Constantine

Constantine I the Great (272–337 CE) was the last pagan and first Christian emperor of Rome, initiating his empire’s conversion to Christianity and the development of Byzantine culture. Early architectural commissions, such as the Baths of Constantine in Rome, reflect the pagan past, but others, such as the Aula Palatina at Trier in Germany, are Christian. As well as the great church of St Peter, his achievements include the completion of the huge Basilica Nova, modelled on the frigidaria (cold rooms) of bath complexes, and the Arch of Constantine (opposite), commemorating victory over his rival Maxentius. Built of marble blocks and brickwork riveted with marble, the arch is 21 metres (69 ft) high, 26 metres (85 ft) wide and 7.4 metres (24 ft) deep. Each façade features four Corinthian columns of yellow Numidean marble, as well as decorations salvaged from as far back as the Emperor Trajan (98–117 CE). In 324, Constantine founded Constantinople as the ‘new Rome’, and his interest in building found expression there in the churches of the Holy Wisdom (see here) and of the Apostles.

Hagia Sophia

Rebuilt on the orders of Byzantine emperor Justinian from 537 CE after the original burnt to the ground, Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia, or Church of the Holy Wisdom, was one of the most lavish and expensive buildings of all time. Designed by scientists Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, it took more than 10,000 workmen five years to build.

Its greatest triumph is a 32.5-metre (107-ft) dome, raised over a square central space using tapering triangular elements known as pendentives. This technique allowed the builders to dispense with supporting walls, instead using half-domes to the east and west to hold up the main dome (heavy reinforcing buttresses were added later). The dome was overlaid in gold to evoke Heaven, with the square space below laid in coloured marble symbolizing Earth. With the decline of the Byzantine Empire, the building was ransacked several times, and when the Ottoman Turks stormed Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II converted it into a mosque, with minarets added over the next century.

Byzantine architecture

When Constantine established Constantinople in 324 CE, the Roman Empire split in two, with a capital city for each half: Constantinople in the east and Ravenna in the west. The subsequent fusing of Greek and Roman styles in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire led to forms such as the Greek-cross plan church, with its four equal arms, square centre and dome roof. Important buildings featured high ceilings and opulent decoration including marble, mosaics and inlays, although churches tended to feature painted icons in place of statues.

With Constantinople located on so many major trade routes, Byzantine architecture spread across a vast area, influencing medieval, Renaissance and Ottoman styles. Surviving examples include the octagonal basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna (opposite, 547 CE), whose Byzantine elements include a polygonal apse, capitals, narrow bricks and rich mosaics; St Mark’s Cathedral in Venice (1092); and the churches of Hosios Loukas (Saint Luke) in Boeotia, Greece, founded in the 11th century.

Hindu temples

The earliest Hindu temples were constructed in the fourth to fifth centuries CE. Over the ensuing years, they were built in many variations, adapted to the worship of different deities and to regional beliefs. Despite their differences, all were open, symmetrical constructions, built on square grids. Each temple comprises an inner sanctum and the garbhagriha or ‘womb-chamber’, housing the image of the primary idol or deity. Above the garbhagriha is the tower-like shikhara, or vimana, and an ambulatory for parikrama (circumambulation). Another staple is a congregation hall, and sometimes an antechamber and porch. The earliest examples were made of clay with roofs thatched with straw or leaves; later, brick and stone were used.

The Hindu culture encouraged creative independence, but architects and builders nonetheless had to adhere to certain ‘rules’, including precise and harmonious geometry throughout, tall towers, and ornate sculptures of gods, worshippers, erotic scenes, animals, and floral and geometric patterns.

Hindu temple at Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, c. 1000 CE

Prambanan

A ninth-century temple complex in Indonesia on the borders of Yogyakarta and Central Java, Prambanan is the largest Hindu temple in ancient Java. It was probably built to mark the return of the Hindu Sañjaya dynasty to power in Central Java after nearly a century of dominance by the Buddhist Sailendra dynasty. The Sañjaya king Rakai Pikatan founded it c.850 CE to honour Lord Shiva, and subsequent kings expanded it into a compound of three zones. The outer zone was a large open space; the middle zone contains 224 small, identical shrines; the central, holiest zone is surrounded by a square stone wall with a gate at each of the four cardinal points. The three main trimurti (shrines) within this walled compound include the Shiva shrine at centre, on top of a terraced and richly decorated plinth. Reliefs illustrating stories from the Ramayana epic continue on the terraces of the Brahma and Vishnu shrines. Though it is complex, Prambanan nonetheless conforms to Hindu temple design requirements in following a geometric grid dominated by the imposing 47-metre (154-ft) central building.

Angkor Wat

The city of Angkor, built by the Hindu Khmer kings of northwest Cambodia between the 9th and 15th centuries, contains the monumental complex of Angkor Wat – the world’s largest religious monument – constructed by King Suryavarman (r.1113–45) as a temple to the god Vishnu and as a royal mausoleum. It is laid out to symbolize the universe: the central structure represents the holy Mount Meru, home to the Hindu gods; the five surrounding towers are the mountain peaks that were thought to mark the edge of the cosmos; and the broad moat represents the oceans believed to lie beyond.

The main temple building has three tiered terraces that represent earth, water and wind. The many bas-reliefs that adorn the buildings are detailed representations of Hindu mythology. It is an act of veneration to circumambulate a Hindu temple, and the ambulatory of Angkor Wat amounts to 19 kilometres (12 miles). The complex was later copied across the Khmer Empire, but no other Hindu temple attained such scale and precision.

