mud and twigs, when they had these magnificent churches.  It's also crazy to think that a lot of people died because of what their houses were made of.

Claire: I found it interesting that the Pisa Baptistery was made out of three building and not just the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Islamic Peer Review

Rachael: I think she did a good job on talking about several different mosques.  Although she should of put of pictures of the inside and outside of the mosques.  Overall, her information was helpful and insightful.

Savannah: I liked how she talked a lot about the Taj Mahl and the history of it.  I didn't know that much about Minbars so I liked how she went into detail about those.

Islamic

Islamic design is centered on religion.  The Great Mosque of Damascus, converted from a Roman temple, shows how repetitive mosques are.  Sometimes architects reused the ruins, but incorporated Roman columns and capitals.  Anatolia and the regions of the Middle East were under the Ottoman Empire.  The Hagia Sophia was designed by Justinian to outshine the Pantheon.  It was later converted from a Christian temple to a mosque in the fifteenth century.  Later on, lots of churches were turned into mosques.  Today, the Hagia Sophia is now a museum that you can visit and learn about the history of it and see other exhibits inside of it.

Moorish furniture shows the combination of western forms and Islamic decoration.  A typical piece from this time period was the vargueño.  It was a chest with a stand, which also served as a desk.  It was for writing and storing things.  It has a lot of carvings and decorations on the chest.  Moorish chairs usually resemble Italian and French chairs.  They had a chair called sillón frailero.  It was a highly decorated folding chair made out of wood and leather.

Current Applications

Extra Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccfSy6-Ljlo

Romanesque

The Romanesque period had two different kinds of important chairs.  The first chair was know as the X-frame chair.  The X-frame chair already existed in Egypt, Nubia, Greece, and the Byzantine Empire.  Dagobert I was the ruler at this time and he loved metalwork.  He had an X-frame chair made for him out of metal.  It slightly resembles a sella curulis chair.  The second important chair was Charlemagne's throne.  It is mainly famous because it was Charlemagne's.  The chair was situated on a raised platform.  The height of it shows his authority and status.  Charlemagne was so important to history because of his success in creating a unified government.

Chests were still important to people at this time.  They used them to store household possessions.  The chest came in many forms and was considered a piece of luggage.  Most chests were made out of oak, walnut, poplar, and pine.  The most basic type of furniture is a chest.  Not only was the chest used for storage, but people in the Middle Ages designed it to have a work surface on top.  They also used these work surfaces for sitting, dining, or sometimes sleeping.  Footed chests were very desirable because they lifted contents off of the cold floor.  Large numbers of chests survived because the contents inside were considered valuable.  Chests that had flat bottoms and curved lids were used for transportation.  The curved lids helped prevent water for coming in.  In the Romanesque period furniture had to resist the unwanted intruder.  To tell that a chest came from the Romanesque period is if it has a semicircular arch.

Current Applications

Extra Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4PI8dEWTGE

Byzantine Peer Reviews

Kiera: She did a good job describing the Hagia Sophia so you could picture what it looks like. Her extra credit video described it in even more detail.

Lisa: She did a good job covering what pendentives are and other architectural vocabulary for this time period.  I really liked how her video showed how to make a pendentive for a dome.

Early Christianity Peer Reviews

Holli: She did a really good job of displaying all of the information of Early Christianity and really went into detail about how it began and the architectural improvements.  The second current application picture was really cool and unique looking.

Katie: I liked how she went into the different classes in Early Christianity.  She also covered the different kinds of architecture and furniture inside the churches very well.

Byzantine

The Hagia Sophia was a dedicated Christian Cathedral.  This structure has multiple domes.  The Hagia Sophia almost out does the Pantheon.  What is so special about the Hagia Sophia is that it has a dome lifted onto four columns and connected to them with a pendentives.  The assembly of the dome rests largely on four piers that sit in an outer shell.  It has a double shell construction.

The Byzantine Empire consisted of three main cities: Constantinople, Venice, and Ravenna.  Their furniture was very similar to the Roman forms.  The most common piece of furniture was a chest that had strong hinges and a lock.  This helped keep thieves out of their precious items.  The throne of Maximian shows excellent examples of ivory carving.  It is traced back to ivory-carving schools in Egypt.  Ten of the panels on the throne show scenes from Joseph's life.  The larger panels show St. John the Baptist.  Most of their furniture was pretty simple and only used for sitting.  

Current Applications

Extra Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq-zKkloLuc

Early Christian

Early Christian refers to the art and architecture of first Christians.  Early Christian churches were built throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.  Sant' Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna shows how these Christian architects first started with a basilica form and then fixed it to meet the needs of that specific Christian church.  The structure of Apollinare is set up as a long rectangle and at the end of it there is a big space/focal point to have the alter.  There are columns on each side of the interior building.  Along these columns there are walkways so one could walk down them without interrupting the service.

The facade of the Basilica de San Julian de los Prados in Oviedo it shows the height of the nave and it also has side aisles in the interior.  It has a triangular roof and a central door opening.  Some churches combine the basilica and the cruciform plan, or both apses at the end of the basilica.

Current Applications

Extra Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mpq3OnpV4Y