The word illuminate is, in mind, closely tied to the great novelist Virginia Woolf. In her book A Room of One’s Own she repeatedly comments on how a great author has the ability to tell a story with such integrity that all sides of the story are seen. The reader will be given the ability to see clearly all the nooks and crannies of a situation, as if a candle had been held at the precise angle to chase away all shadow.
Roth describes the New Grange tomb in Dublin, Ireland as having a particularly poetic use of illumination. When designing the tomb, the early architects deliberately oriented the building southeast. The entrance to the tomb is blocked by a curbstone. The elements of this burial mound work together so that once a year, on the winter solstice, a beam of sunlight can pass through the entire tomb and strike against the farthest back wall. This slit was left open after the completion of the tomb and interment of the dead to represent a line of communication between the living and the dead. (Roth 171).
Material has tied into multiple sections of our History and Theory lectures over the past week. The first of our discussions on material culture brought out many interesting ideas about the significance that people place on objects and how it can differ based on the interpretation of the historian who is studying that object. Roth summarizes many of the theories on interpretation of material culture saying “Architecture is the crystallization of ideas, a physical representation of human thought and aspiration, a record of the beliefs and values of the culture that produces it” (Roth 159).
Later, we looked at the significance of material not as a possession but as a building tool. Early societies living in the first cities did not have the technology to create synthetic building materials. They built structurally sound buildings utilizing only the materials that were readily available to them. The main building materials used by early humans as we discussed in class are (a) skin over structure of timber or bone, (b) natural environment painting, and (c) stone on earth alignments and patterns.
The first sedentary humans used permanent shelters as a means of protecting themselves from the harsh European climate. They utilized skin, mammoth skull, stone and rocks to create huts that could withstand wind and safely enclose hearth fires (Roth 162).
The Terra Amata in Nice, France. In Roth p.162 from Henry de Lumley, “A Paleolithic Camp at Niece,” Scientific American 220 (
Later, societies in the Mesopotamian region built pyramids and temples of mud brick and columns of sandstone.
These early buildings and statues often served idiomatic purposes in addition to providing shelter. In class we discussed the Ziggurat of Ur-Nammu, the Teotihuhacan, The Great Wall of China, the Wedding Rocks at Futamigara and the Adena Great Serpent mound as examples of designed buildings in the first cities.
In the beginning, I had problems wrapping my mind around the idea of the wedding rocks as a building.
http://www.yamasa.org/japan/english/destinations/mie/futamigaura.html
At the top of the tallest rock is a temple. I can see the temple being designed and thought out. It has boundaries and had to be created by moving and placing materials deliberately. But the concept of the building incorporating the rocks (both rocks) was difficult for me to grasp. It is odd for me to think of the rocks as a part of the building. They are roped together, but does that make them a building? I still need some time to ponder whether or not I put the Wedding Rocks in the same category as the Ziggurat.
That brings me to my final term, commodity, firmness and delight. We discussed these three at length over the first to weeks of class. I am quite certain that I will be able to tie many future talks on design back to these principles. Sir Henry Wotten paraphrased Vitruvius saying that architecture must provide “commodity, firmness, and delight”(Roth 11).
Delight, is something that, as a music major, I constantly strive to provide for others. Susan K. Langer is quoted in Roth saying”…but music is not melted architecture.” Without good architecture, making great music is difficult, if not impossible. The experience of playing music in a well-designed hall is enough to convince you that music can be melted from architecture. The text has many examples of how building can be “done wrong” and emphasizes the importance of architecture in acoustics and sound. The text, when interpreted, supports my view, rather than Langer’s. If you think of melting as a product of immense heat, it can be said that melted objects radiate heat.
My good friend-Lindsey Eskins- is able to extract music from architecture when playing marimba in a well designed hall- UNCG School of Music- Organ Hall
If I let this blog wander with my brain, I come to think about musicians who “suffer” from synesthesia. That is, they see pitch as color. If there are humans capable of processing music as color (which there are) how much of a stretch is it to think that there are also humans who see music as lines and shapes. Architecture is, at is most basic, a series of aedicules, lines and shapes linked together like Lincoln logs. I believe that investigation would show that music could create architecture when a very special mind is processing those combined stimuli.
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Now it is time for me to make a huge jump that I do not believe can be made with any tact. I continue on to my musings on Stonehenge and the great stone structures of the first groups of stratified, stationary people. I cannot help but think of how many times I have referred to certain life situations as making me feel as though I was “beating my head against a wall.” The first builders and architects seem to have bridged a gap that made great changes in the early cultures of the world.
How did the first “architect” effect the decision of a group of people to decide to stay in one place? Roth jumps this gap from mobile to sedentary with little more artfulness than I did just now! He leaps from Neanderthal houses to great stone structures, surely there had to be some middle step for early builders to learn how to use stone structures. I cannot imagine trying to lift and place the lintels in Stonehenge. How did the designers figure out how big a pulley to use? Was the stone allowed to crush a builder or two in a trial and error process, or can smaller stone structures be found? Was there ever a point where the commissioner of these great works decided that the cost was just too great? Did the early designers feel themselves beating their heads against their grandiose ideas?
The conclusion to Roth’s chapter on the first cities suggests that there was a progression from African tribal societies to European sedentary cities, but it is little more than a statement. In this section he mentions the mastery of fire as a reason for groups of people’s “exodus” from Africa (Roth 177). I think that this obsession with harnessing fire can be seen still today. I grew up in the south. I also had the privilege of always living in relatively large houses. I cannot think of a single one of them that was not focused on a central hearth. Even in Atlanta, Georgia, where cold is not a major weather force, the fireplace was there. My condo in Greensboro has an enormous stone fireplace, in three years I have never used it. This leads me to believe that the mastery of fire has mad more of an impact than I might have thought. Hundreds of thousands of years after he first dwellings were built; we are still putting fireplaces at the center of our houses.
-Stone fireplace in my condo (built in 2000)- Isn’t my nephew cute!
I commend you for making it to the end of this blog entry. I have found it amazingly difficult to make clear, artful transitions between large sections and concepts, which has most probably made reading this an arduous experience. I suppose that writing a blog such as this is a skill that I will have to work to master.
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