Point: Foundations

Foundations are the basis and groundwork for all structures. They are the prepared base in which most structures rest on, an establishment. Without a strong, sturdy foundation objects would deteriorate and fall apart. Our foundations unit started with the early settlements of Mesopotamia, China, the Ohio Valley and Teotihuacan. Here we saw the advancement from horizontal lines moving across the land, to circles and then to stacking as different styles of getting an important point across. From these representations the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome adopted and supplied us with majority of the archetypes, prototypes and hybrids of foundations. They took these previous ideas and built upon them turning them into their own, advanced ideas.

To start, Egypt implemented the idea of the stacking concept in their tombs for the kings. Giant stones stacked and stacked on top of each other to unbelievable heights were uncalled of within this time period. The amount of exertion it would have taken is unthinkable. There are a few theories to how this came about but, without direct proof, all we can do is speculate. The Egyptian pyramids advanced our explorations of the horizontal and vertical axes. In ancient times it was believed that the world was square rather than the spherical shape we know it to be today. The golden tip resting on the top of the pyramids were meant to absorb the light from the sun and disperse it through the base to horizontally reach the four corners of the Earth. The vertical aspect was height used to relate earth and its people to the Gods. The higher a structure was, the closer the buried was thought to be to God. There was also a difference in gender roles shown in Egypt, as with the Pyramids of Giza versus the Temple Hatshepsut. The Pyramids of Giza were quite large and stood out against its surroundings with its white limestone covered shell and colorful hieroglyphics. Hatshepsut’s temple, on the other hand, blended into a Cliffside and was structurally horizontal.

Greece used Egypt as it’s prototype for design. The Egyptians started with a papyrus column and the Greeks further developed that idea ending up with the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns. They also incorporated the stacking concept when building the columns, which were made up of smaller pieces of stone stacked on top of each other. Their temples focused more on the Gods and Goddesses they worshipped but the gender roles were not so definite. Take the Parthenon in the Acropolis, a temple built for the goddess Athena, which is more dominant than the other temples surrounding it. The Greeks also moved more toward a-symmetrical axis design. Although the Greeks did borrow ideas from the ancient Egyptians, they built upon those thoughts and took from real to ideal.

Rome took us for a bit of a loop. Making use of the designs from the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, they spun in a different direction to move forward. Rome’s daily life was focused on the people. Instead of using the lessons learned about stacking and columns for structural purposes, they merely threw all aspects into one using the columns as more of a visual aid. They incorporated the stacking concept but further produced it using arches, which made the composition more structurally sound. Using these new developments they produced the mega-structure we know as the Coliseum. Again we see a representation of gender roles in Rome with the Wu-Wu, the male depiction, and the Arch, the female depiction. By having these architectural elements to refer to from the past, the Romans have helped to build upon this strong foundation system we have to refer to today.

In present times, we still continue to see the advancements of these aspects and elements of design made by the ancient Egyptians, Grecians and Romans. The only direction to move in now is forward. Foundations aren’t left behind; they are picked up and carried with us along the way.