Japanese temples

Japanese Shinto shrines are dwellings for the gods, the kami. Sacred objects that represent them may be stored out of sight in the honden, or inner sanctuary, but a honden may not be present if there are altar-like structures called himorogi nearby. Buddhist temples also exist alongside Shinto shrines, with both sharing some features of Japanese traditional architecture (although Buddhist architecture was brought to Japan from China and other Asian cultures, and so is somewhat eclectic).

Partly due to these diverse origins and partly in response to the differing climates across Japan, shrines vary in structure, but some features recur. Most Japanese temples are made of wood to be earthquake-proof, and, although borrowing from Chinese architectural designs, have their own distinctive characteristics. Gently curving roofs are common, supported by a post-and-lintel structure, with walls that are paper-thin and often movable, making inner spaces fluid.

Toshogu Shrine at Nikko, 1617

Hōryū-ji temple and pagoda

The first temple and pagoda at Hōryū-ji in Nara Prefecture was built in 607 CE, soon after Buddhism reached Japan. Struck by lightning in 670, it was rebuilt c.711, and repaired on several occasions. Its perimeter is a covered wooden corridor with an inner gateway (chumon) leading into the temple courtyard. Japanese design and architecture emphasizes harmony with nature, and Hōryū-ji, although following Chinese pagodas, focuses on a Japanese understanding of grace, unity and asymmetry.

The complex comprises a five-storey pagoda, the Golden Hall (kondo), a free-standing lecture hall (kodo), and several small pavilions that were used for housing the sutras, or sacred texts. The pagoda contained symbolic relics of the Buddha, while the Golden Hall was a storehouse of religious images. The pagoda’s graceful flaring eaves are supported by cantilevered cloud-pattern bracket arms. With no means to ascend to the upper levels, its function is simply to add decorative height to the overall appearance.

Song Dynasty

With towering Buddhist pagodas, great stone and wooden bridges, lavish tombs and extravagant palaces, China’s Song Dynasty (960–1279) became noted for its sophisticated building developments, such as the 110-metre (360-ft) pagoda in Bianjing, capital of the Northern Song. Cities such as Bianjing were built on square or rectangular plans, with walls of rammed earth topped by a mixture of broken brick, tiles and crushed stone.

Pagodas developed from purely wooden structures to stone, brick and even cast iron. The Iron Pagoda of Yuquan Temple in Hubei Province (built c.1061) incorporates 53 tonnes of cast metal in its 21.3-metre (70-ft) structure. The Liuhe or ‘Six Harmonies’ Pagoda in the Southern Song capital of Hangzhou, in Zhejiang Province, is another fine example of pagoda architecture from the time (opposite). Standing 60 metres (197 ft) tall, it was built with a red-brick frame and 13 stages of wooden eaves. Internally, however, the pagoda has just seven stories, each with an elaborately decorated ceiling.

Early Islamic design

The Umayyads (r.661–750) were the first Islamic rulers to found a dynasty, and their magnificent buildings were designed to project authority, combining elements of Byzantine and Sassanid Persian architecture. Establishing their court at Damascus, they built a series of grand palaces.

The Great Mosque (opposite, 705–15), modelled on the prototype of the Prophet’s mosque in Mecca, featured a vast enclosed courtyard with a minaret at each corner, and a central prayer hall divided by Corinthian columns into three aisles. Drawing on Christian architectural features, it included domes, round arches, Byzantine-style gold mosaics, carved reliefs and veined marble slabs. The Great Mosque at Samarra (851) is noted for its spiralling minaret, the 52-metre (162-ft) Malwiya Tower, as well as early Islamic decoration in the form of floral and geometric stucco carvings. The Great Mosque of Córdoba, built in 785 under the Abbasid caliphate (750–1513), marked the beginnings of Moorish architecture in the Iberian peninsula.

The Dome of the Rock

Completed in 691–2 CE by the Umayyad Caliph Abd Al-Malik, the Dome of the Rock is a shrine on Temple Mount in Jerusalem; the earliest surviving Muslim monumental building (albeit with a few alterations), it is one of the city’s defining landmarks. The site is important for Jews, Christians and Muslims, and the Dome replaces earlier temples on the location. It was initially intended to stand as a substitute for the Kaaba, the shrine of the great mosque at Mecca.

The octagonal plan was probably based on the Byzantine Chapel of St Mary, built in 451–8 CE on the road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Mounted on an elevated drum, the great dome is 20 metres (66 ft) in diameter and 20.5 metres (67 ft) high. It rises above 12 columns and 4 piers, with an octagonal walkway of 16 columns and 8 piers. Light pours in through 16 windows evenly spaced around the drum, and 40 more in the lower, octagonal part. It has been claimed that around 100,000 gold coins were melted down for the dome’s original exterior.

Islamic urban planning

The spread of Islam to parts of Asia, Africa and Europe had an overwhelming impact on urban development. With great diversity in climate, building forms and construction materials, there was at first no uniform style, but the Fatimid period in Egypt (969–1171) saw the emergence of a common architectural vocabulary and town planning.

The main mosque lay at the heart of each town, usually close to the suq (market). Nearby was the madrasa (school or college), and also the casbah, or citadel – the governor’s walled palace. Beyond lay residential quarters. In hot and arid climates, residences were designed around courtyards that preserved privacy and kept interiors cool. Doors were located so that they did not overlook others, and windows placed higher than passers-by. Similarly, high windows in buildings did not overlook other dwellings or courtyards. The different quarters were connected by narrow winding streets, with tombs and cemeteries located a short distance beyond the town walls.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan and surroundings, Tunisia