World Architecture
World Architecture is a art or practice of designing and constructing buildings.
111. Megalithic temples
Malta
The oldest monumental architecture in the world is found on the tiny islands of Malta and Gozo, south of Sicily in the western Mediterranean. There, for perhaps 1,500 years from 3800 b.c., communities of neolithic farmers built about thirty massive post-and-beam temples. None of these megalithic structures has survived intact, but no doubt they were architectural masterworks, the earliest of them a thousand years older than the pyramids at Giza, Egypt. The most striking examples are at Ggantija (the word means giant) on Gozo and at Hagar Kim Mnajdra, Tarxien, Ta Hagrat, and Skorba on Malta. The islands were first settled, quite separately, by people from southeast Sicily sometime between 5000 and 4000 b.c. These simple agrarian immigrants bred cattle, sheep, and pigs and grew lentils and barley. There probably followed a second wave of colonists from Sicily who absorbed or displaced the original group, and who left evidence of a culture expressed in communal underground tombs, for example, those at Zebbug on Malta and at Xaghra on Gozo. These graves foreshadowed the spectacular subterranean building known as the Hypogeum at Hal-Saflieni, described below. It has been suggested that later temple forms were also derived from these earlier burial places, because both building types consist of irregular compartments joined by short corridors. Architecture, especially religious architecture, on such a scale indicates that the society produced an agricultural surplus to fund the work, that their organization permitted collaborative effort, and that their religious beliefs were strong enough to inspire and maintain that effort. The temples demonstrate a developing form. The earliest were constructed by piling massive limestone rocks that were neither dressed nor carved. Later temples, like those at Ggantija, Hagar Kim, Mnajdra, and Tarxien, were also built of huge slabs transported from neighboring quarries, but the blocks were set out to a clearly predetermined plan, carefully dressed and fitted and carved with finely detailed ornament. This later phase is lucid evidence of an ingenious people with a well-developed technology. They could transport immense blocks of stone, up to 20 feet (6 meters) high and weighing many tons, and accurately shape them using only flint or obsidian tools. The quality of the decorative work that embellished the structuresspiral carvings, intaglio patterns, and figuresdemonstrates creative and artistic skills of a similar order. The Hagar Kim and Mnajdra Temples stand on rocky ground a few hundred meters apart near the village of Qrendi on Maltas southeast coast. Their layout is difficult to describe. For example, the entrance to the approximately oval compound at Hagar Kim is set in a wall of carefully shaped and fitted rectangular limestone blocks. The doorway itself is a trilithon (three stones). This device, consisting of two uprights supporting a lintel, would remain the essential architectural and structural element of European architecture for the next 3,000 years. But beyond the gate there is a confused assemblage of amorphous rooms and courtyards linked by corridors, whose elaborate arrangement must be seen to be understood. The three temples and the small enclosure of the Mnajdra complex are built of hard and soft limestones and are rather better defined. Two large elongated elliptical spaces forming a figure eight make up the largest building they are entered through trilithonic doorways flanked by small square apses. The enclosing walls are built in two layers internally they present as tall, massive slabs, while the outer face is constructed of masonry blocks. Although smaller, each weighs several hundred kilograms. It seems that some of the temples once had domed roofs. The complex of three linked temples in the town of Tarxien probably was built sometime later than the others, although the basic form is the same.Perhaps the most striking prehistoric site on Malta, dating from around 3000 to 2500 b.c., is the Hypogeum at Hal-Saflieni, near the town of Paola. The three-story, 1,600-square-foot (150-square-meter) subterranean curvilinear building was excavated from the soft coralline limestone. Its upper level is a series of irregular, roughly finished burial chambers, very like the earlier rock-hewn tombs found elsewhere on the island and on Gozo. The middle level has twenty larger more regularly shaped rooms joined by corridors. One is carved from the rock in close imitation of the contemporary aboveground temples, complete with trilithonic forms, roof beams, and other structural devices, none of which (of course) are structural. Some walls are almost covered with painted animals and curvilinear geometric designs. An ante-chamber known as the Holy of Holies has a stairway leading to the lowest level, 36 feet (11 meters) beneath the surface, which has a maze of chambers and more rock tombs. That section seems to have had little use, but the remains of some 7,000 people have been found in the whole Hypogeum. Perhaps the building was designed as a temple for the dead, since archeological discoveries suggest the spaces were used for rituals other than burials. The theme of an earth-mother goddess was common throughout the ancient Mediterranean region, but the intricate art of Malta may have been associated with a more complicated cult than fertility worship. Whoever or whatever they worshiped, it seems that this mysterious culture was suddenly terminated around 2000 b.c., when it was at its height. The directors of a joint archeological project between the Universities of Cambridge, Bristol, and Malta have theorized about the reasons for this sudden collapse, attributing it to a combination of several factors: the transition from an egalitarian to a hierarchical social structure, the pressures of increasing population, obsession with temple building that detracted from agricultural efforts, the effects of erosion on productivity, and diminishing trade links with Sicily. The architecture they left behind was undervalued for centuries by the Maltese authorities, and through exposure to the severe marine climate and more recently shocks from nearby quarries, it inevitably decayed. In 1980 the Temple of Ggantija was inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List, and in 1992 the listing was extended to include five more complexes on Malta and Gozo under the title the Megalithic Temples of Malta. In that year a carefully designed conservation project was launched by a multinational team of experts to save the Hypogeum, whose ochre rock paintings were being badly affected by seepage and eighty years of tourism. Each site presents its individual challenge and further conservation measures are planned for the oldest monumental architecture in the world.
The oldest monumental architecture in the world is found on the tiny islands of Malta and Gozo, south of Sicily in the western Mediterranean. There, for perhaps 1,500 years from 3800 b.c., communities of neolithic farmers built about thirty massive post-and-beam temples. None of these megalithic structures has survived intact, but no doubt they were architectural masterworks, the earliest of them a thousand years older than the pyramids at Giza, Egypt. The most striking examples are at Ggantija (the word means giant) on Gozo and at Hagar Kim Mnajdra, Tarxien, Ta Hagrat, and Skorba on Malta. The islands were first settled, quite separately, by people from southeast Sicily sometime between 5000 and 4000 b.c. These simple agrarian immigrants bred cattle, sheep, and pigs and grew lentils and barley. There probably followed a second wave of colonists from Sicily who absorbed or displaced the original group, and who left evidence of a culture expressed in communal underground tombs, for example, those at Zebbug on Malta and at Xaghra on Gozo. These graves foreshadowed the spectacular subterranean building known as the Hypogeum at Hal-Saflieni, described below. It has been suggested that later temple forms were also derived from these earlier burial places, because both building types consist of irregular compartments joined by short corridors. Architecture, especially religious architecture, on such a scale indicates that the society produced an agricultural surplus to fund the work, that their organization permitted collaborative effort, and that their religious beliefs were strong enough to inspire and maintain that effort. The temples demonstrate a developing form. The earliest were constructed by piling massive limestone rocks that were neither dressed nor carved. Later temples, like those at Ggantija, Hagar Kim, Mnajdra, and Tarxien, were also built of huge slabs transported from neighboring quarries, but the blocks were set out to a clearly predetermined plan, carefully dressed and fitted and carved with finely detailed ornament. This later phase is lucid evidence of an ingenious people with a well-developed technology. They could transport immense blocks of stone, up to 20 feet (6 meters) high and weighing many tons, and accurately shape them using only flint or obsidian tools. The quality of the decorative work that embellished the structuresspiral carvings, intaglio patterns, and figuresdemonstrates creative and artistic skills of a similar order. The Hagar Kim and Mnajdra Temples stand on rocky ground a few hundred meters apart near the village of Qrendi on Maltas southeast coast. Their layout is difficult to describe. For example, the entrance to the approximately oval compound at Hagar Kim is set in a wall of carefully shaped and fitted rectangular limestone blocks. The doorway itself is a trilithon (three stones). This device, consisting of two uprights supporting a lintel, would remain the essential architectural and structural element of European architecture for the next 3,000 years. But beyond the gate there is a confused assemblage of amorphous rooms and courtyards linked by corridors, whose elaborate arrangement must be seen to be understood. The three temples and the small enclosure of the Mnajdra complex are built of hard and soft limestones and are rather better defined. Two large elongated elliptical spaces forming a figure eight make up the largest building they are entered through trilithonic doorways flanked by small square apses. The enclosing walls are built in two layers internally they present as tall, massive slabs, while the outer face is constructed of masonry blocks. Although smaller, each weighs several hundred kilograms. It seems that some of the temples once had domed roofs. The complex of three linked temples in the town of Tarxien probably was built sometime later than the others, although the basic form is the same.Perhaps the most striking prehistoric site on Malta, dating from around 3000 to 2500 b.c., is the Hypogeum at Hal-Saflieni, near the town of Paola. The three-story, 1,600-square-foot (150-square-meter) subterranean curvilinear building was excavated from the soft coralline limestone. Its upper level is a series of irregular, roughly finished burial chambers, very like the earlier rock-hewn tombs found elsewhere on the island and on Gozo. The middle level has twenty larger more regularly shaped rooms joined by corridors. One is carved from the rock in close imitation of the contemporary aboveground temples, complete with trilithonic forms, roof beams, and other structural devices, none of which (of course) are structural. Some walls are almost covered with painted animals and curvilinear geometric designs. An ante-chamber known as the Holy of Holies has a stairway leading to the lowest level, 36 feet (11 meters) beneath the surface, which has a maze of chambers and more rock tombs. That section seems to have had little use, but the remains of some 7,000 people have been found in the whole Hypogeum. Perhaps the building was designed as a temple for the dead, since archeological discoveries suggest the spaces were used for rituals other than burials. The theme of an earth-mother goddess was common throughout the ancient Mediterranean region, but the intricate art of Malta may have been associated with a more complicated cult than fertility worship. Whoever or whatever they worshiped, it seems that this mysterious culture was suddenly terminated around 2000 b.c., when it was at its height. The directors of a joint archeological project between the Universities of Cambridge, Bristol, and Malta have theorized about the reasons for this sudden collapse, attributing it to a combination of several factors: the transition from an egalitarian to a hierarchical social structure, the pressures of increasing population, obsession with temple building that detracted from agricultural efforts, the effects of erosion on productivity, and diminishing trade links with Sicily. The architecture they left behind was undervalued for centuries by the Maltese authorities, and through exposure to the severe marine climate and more recently shocks from nearby quarries, it inevitably decayed. In 1980 the Temple of Ggantija was inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List, and in 1992 the listing was extended to include five more complexes on Malta and Gozo under the title the Megalithic Temples of Malta. In that year a carefully designed conservation project was launched by a multinational team of experts to save the Hypogeum, whose ochre rock paintings were being badly affected by seepage and eighty years of tourism. Each site presents its individual challenge and further conservation measures are planned for the oldest monumental architecture in the world.
112. Menai Suspension Bridge
Near Bangor Wales
The many achievements of the Scots engineer Thomas Telford (1757 1834) include bridges over the River Severn at Montford, Buildwas, and Bewdley, all built in the 1780s. In the following decade, as engineer for the Ellesmere Canal Company, he designed and constructed aqueducts over the Ceiriog and Dee Valleys in North Wales. Temporarily returning to Scotland, with William Jessop he built the Caledonian Canal, more than 900 miles (1,440 kilometers) of highland roads, and harbor works at Dundee, Aberdeen, and elsewhere. From 1810 he was engaged as principal engineerWilliam Alexander Provis was the resident engineerto construct a highway between the Shropshire county town of Shrewsbury and Holyhead in northwest Wales. It is widely agreed that his masterpiece is the Menai Suspension Bridge (1819 1826), which carries that highway across the Menai Strait, linking Bangor in mainland Wales with the island of Anglesey. It was the first large-scale chain-link suspension bridge and at that time the longest span bridge ever erected. In 1782 a meeting on Anglesey examined complaints concerning the operation of the ferries at Porthaethwy, Llanfaes, Llanidan, and Abermenai that for centuries had been the only means of crossing the Menai Strait to the Welsh mainland. Increasing traffic across had led to delays and overcharging, and many of the boats were neglected and in dangerously poor condition. Alternatives to the ferries were canvassed, including an embankment and stone or timber bridges. With 4,000 vessels passing through the strait each year, those proposals were met with reasonable objections, and nothing was done. In October 1785 the Irish Mail Coach service was inaugurated between London and Holyhead on Anglesey, where travelers took ship for Ireland. The situation was further exacerbated in 1801, when the Act of Union demanded that Irish members of Parliament travel between Dublin and London, partly via the primitive Holyhead-Shrewsbury road and of course the ferry. Nevertheless, it was not until 1810 that Parliament commissioned Telford to recommend the line for a link across North Wales and Anglesey, including a bridge across the Menai Strait. Attempts to improve only parts of the existing road were disastrous, so in 1816 Telford was appointed its resident engineer. His 69-mile (110-kilometer) stretch of the 93-mile (150-kilometer) toll highway (now the A5 national road) was probably the best road in Britain. It was up to 40 feet (12 meters) wide, with easy gradients and excellent bridges moreover, its well-designed construction meant that it could accommodate heavy wagons. Telford offered three alternative designs for the Menai Strait bridge, and that for a suspension structure was accepted. Finally, after forty years of debate and quibbling, the first stone was laid on 10 August 1819, and in the face of opposition from ferry proprietors and businesspeople in the ferry ports, construction work commenced. Including the approaches the bridge is 1,500 feet (459 meters) long. The approaches, completed in the fall of 1824, were carried on seven stone piersthree on the mainland side and four on the Anglesey sidesupporting arches. The 579-foot (177-meter) main span, with its 24-foot (7.4-meter) dual carriageway, was suspended 100 feet (30 meters) above the water by sixteen chain cables hung from 153-foot-high (47-meter) massive battered towersthey were called pyramidsat each end, built of limestone from Penmon Quarries at the north end of the strait. Telford designed the piers to stand above the low-water mark, to facilitate inspection of the masonry.The suspension chains were fabricated in wrought iron from Hazeldeans foundry near Shrewsbury. Each consisted of 935, 9-foot-long (2.75-meter) eyebar links, about 3.5 inches (83 millimeters) square in cross section, pinned together. To prevent rusting between fabrication and placement, they were immersed in warm linseed oil. Tunnels were excavated in rock to provide anchorage, and the first section of chain was secured at the mainland end, draped over the top of the eastern pyramid and left hanging to water level. The procedure was repeated on the Anglesey side. The central section, weighing nearly 28 tons (25.4 tonnes), was maneuvered into position between the towers on a barge and connected to the end sections before being raised to the top of the tower by block and tackle and the strength of 150 men, thus completing the span. The chains were all placed in ten weeks, by July 1825. Iron rods suspended from them were bolted to iron joists that carried a timber deck. The Menai Strait bridge was opened to the public on 30 January 1826. Its completion and Telfords Shrewsbury-Holyhead road reduced the travel time between London and the Irish Sea port by a quarter. Without stiffening lateral trusses, Telfords bridge soon proved unstable in the winds that swept through the strait, causing the road deck to oscillate. In 1826 a gale caused 16-foot (4.9-meter) deformations in the deck before it failed although severely damaged, the bridge survived and was strengthened. A more rigid timber deck was incorporated in 1840 and that was replaced by a steel structure in 1893. Further changes were made in a major renovation of 1938 1941, ostensibly to cater for modern automobile traffic (the previous load limit per vehicle was 5 tons [4.6 tonnes], although it might also have been defense related). The arched openings in the towers were widened to allow easier passage of larger vehicles, the carriageway was strengthened, and the chains were replaced with steel cables and realigned. The bridge remains in use.
The many achievements of the Scots engineer Thomas Telford (1757 1834) include bridges over the River Severn at Montford, Buildwas, and Bewdley, all built in the 1780s. In the following decade, as engineer for the Ellesmere Canal Company, he designed and constructed aqueducts over the Ceiriog and Dee Valleys in North Wales. Temporarily returning to Scotland, with William Jessop he built the Caledonian Canal, more than 900 miles (1,440 kilometers) of highland roads, and harbor works at Dundee, Aberdeen, and elsewhere. From 1810 he was engaged as principal engineerWilliam Alexander Provis was the resident engineerto construct a highway between the Shropshire county town of Shrewsbury and Holyhead in northwest Wales. It is widely agreed that his masterpiece is the Menai Suspension Bridge (1819 1826), which carries that highway across the Menai Strait, linking Bangor in mainland Wales with the island of Anglesey. It was the first large-scale chain-link suspension bridge and at that time the longest span bridge ever erected. In 1782 a meeting on Anglesey examined complaints concerning the operation of the ferries at Porthaethwy, Llanfaes, Llanidan, and Abermenai that for centuries had been the only means of crossing the Menai Strait to the Welsh mainland. Increasing traffic across had led to delays and overcharging, and many of the boats were neglected and in dangerously poor condition. Alternatives to the ferries were canvassed, including an embankment and stone or timber bridges. With 4,000 vessels passing through the strait each year, those proposals were met with reasonable objections, and nothing was done. In October 1785 the Irish Mail Coach service was inaugurated between London and Holyhead on Anglesey, where travelers took ship for Ireland. The situation was further exacerbated in 1801, when the Act of Union demanded that Irish members of Parliament travel between Dublin and London, partly via the primitive Holyhead-Shrewsbury road and of course the ferry. Nevertheless, it was not until 1810 that Parliament commissioned Telford to recommend the line for a link across North Wales and Anglesey, including a bridge across the Menai Strait. Attempts to improve only parts of the existing road were disastrous, so in 1816 Telford was appointed its resident engineer. His 69-mile (110-kilometer) stretch of the 93-mile (150-kilometer) toll highway (now the A5 national road) was probably the best road in Britain. It was up to 40 feet (12 meters) wide, with easy gradients and excellent bridges moreover, its well-designed construction meant that it could accommodate heavy wagons. Telford offered three alternative designs for the Menai Strait bridge, and that for a suspension structure was accepted. Finally, after forty years of debate and quibbling, the first stone was laid on 10 August 1819, and in the face of opposition from ferry proprietors and businesspeople in the ferry ports, construction work commenced. Including the approaches the bridge is 1,500 feet (459 meters) long. The approaches, completed in the fall of 1824, were carried on seven stone piersthree on the mainland side and four on the Anglesey sidesupporting arches. The 579-foot (177-meter) main span, with its 24-foot (7.4-meter) dual carriageway, was suspended 100 feet (30 meters) above the water by sixteen chain cables hung from 153-foot-high (47-meter) massive battered towersthey were called pyramidsat each end, built of limestone from Penmon Quarries at the north end of the strait. Telford designed the piers to stand above the low-water mark, to facilitate inspection of the masonry.The suspension chains were fabricated in wrought iron from Hazeldeans foundry near Shrewsbury. Each consisted of 935, 9-foot-long (2.75-meter) eyebar links, about 3.5 inches (83 millimeters) square in cross section, pinned together. To prevent rusting between fabrication and placement, they were immersed in warm linseed oil. Tunnels were excavated in rock to provide anchorage, and the first section of chain was secured at the mainland end, draped over the top of the eastern pyramid and left hanging to water level. The procedure was repeated on the Anglesey side. The central section, weighing nearly 28 tons (25.4 tonnes), was maneuvered into position between the towers on a barge and connected to the end sections before being raised to the top of the tower by block and tackle and the strength of 150 men, thus completing the span. The chains were all placed in ten weeks, by July 1825. Iron rods suspended from them were bolted to iron joists that carried a timber deck. The Menai Strait bridge was opened to the public on 30 January 1826. Its completion and Telfords Shrewsbury-Holyhead road reduced the travel time between London and the Irish Sea port by a quarter. Without stiffening lateral trusses, Telfords bridge soon proved unstable in the winds that swept through the strait, causing the road deck to oscillate. In 1826 a gale caused 16-foot (4.9-meter) deformations in the deck before it failed although severely damaged, the bridge survived and was strengthened. A more rigid timber deck was incorporated in 1840 and that was replaced by a steel structure in 1893. Further changes were made in a major renovation of 1938 1941, ostensibly to cater for modern automobile traffic (the previous load limit per vehicle was 5 tons [4.6 tonnes], although it might also have been defense related). The arched openings in the towers were widened to allow easier passage of larger vehicles, the carriageway was strengthened, and the chains were replaced with steel cables and realigned. The bridge remains in use.
113. Menier chocolate mill
Nolsiel France
The Menier chocolate mill at Noisiel, Marne-la-Vallee, was at the heart of a factory complex of industrial structures associated with Meniers chocolate-manufacturing business. The multistory mill, built between 1872 and 1874, demonstrated an innovative design approach that frankly exposed its structure and materials, using the latter for decorative effect. It is widely regarded as the first building in continental Europe to have been constructed with an iron frame and non-load-bearing masonry walls and has been described as one of the iconic buildings of the Industrial Revolution. In 1816 the pharmacist Jean-Antoine-Brutus Menier opened premises in Paris to sell his medicinal powders to chemists and hardware shops. Later he expanded his business to include chocolate-coated medicines and chocolate confectionery. Having outgrown his Paris base, in 1825 he transferred to Noisiel on the River Marne, where he purchased a mill to grind powders. Following his death in 1853, his son Emile-Justin took over the business, transferred its pharmaceutical arm to St. Denis and diversified into rubber production in a factory on the outskirts of Paris. The Noisiel plant was given over entirely to chocolate production. Between 1860 and 1867 Emile Menier commissioned the architect Jules Saulnier (1817 1881) to redevelop the plant, constructing new buildings and improving the existing premises to better support the chocolate-making process. The factory would earn the nickname the cathedral because of its architecture. In 1869 Saulnier, working with the engineers Logre and Girard, prepared designs for replacing the timber-framed water mill that spanned the river, in order to house three new turbine wheels he first chose stone as the principal material. Interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, construction did not commence until 1872. By then Saulnier had revised the design and the outcome has been described as his masterpiece. The structural frame of the six-story chocolate mill was of puddled iron, diagonally braced to achieve a distinctive effect across the upper three levels of the facade Saulnier likened the resulting pattern to the girders of a lattice bridge. The non-load-bearing, 7-inch (18-centimeter) yellow brick infill walls were decorated with diaper work and ceramic tile inlays with flower and cocoa-bean motifs, mainly in reds, dark yellow, and black. The frame was supported by a skeleton iron structure resting on the substantial stone piers that had carried the earlier timber-framed building, and floors were constructed of shallow brick arches between I beams, which were in turn carried by the main frame. The water-driven turbines were located between the piers. The interior was disposed to house the cocoa-bean milling process, and to free the third level of columns, its floor was suspended from the roof trusses. The spacing of columns and windows varied slightly, and deliberately, contributing to the artful composition of the facade. Under Emile Meniers entrepreneurial leadership the business continued to expand. In the 1880s it established a factory in London and acquired cocoa plantations in Nicaragua, as well as a sugar refinery and a merchant fleet. It even established a railroad company to move materials and products. More buildings were constructed at Noisiel, utilizing the most advanced constructional methods and materials. A self-contained village was founded in which most of the factorys 2,000 employees lived in detached two-family houses or, if single, in hostels. The complex was set in extensive landscaped grounds. At the turn of the century the Menier chocolate business was the worlds largest, and it reached its hey-day before World War I. Decline was probably inevitable. Between 1971 and 1978 the British confectionery company Rowntree-Mackintosh progressively purchased the Menier company, including its Noisiel factory, where chocolate continued to be made until 1993. The multinational Nestle, which has owned Rowntree-Mackintosh and its subsidiaries since 1988, has taken over the Menier factory as Nestle-Frances headquarters, conserving the original buildings at a reported cost of Fr 800 million (U.S.$107 million). The chocolate mill has been made the focal building in the redevelopment by architects Robert and Reichen, and is used for a boardroom, reception rooms, and directors offices. The French government has registered it as a Monument Historique.
The Menier chocolate mill at Noisiel, Marne-la-Vallee, was at the heart of a factory complex of industrial structures associated with Meniers chocolate-manufacturing business. The multistory mill, built between 1872 and 1874, demonstrated an innovative design approach that frankly exposed its structure and materials, using the latter for decorative effect. It is widely regarded as the first building in continental Europe to have been constructed with an iron frame and non-load-bearing masonry walls and has been described as one of the iconic buildings of the Industrial Revolution. In 1816 the pharmacist Jean-Antoine-Brutus Menier opened premises in Paris to sell his medicinal powders to chemists and hardware shops. Later he expanded his business to include chocolate-coated medicines and chocolate confectionery. Having outgrown his Paris base, in 1825 he transferred to Noisiel on the River Marne, where he purchased a mill to grind powders. Following his death in 1853, his son Emile-Justin took over the business, transferred its pharmaceutical arm to St. Denis and diversified into rubber production in a factory on the outskirts of Paris. The Noisiel plant was given over entirely to chocolate production. Between 1860 and 1867 Emile Menier commissioned the architect Jules Saulnier (1817 1881) to redevelop the plant, constructing new buildings and improving the existing premises to better support the chocolate-making process. The factory would earn the nickname the cathedral because of its architecture. In 1869 Saulnier, working with the engineers Logre and Girard, prepared designs for replacing the timber-framed water mill that spanned the river, in order to house three new turbine wheels he first chose stone as the principal material. Interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, construction did not commence until 1872. By then Saulnier had revised the design and the outcome has been described as his masterpiece. The structural frame of the six-story chocolate mill was of puddled iron, diagonally braced to achieve a distinctive effect across the upper three levels of the facade Saulnier likened the resulting pattern to the girders of a lattice bridge. The non-load-bearing, 7-inch (18-centimeter) yellow brick infill walls were decorated with diaper work and ceramic tile inlays with flower and cocoa-bean motifs, mainly in reds, dark yellow, and black. The frame was supported by a skeleton iron structure resting on the substantial stone piers that had carried the earlier timber-framed building, and floors were constructed of shallow brick arches between I beams, which were in turn carried by the main frame. The water-driven turbines were located between the piers. The interior was disposed to house the cocoa-bean milling process, and to free the third level of columns, its floor was suspended from the roof trusses. The spacing of columns and windows varied slightly, and deliberately, contributing to the artful composition of the facade. Under Emile Meniers entrepreneurial leadership the business continued to expand. In the 1880s it established a factory in London and acquired cocoa plantations in Nicaragua, as well as a sugar refinery and a merchant fleet. It even established a railroad company to move materials and products. More buildings were constructed at Noisiel, utilizing the most advanced constructional methods and materials. A self-contained village was founded in which most of the factorys 2,000 employees lived in detached two-family houses or, if single, in hostels. The complex was set in extensive landscaped grounds. At the turn of the century the Menier chocolate business was the worlds largest, and it reached its hey-day before World War I. Decline was probably inevitable. Between 1971 and 1978 the British confectionery company Rowntree-Mackintosh progressively purchased the Menier company, including its Noisiel factory, where chocolate continued to be made until 1993. The multinational Nestle, which has owned Rowntree-Mackintosh and its subsidiaries since 1988, has taken over the Menier factory as Nestle-Frances headquarters, conserving the original buildings at a reported cost of Fr 800 million (U.S.$107 million). The chocolate mill has been made the focal building in the redevelopment by architects Robert and Reichen, and is used for a boardroom, reception rooms, and directors offices. The French government has registered it as a Monument Historique.
114. Mesa Verde Cliff Palace
Colorado
Mesa Verde National Park is spread over more than 52,000 acres (21,000 hectares) of a well-wooded mesa between Cortez and Durango, Colorado, at a general elevation of 7,000 feet (2,100 meters). Within its boundaries are the ruins of almost 4,000 Amerindian settlements, some up to 1,300 years old. The largest and most remarkable is the so-called Cliff Palace, a multistory building like a modern apartment block built under overhanging cliffs. It accommodated probably 100 150 people in its 151 rooms and 23 kivas, and its size and complexity make it a preeminent feat of architecture without architects. Who were these exceptional builders? They are generally known as the Anasazi (Navajo for ancient ones), and their civilization was centered around the region where the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah now join. Some scholars identify the Anasazi as the ancestors of the Hopi and other indigenous Pueblo groups of the southwest United States, and modern Pueblo Indians prefer to call them ancestral Puebloans. The precise origins of the Cliff Palace dwellers are unknown: certainly there were permanent settlers in the region before a.d. 500, farming and using caves or adobe structures for shelter and digging covered storage pits. By about 700 villages were being built: those in caves consisted of half-buried pit houses, while those on open ground had straight or crescent-shaped row houses with rooms both above and below ground. For the next three centuries the same house typesthough somewhat largerpersisted, and stone masonry began to replace earlier pole-and-mud construction. The pit houses are the predecessors of the kivas, underground chambers common in the next phase of building. Known as the Classic Pueblo period (a.d. 1050 1300), this was the era of the Cliff Palace and other villages built in similar sheltered depressions, as well as large freestanding apartment-like structures along the walls of canyons or mesas. Most consisted of two to four stories, differing little in construction from the earlier masonry and adobe houses, and often stepped back so that lower roofs formed a sort of patio reached from the floor above. All were built in places difficult to reach, some accessible only via almost vertical cliff faces, hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. The population of the region became more concentrated, perhaps acting upon the conviction that there is safety in numbers. The Cliff Palace clearly was located with defense rather than esthetic appeal primarily in mind. The only access to it was by hand- and footholdslarge enough for only fingertips and toescarved in the rock. Afraid of something or someone (there is now no indication of what or whom), the Anasazi built fortresses unique among indigenous Americans. Their main building material was sandstone, laid in a mortar made from mud reinforced with tiny stone chips the masonry was covered with a thin coat of plaster. Deliberately small doorways, set a foot or two above the floor, were probably intended to keep out winter drafts they could be covered with rectangular sandstone slabs about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) thick.The Cliff Palace was first excavated and stabilized by Jesse Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution, in 1909, more than twenty years after it was first seen by European Americans. Archeological work did not resume until about eighty years later, when evidence was discovered of a hierarchical society: a wall divides the Cliff Palace into two parts. It has also been suggested that the site was not continuously occupied except by a small caretaker population of perhaps 100 people. Then, its twenty-three large kivas would have accommodated larger numbers who gathered there only on special occasions, perhaps for the distribution of surplus food. The kiva, traditionally described as a ceremonial room, was a sunken, usually circular chamber entered through an opening from the plaza above. It had a ventilated hearth, and ledges and recesses surrounded the central space. The Anasazi may have used the Cliff Palace as living quarters during the winter lull in the agricultural year. The investigation of the site continues.Mesa Verde was abandoned quite suddenly, around a.d. 1300. The Anasazi left so much behind that it has been suggested that their departure was hasty. But that is speculation, and other sources suggest that they depleted the resources of the region, leading, through a tragic path of famine and internal wars, to the demise of their culture. Others cite the migration of Navajos and Apaches from the north, and yet others a fifteen-year drought at the end of the thirteenth century. For whatever reason, the Anasazi departed, leaving behind them the amazing and mysterious ruins of an architecture that is one of North Americas greatest archeological treasures.
Mesa Verde National Park is spread over more than 52,000 acres (21,000 hectares) of a well-wooded mesa between Cortez and Durango, Colorado, at a general elevation of 7,000 feet (2,100 meters). Within its boundaries are the ruins of almost 4,000 Amerindian settlements, some up to 1,300 years old. The largest and most remarkable is the so-called Cliff Palace, a multistory building like a modern apartment block built under overhanging cliffs. It accommodated probably 100 150 people in its 151 rooms and 23 kivas, and its size and complexity make it a preeminent feat of architecture without architects. Who were these exceptional builders? They are generally known as the Anasazi (Navajo for ancient ones), and their civilization was centered around the region where the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah now join. Some scholars identify the Anasazi as the ancestors of the Hopi and other indigenous Pueblo groups of the southwest United States, and modern Pueblo Indians prefer to call them ancestral Puebloans. The precise origins of the Cliff Palace dwellers are unknown: certainly there were permanent settlers in the region before a.d. 500, farming and using caves or adobe structures for shelter and digging covered storage pits. By about 700 villages were being built: those in caves consisted of half-buried pit houses, while those on open ground had straight or crescent-shaped row houses with rooms both above and below ground. For the next three centuries the same house typesthough somewhat largerpersisted, and stone masonry began to replace earlier pole-and-mud construction. The pit houses are the predecessors of the kivas, underground chambers common in the next phase of building. Known as the Classic Pueblo period (a.d. 1050 1300), this was the era of the Cliff Palace and other villages built in similar sheltered depressions, as well as large freestanding apartment-like structures along the walls of canyons or mesas. Most consisted of two to four stories, differing little in construction from the earlier masonry and adobe houses, and often stepped back so that lower roofs formed a sort of patio reached from the floor above. All were built in places difficult to reach, some accessible only via almost vertical cliff faces, hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. The population of the region became more concentrated, perhaps acting upon the conviction that there is safety in numbers. The Cliff Palace clearly was located with defense rather than esthetic appeal primarily in mind. The only access to it was by hand- and footholdslarge enough for only fingertips and toescarved in the rock. Afraid of something or someone (there is now no indication of what or whom), the Anasazi built fortresses unique among indigenous Americans. Their main building material was sandstone, laid in a mortar made from mud reinforced with tiny stone chips the masonry was covered with a thin coat of plaster. Deliberately small doorways, set a foot or two above the floor, were probably intended to keep out winter drafts they could be covered with rectangular sandstone slabs about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) thick.The Cliff Palace was first excavated and stabilized by Jesse Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution, in 1909, more than twenty years after it was first seen by European Americans. Archeological work did not resume until about eighty years later, when evidence was discovered of a hierarchical society: a wall divides the Cliff Palace into two parts. It has also been suggested that the site was not continuously occupied except by a small caretaker population of perhaps 100 people. Then, its twenty-three large kivas would have accommodated larger numbers who gathered there only on special occasions, perhaps for the distribution of surplus food. The kiva, traditionally described as a ceremonial room, was a sunken, usually circular chamber entered through an opening from the plaza above. It had a ventilated hearth, and ledges and recesses surrounded the central space. The Anasazi may have used the Cliff Palace as living quarters during the winter lull in the agricultural year. The investigation of the site continues.Mesa Verde was abandoned quite suddenly, around a.d. 1300. The Anasazi left so much behind that it has been suggested that their departure was hasty. But that is speculation, and other sources suggest that they depleted the resources of the region, leading, through a tragic path of famine and internal wars, to the demise of their culture. Others cite the migration of Navajos and Apaches from the north, and yet others a fifteen-year drought at the end of the thirteenth century. For whatever reason, the Anasazi departed, leaving behind them the amazing and mysterious ruins of an architecture that is one of North Americas greatest archeological treasures.
115. Meteora Greece
The almost flat valley of the Pineios River, north of the town of Kalambaka in Thessaly, is punctuated by spectacular formations of iron gray conglomerate rock, huge, sheer-sided columns abruptly projecting up to 2,000 feet (600 meters) above the plains. On the seemingly inaccessible pinnacles of many of these weathered outcrops there stand, as though growing out of the rock, the monasteries of Meteora. Were they architectural feats? We believe so. Although most conventual buildings by definition demonstrate some degree of preoccupation with solitude, those at Meteora are unique, built where it appears virtually impossible to build. Not only were there no materials in situ, the task of delivering the imported materials to the buildersindeed, of getting the builders themselves to the precarious sitescould hardly have been more difficult. The logistical problems were subordinated to the need for isolation.Christian monasticism originated in Egypt and spread throughout the Byzantine Empire between the fourth and seventh centuries. For a hundred years after the accession of Emperor Leo III in a.d. 717, the Iconoclasts attacked the eastern monasteries, seizing their treasured relics, thus greatly diminishing their wealth and power. As the rabid movement waned, Christian ascetics, perhaps moved with fear of a recurrence or perhaps with an eye on the restless power of Islam, sought secure places in which to follow their religious exercises. Throughout the ninth century hermits settled in rock crevices and caves in the great brooding pillars of the Pineian valley, long known as a retreat by mystics of pre-Christian religions.
As their numbers increased, the Thebaid of Stagoi Monastery was created at Doupiani, and its community grew during the eleventh century. Meteora became a sanctuary, especially after about 1300, when it provided asylum for secular as well as religious refugees under Ottoman rule. Around 1356 St. Athanassios Meteoritis founded Great Meteoron (from which the region derives its name), and about eighty years later the Serbian Orthodox prince John Uresis joined the community, endowing it with such wealth and privilege that it soon became the regions dominant monastic house. The growth of other foundationsVarlaam, commenced in 1350 and rebuilt in 1518 Holy Trinity of around 1470 and Roussanou, established in 1288 and rebuilt sometime before 1545led to a golden age of monastic life and produced an environment in which scholarship and Byzantine ecclesiastical art flourished. At its peak the whole community numbered thirteen coenobite monasteries and about twenty smaller foundations. The patriarch Jeremias I (ruled 1522 1545) raised several of them to the rank of imperial stavropegion.
The monks set out to create places of inaccessible isolation. In the completed buildings entry could be gained only by a series of vertical wooden ladders of dizzying length (65 130 feet, 20 40 meters), which could be drawn up at night or when intrusion was imminent, or by nets hauled up by windlasses housed in cantilevered towers. Great Meteoron, or the Monastery of the Transfiguration, largest and highest of the houses, stands on the Platylithos (Broad Rock) 1,780 feet (534 meters) above the valley. Varlaam was originally reached by using scaffolding dug into the rock, and its windlass and rope in the tower (built 1536) were used for materials and supplies until 1963. Roussanou is built on a site only just large enough for it, and its walls stand right at the edge of the precipice. Whatever the reason for such a defense against the worldwhether to protect the souls and minds of the monks or the wealth of the monasteriesthe construction of these buildings in the sky, some of which are large and complex, represents a formidable challenge to the resolve and skill of the builders. It has been well met.
The monasteries generally declined in the seventeenth century (although some had failed long before), and by about 1800 they were little more than a decaying curiosity, a unique sight for tourists. They surrendered their independence to the Bishop of Trikkala in 1899. At the beginning of the twenty-first century only five are still occupied: the monasteries of Great Meteoron, Ayia Triadha, Varlaam, and the convents of Agios Stefanos and Roussanou.
116. Mir space station
Mir (Russian for peace) was conceived in 1976 as the climax of the (then) Soviet program to achieve the long-duration presence of a man in space. Its first component was launched into orbit ten years later. The first modular station assembled in space, it is the pioneer work of extraterrestrial building constructed in a virtually gravity-free environment, it is unique among architectural and engineering works. Earlier space stations had been integral units, completed before launching. Mir circled the earth for over fifteen years. As first proposed, it was 43 feet (13.1 meters) long and 13.6 feet (4.2 meters) in diameter its mass was 46,200 pounds (20,900 kilograms). By 1985 the Russian Space Agency had decided that four to six additional modules, each with a mass of 46,000 pounds (20,800 kilograms), would be moored at docking ports on the station. By the time the final module was in place, the total mass was about 221,000 pounds (100,000 kilograms). Mir, humanitys first landmarkif that is the correct wordin space, orbited the earth at an altitude of 225 miles (390 kilometers) and an inclination of 51.6 degrees.
The primary function of the station was as a location for scientific experiments, especially in the areas of astrophysics, biology, biotechnology, medicine, and space technology. At various times, Mir was leased as a laboratory. Cosmonauts, astronauts, and scientists of many nationalitiesRussian, American, Afghan, British, Canadian, German, Japanese, and Syrian among themconducted over 20,000 experimental programs on board. However, space-watcher David Harland observed that Mir was the first station to be permanently manned, extending the time spent in space for periods between one month and six learning how the technology degrades, and how to repair it, and do so in space showed its real mission as a technology demonstrator.
The Mir module, the core of the station, was launched on 20 February 1986. Most of it was occupied by the main habitable sectioncrews quarters, a galley, a bathroom with shower, hand basin, and toiletand the operational section, forward of which were the primary docking module and air lock. The galley was furnished with a folding table with built-in food heaters and refuse storage. For privacy, each crew member had a separate cubicle containing a folding chair, sleeping bag, mirror, and porthole. To provide a familiar environment in microgravity, the living quarters had identifiable surfaces: the floor, above several storage compartments, was carpeted in dark green the light green walls had handrails and devices for securing articles and the white ceiling had fluorescent lights. The other part of the core module was the stations control area, set up for flight control, as well as systems and medical monitoring. There were six docking ports on the cores transfer compartment for secondary modules or the Soyuz and Progress-M transport vehicles: one on the long axis, four along the radius, and another aft, connected to the working module by a 6-foot-diameter (1.8-meter) pressurized tunnel. The engine and fuel tanks were in the assembly compartment.Five more modules, added between 1987 and 1996, completed the space station. The first, located on the aft docking port, was the astrophysics module known as Kvant-1. Nineteen feet (5.8 meters) long and 14 feet (4.3 meters) in diameter, it contained a pressurized laboratory compartment and a store. Kvant-2, about twice as long as Kvant-1, was the scientific and air-lock module added in 1989 that allowed cosmonauts to work outside the station. It also included a life-support system and water supply. Kristall, a 39-foot-long (12-meter) technological module, was attached to the station in 1990 it carried two solar arrays as well as electrical energy supply, environmental control, motion control, and thermal control systems. In 1995 U.S. astronauts installed a special docking port that allowed the U.S. space shuttle to dock without obstructing the solar arrays. Also in 1995, the Spektr remote-sensing payload arrived at Mir with equipment for surface studies and atmospheric research and four more solar arrays. Mir was completed when the Priroda remote-sensing module arrived on 26 April 1996.
The station could not remain in orbit indefinitely, and two options for closure were available. Mir could be fitted with booster rockets and moved to a higher orbit or simply abandoned and allowed to crash into the ocean. Mir fell into an uninhabited part of the South Pacific late in March 2001. That course of action was chosen so that efforts could be refocused on the construction of the International Space Station (ISS). The decision fits in with the claim of NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) that the nine U.S. collaborations with Mir since 1994 formed Phase One of the joint construction and operation of the ISS.
The ISS is a joint venture of the United States, Russia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Brazil. The first components of the station, the Zarya and Unity modules, were put into Earth orbit in November and December 1998, respectively. Scheduled for completion in 2004 after a total of 44 launches deliver over 100 components, the ISS will have a mass of 1 million pounds (454,500 kilograms) and measure 356 by 290 by 143 feet (109 by 88 by 44 meters). It will orbit Earth at about the same altitude and inclination as its predecessor. A crew of up to seven will have pressurized living and working space about twice as big as the passenger cabin of a jumbo jet. Mir was there first.
117. Mishkan Ohel Haeduth the Tent of Witness
The Mishkan, or sacred tent, was a unique portable temple constructed under the direction of Moses as a place of worship for the Hebrew tribes. It was used during the forty-year period of wandering between their liberation from slavery in Egypt and their arrival in the Promised Land (ca. 1290 1250 b.c.). According to chapters 25 and 26 of Exodus, the warrant and exact specifications for its construction were given by God. The tent seems to have been still in use in the first half of the eleventh century b.c., but it no longer served a religious purpose after Solomon built a permanent temple in Jerusalem in 950 b.c.
Portable shrines existed in Egypt as early as the Old Kingdom (2800 2250 b.c.), and fine examples were discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamen, (ca. 1350 b.c.). But they are small in comparison with the Tent of Witness, which differed from all contemporary religious buildings in several remarkable ways. First, it was the only temple constructed by the monotheistic Israelites, in contrast to the manyoften several dedicated to the same deitybuilt by their polytheistic neighbors. Second, it was never associated with one particular sacred geographical location, peculiar to the deity rather, it was set up wherever Yahweh, the God of Israel, indicated, in the belief that his presence made every location sacred. Third, it was small and outwardly unimposing, and although constructed of the choicest durable materials, it did not have (indeed, could not have) the appearance of weighty permanence common to contemporary religious buildings. Fourth, the materials used imparted a brightness that contrasted with the dark tents of the tribespeople who camped around it and that marked it out against the somberness of other shrines. Finally, its construction was not financed by temple taxes but by the voluntary offerings of the Israelites: according to Exodus, they gave 2,800 pounds (1,270 kilograms) of gold, 9,600 pounds (4,360 kilograms) of silver, and 6,700 pounds (3,050 kilograms) of bronze besides the necessary yarn and textiles. Its architectural character was inextricably linked to the Hebrews nomadic life for the first forty years of its existence. The Law of Moses provided instructions for the Levite families of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari responsible for assembling, demounting, and carrying the Mishkan and its court.
The complex invariably stood at the very center of the Israelite camp. It comprised a large courtyard around a comparatively small building that may be regarded as the Tent of Witness proper. The outer court was enclosed by a white linen wall, 150 feet (46 meters) long by 75 feet (23 meters) wide and 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) high, hung on 60 pillars of the brownish orange wood from the durable desert acacia. The pillars, each crowned with a silver capital, stood on bronze sockets, and their guy ropes were fastened with bronze pins. Access to the court was through a gate at the eastern end, also of white linen but distinguished from the general walls by an embroidered pattern in blue, purple, and scarlet and fastened to its pillars with gold hooks. Immediately inside the gate was an altar made of bronze-sheathed acacia wood. It is a comment upon the portability of the sanctuary that, at only 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) square and 4.5 feet (1.35 meters) high, this was the largest of the furnishings, designed to be carried on poles, rather like a sedan chair. Nearby stood a bronze basin holding water used for the priests ritual ablution.
The Tent of Witness itself stood at the western end of the court. An oblong enclosure, about 45 feet long by 15 feet wide (13.5 by 4.5 meters) and 15 feet high, was framed by walls assembled from 48 gold-sheathed acacia boards, each 27 inches (about 70 centimeters) wide. Standing on foundation blocks of solid silver, the boards were locked together by a system of bars passed through brackets on their outer faces and through their centers.
The plain exterior gave no clue to the richness and brilliant color of the rooms it contained. The ceiling was a draped curtain of the same textile as the courtyard gate, covered with another of goats hair, then red-dyed rams skins an outer layer of porpoise skins provided durable protection. The interior was reached through a door of the same embroidered fabric hung on gold-sheathed pillars. By absolute contrast, the floor was simply the earth of the desert. The first compartment, 30 by 15 feet (9 by 4.5 meters), was called the Holy Place. It was furnished with a gold-sheathed table a small altar for burning incense, also covered in gold and a seven-branched menorah (lamp stand) hammered from solid gold. Beyond an inner curtain emblazoned with embroidered cherubim (angelic beings) was the Holy of Holies. The only furniture in that inner sanctum was the Ark of the Covenant, a gold-sheathed wooden box containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. This was the dwelling place of the God of Israel, who sat invisibly enthroned above the gold seat of atonement that rested on the Ark. Access was denied to all except the High Priest, and then only on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). Because of the uniqueness of the spiritual beliefs that the Tent of Witness expressed, it was never a prototype for anything else. When Solomon built the great temple in Jerusalem, the architectural emphases were quite different.
118. Moai monoliths
Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
The small Pacific island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), 2,300 miles (3,680 kilometers) west of Chile, is the most remote inhabited island in the world, with Pitcairn, its nearest neighbor, 1,400 miles (2,240 kilometers) away. The staggering architectural achievement of the people of Rapa Nui was the creation, but especially the transportation and erection, of hundreds of monolithic moaistylized giant human heads-on-torsoscarved in hardened volcanic tufa. On average, the statues are 13 feet (4 meters) high and weigh 14 tons (14.22 tonnes). But the largest ever raised once stood at the prominence known as Ahu Te Pito Kura nearly 33 feet (9.80 meters) high, it weighed about 91 tons (83 tonnes). Even it would have been dwarfed by another found incomplete in a quarry: measuring almost 72 feet (21.6 meters), its weight was perhaps 185 tons (168 tonnes). Since the Dutch seafarer Jacob Roggeveen made Rapa Nui known to Europe in the 1720s, scholars have debated the origins of its culture. Local legend has it that the canoes of Hotu Matua (the Great Father) arrived from Polynesia around a.d. 400. Some scholars, citing archeological evidence, assert that they came between 300 and 400 years later. Whatever the case, among the lush palm forests the newcomers planted their gardens of bananas, taros, and sweet potatoes. The South American origin of the latter led the adventurer Thor Heyerdahl to conjecture that Polynesia had been colonized by pre-Inka people, a view refuted by later scholars, who cite biological, linguistic, and archeological evidence to support Southeast Asian origins. As compelling as it is, the question is not our present concern. Unique in Polynesia, the mysterious moai are thought to have been carved between a.d. 1400 and 1600 by specialist master craftsmen using tools made from obsidian found at Orito. The figures, always male, are believed to be iconographic representations of powerful beingsancestors, chiefs, or others of high rankrather than portraits. The red volcanic stone for their headdresses (pukaos) came from the Puna Punau volcanic crater their eyes were made of shell and coral. They were the product of a spiritual and cultural imperative that seems to have become an obsession. The archeologist Jo Anne van Tilburg of the University of California at Los Angeles suggests that the statues acted as ceremonial mediators between sky and earth, people and chiefs, and chiefs and gods. The statues were transported, probably by conscripted labor, from where they were quarried and set up on the perimeter of the island, mostly on the southeast coast. Some were moved up to 14 miles (22.4 kilometers) and placed facing inland upon flat mounds or stone pedestals (ahu) about 4 feet (1.2 meters) above the surrounding ground. The word ahu also conveys a sacred site, and some, comprising massive masonry blocks and tons of fill, supported a whole group of moai. For fifteen years van Tilburg carried out a census of the moai, finding a total of 887 statues. Fewer than one-third (288) had been transported to their coastal locations. She recorded another ninety-two as in transport, that is, on their way to their intended locations. The remainder were still in the quarries at what van Tilburg calls the central production center, in the volcanic caldera known as Rano Raraku near the eastern end of Rapa Nui. Perhaps they were abandoned because flaws were found in the stone, perhaps they were too large to move, or perhaps deteriorating social conditions forced the work to end. How were they moved to their solemn stations around the coast of Rapa Nui? Several possibilities have been suggested. There is a local tradition that the moai walked to their sites, which led Heyerdahl to conclude that they were stood upright and rocked from side to side, thus walked along. A poorly rendered Dutch illustration of 1728, showing a statue standing upright on a base at which people are working, has been interpreted as moving the moai on rollers. Both systems have been tested using pseudo-moai and both worked. Others have suggested that the gigantic figures were laid prone, just as they had been carved, and dragged on sleds. Working from computer models that took account of many variables, including the food needed for the workers, van Tilburg proposed a plausible alternative, tested by experiment: the massive figures were moved in the prone position, supported on long logs that were rolled on smaller ones. In fact, no one knows with certainty how such loads were moved over the difficult terrain of the island. Around a.d. 1550, Rapa Nuis population reached a peak of about 10,000, placing an untenable load on the tiny islands resources just when moai carving and, more significantly, transportation reached a climax. Over the next century or so, radical change occurred, heralding the collapse of the society. Some scholars lay most of the blame for decline on the compulsion to construct the colossal figures. The once abundant palm forests were cleared for housing and crop production and to provide tools and pathways for moving the moai. Deforestation allowed the erosion of topsoil, and crops failed. Soon, driven by territorial imperatives, the island clans descended into civil war and even cannibalism. All the coastal moai had their eyes smashed out and the statues were toppled and decapitated by the islanders themselves. Contacts with the West from the beginning of the eighteenth century served only to make matters worse, and in 1862 Peruvian slavers and exotic diseases together ravaged the population, reducing it to little more than a hundred. The process was reversed after Rapa Nui was annexed by Chile in 1888, and in 1965 it received the same privileges as other Chilean provinces. The economy now depends on sheep ranching and tourism. The main attraction for tourists is the mysterious moai, whose uniqueness led to the island being inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List in 1995, with the following description:
The small Pacific island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), 2,300 miles (3,680 kilometers) west of Chile, is the most remote inhabited island in the world, with Pitcairn, its nearest neighbor, 1,400 miles (2,240 kilometers) away. The staggering architectural achievement of the people of Rapa Nui was the creation, but especially the transportation and erection, of hundreds of monolithic moaistylized giant human heads-on-torsoscarved in hardened volcanic tufa. On average, the statues are 13 feet (4 meters) high and weigh 14 tons (14.22 tonnes). But the largest ever raised once stood at the prominence known as Ahu Te Pito Kura nearly 33 feet (9.80 meters) high, it weighed about 91 tons (83 tonnes). Even it would have been dwarfed by another found incomplete in a quarry: measuring almost 72 feet (21.6 meters), its weight was perhaps 185 tons (168 tonnes). Since the Dutch seafarer Jacob Roggeveen made Rapa Nui known to Europe in the 1720s, scholars have debated the origins of its culture. Local legend has it that the canoes of Hotu Matua (the Great Father) arrived from Polynesia around a.d. 400. Some scholars, citing archeological evidence, assert that they came between 300 and 400 years later. Whatever the case, among the lush palm forests the newcomers planted their gardens of bananas, taros, and sweet potatoes. The South American origin of the latter led the adventurer Thor Heyerdahl to conjecture that Polynesia had been colonized by pre-Inka people, a view refuted by later scholars, who cite biological, linguistic, and archeological evidence to support Southeast Asian origins. As compelling as it is, the question is not our present concern. Unique in Polynesia, the mysterious moai are thought to have been carved between a.d. 1400 and 1600 by specialist master craftsmen using tools made from obsidian found at Orito. The figures, always male, are believed to be iconographic representations of powerful beingsancestors, chiefs, or others of high rankrather than portraits. The red volcanic stone for their headdresses (pukaos) came from the Puna Punau volcanic crater their eyes were made of shell and coral. They were the product of a spiritual and cultural imperative that seems to have become an obsession. The archeologist Jo Anne van Tilburg of the University of California at Los Angeles suggests that the statues acted as ceremonial mediators between sky and earth, people and chiefs, and chiefs and gods. The statues were transported, probably by conscripted labor, from where they were quarried and set up on the perimeter of the island, mostly on the southeast coast. Some were moved up to 14 miles (22.4 kilometers) and placed facing inland upon flat mounds or stone pedestals (ahu) about 4 feet (1.2 meters) above the surrounding ground. The word ahu also conveys a sacred site, and some, comprising massive masonry blocks and tons of fill, supported a whole group of moai. For fifteen years van Tilburg carried out a census of the moai, finding a total of 887 statues. Fewer than one-third (288) had been transported to their coastal locations. She recorded another ninety-two as in transport, that is, on their way to their intended locations. The remainder were still in the quarries at what van Tilburg calls the central production center, in the volcanic caldera known as Rano Raraku near the eastern end of Rapa Nui. Perhaps they were abandoned because flaws were found in the stone, perhaps they were too large to move, or perhaps deteriorating social conditions forced the work to end. How were they moved to their solemn stations around the coast of Rapa Nui? Several possibilities have been suggested. There is a local tradition that the moai walked to their sites, which led Heyerdahl to conclude that they were stood upright and rocked from side to side, thus walked along. A poorly rendered Dutch illustration of 1728, showing a statue standing upright on a base at which people are working, has been interpreted as moving the moai on rollers. Both systems have been tested using pseudo-moai and both worked. Others have suggested that the gigantic figures were laid prone, just as they had been carved, and dragged on sleds. Working from computer models that took account of many variables, including the food needed for the workers, van Tilburg proposed a plausible alternative, tested by experiment: the massive figures were moved in the prone position, supported on long logs that were rolled on smaller ones. In fact, no one knows with certainty how such loads were moved over the difficult terrain of the island. Around a.d. 1550, Rapa Nuis population reached a peak of about 10,000, placing an untenable load on the tiny islands resources just when moai carving and, more significantly, transportation reached a climax. Over the next century or so, radical change occurred, heralding the collapse of the society. Some scholars lay most of the blame for decline on the compulsion to construct the colossal figures. The once abundant palm forests were cleared for housing and crop production and to provide tools and pathways for moving the moai. Deforestation allowed the erosion of topsoil, and crops failed. Soon, driven by territorial imperatives, the island clans descended into civil war and even cannibalism. All the coastal moai had their eyes smashed out and the statues were toppled and decapitated by the islanders themselves. Contacts with the West from the beginning of the eighteenth century served only to make matters worse, and in 1862 Peruvian slavers and exotic diseases together ravaged the population, reducing it to little more than a hundred. The process was reversed after Rapa Nui was annexed by Chile in 1888, and in 1965 it received the same privileges as other Chilean provinces. The economy now depends on sheep ranching and tourism. The main attraction for tourists is the mysterious moai, whose uniqueness led to the island being inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List in 1995, with the following description:
119. Mohenjo Daro
Pakistan
The city of Mohenjo-Daro (hill of the dead) was the largest settlement of a culture that for more than 600 years from 2500 b.c. extended over 600,000 square miles (1.5 million square kilometers) of India and Pakistanlarger than western Europe. The citys ruins, on the west bank of the Indus River about 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Karachi, evidence careful urban design combined with a sophisticated infrastructure that was undreamed of in the contemporary river-valley civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Although presented with undeniably nationalistic and political bias, recent archeological evidence from the subcontinent suggests that there, and not in Mesopotamia, was the cradle of civilization. Mohenjo-Daro has been chosen here as simply representative of a great achievement, the invention of city planning. The first traces of the ancient cities were accidentally discovered on the Indus River floodplain in 1856. The occupying British, building the East Indian Railway between Lahore and Karachi, plundered hundreds of thousands of bricks from the site of Harapp
The city of Mohenjo-Daro (hill of the dead) was the largest settlement of a culture that for more than 600 years from 2500 b.c. extended over 600,000 square miles (1.5 million square kilometers) of India and Pakistanlarger than western Europe. The citys ruins, on the west bank of the Indus River about 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Karachi, evidence careful urban design combined with a sophisticated infrastructure that was undreamed of in the contemporary river-valley civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Although presented with undeniably nationalistic and political bias, recent archeological evidence from the subcontinent suggests that there, and not in Mesopotamia, was the cradle of civilization. Mohenjo-Daro has been chosen here as simply representative of a great achievement, the invention of city planning. The first traces of the ancient cities were accidentally discovered on the Indus River floodplain in 1856. The occupying British, building the East Indian Railway between Lahore and Karachi, plundered hundreds of thousands of bricks from the site of Harapp
120. Mont Saint Michel
Normandy France
Mont-Saint-Michel is a craggy, conical island, about half a mile (0.8 kilometer) across and standing half a mile from shore in the Gulf of Saint-Malo, near the border of Brittany and Normandy on Frances northern coast. The north side of the island is wooded and the west presents a barren face to the sea. A fortified village of fewer than 100 inhabitants huddles on the lower southern and eastern slopes and the great Benedictine abbey, dating from the thirteenth century, crowns the entire mount, towering about 240 feet (73 meters) above. The integration of monastery with village and both with the rock was noted by UNESCO as an unequalled ensemble when the site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1979. Mont-Saint-Michel is an architectural feat for that reason and others: the audacity displayed by the builders on so difficult a site and the harmony achieved between its parts, which were built in many architectural styles over five centuries. The place known as Mont Tombe, which became Mont-Saint-Michel, has a spiritual history dating from pre-Christian times. There the Gauls had worshiped Belenus, the god of light, and there the Romans consecrated a shrine to Jupiter. By the fifth century a.d. the secluded crag and the Scissy Forest around it had become a retreat for hermits. There is a tradition that in 708 St. Michael appeared to Aubert, twelfth bishop of Avranches, directing him to build a sanctuary to the archangel on the mount. In October of the following year, Aubert consecrated a simple circular oratory, to accommodate about 100 people, and built cells to replace the earlier huts, but not before an abnormal tidesome sources say a tidal wavehad gouged a channel between rock and shore, creating the islet. At low tide a land bridge connects to the mainland across beaches of gray silt at high tide it is covered by about 40 feet (14 meters) of water. Under the sponsorship of Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy, Abbot Mainard occupied the island in 966 with twelve Benedictine monks from Monte Cassino. He built a rectangular chapel with 6.5-foot-thick (2-meter) stone walls on the ruins of the oratory. By that time, the Benedictines had enjoyed four centuries of prominence in western Europe and monasticism had reached a zenith. In France, the abbeysthere were about 120 of them exercised great influence in many spheres: spiritual, artistic, intellectual, economic, and political. Besides the Benedictines, whose other Normandy houses were at Fecamp, Lessay, and Lonlay, the Premonstratensian (Canons had established themselves at Ardenne and La Lucerne. Eventually, Mont-Saint-Michel would become a magnet for thousands of the faithful from all over Europe. The next building phase was initiated by Abbot Hildebert II in 1017. An extensive masonry foundation leveled the entire top of the island and an abbey church was built on the summit. Mainards sturdy chapel formed its crypt and was later named Notre-Dame-sous-Terre (Our Lady Underground). The rest of the new cruciform churchwith its seven bays, the nave was nearly 230 feet (70 meters) longwas supported on masonry walls and piers. The project, designed in the latest style (now known as Romanesque), was completed by 1135. That was not the end of the architectural development, and about thirty-five years later Abbot Robert de Torigny commissioned a new west front with twin towers.In 1203 the French king Philip II Augustus sent an expeditionary force against the abbey, and some of its dependencies were destroyed by fire. To compensate for the damage, a generous endowment allowed Abbot Jordan to immediately commence the granite conventual building known as La Merveille (the Marvel), flanking the church on the seaward side of the rock. Remarkably, the extensive, logistically difficult works were completed by 1228. The Marvel began at 160 feet (49 meters) above the sea and consisted of three terraced levels. The lowest housed the almonry and cellar. The second was taken up by the kitchens a huge refectory with timber barrel vaults a guest hall, adorned with tapestries, stained glass, and glazed tiles and a scriptorium (now called the hall of the knights). At the top was the monks dormitory and a beautiful arcaded, vaulted cloister attributed to Raoul de Villedieu. In contrast to that tranquil security, the Marvel has been described as half military, half monastic. Louis IX visited the Mont in 1254 and later helped to pay for its fortification. Strategically located, it acquired a defensive role and housed a garrison jointly paid by king and abbot. Through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, both the abbey and the town were enclosed by walls on the land side, adding another texture to the varied architecture of the rock. Frequently attacked, it would never be captured, even remaining unconquered when English armies took most of the fortresses of Normandy early in the fifteenth century. There was a series of structural failures in the abbey church. In 1300, one of de Torignys west towers fell down. More serious was the collapse in 1421 of Hildeberts Romanesque choir. France was still at war with England, and all thought of reconstruction was deferred until 1446, when a massive base known as the Crypt of the Large Pillars was built as foundation for a replacement building. Work on the new choir began in 1450 and it was completed in 1521. Apsidal in plan, with radiating chevet chapels, it was naturally built in the contemporary, highly ornate French style, appropriately named flamboyant because of the flamelike patterns of its window tracery. Other architectural failures followed: in 1618 the de Toringy west facade started to collapse, and eventually it was pulled down in 1776, together with, the three western bays of the nave. The monastic foundation seemed to decline with the buildings. Although by the twelfth century under de Toringy, the Benedictine abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel had acquired fame for its intellectual life, drawing pilgrims from across Europe, about a century later its power had begun to slowly wane. As the balance of its role tipped from devotion to defense, the size of the community decreased. In 1523 it was granted in commendam to Cardinal Le Veneur, the series of commendatory abbots continuing until 1622by then hardly any monks remainedwhen control passed to the reformed congregation of St. Maur. In turn, the Maurist monks were dispossessed during the French Revolution. From 1790 the abbey, its name ironically changed to Mont Libre (Mount Freedom), was used to incarcerate criminals and political prisoners. Napoleon III abolished the prison in 1863. Having gone full circle, the buildings were leased to the Bishop of Avranches until 1874, when the Commission des Monuments Historiques appointed the architect E. E. Viollet-le-Duc to restore it. In 1966, in recognition of the monasterys millennium, the French government allowed the resumption of monastic life on Mont-Saint-Michel since then a community of monks, nuns, and lay oblates lives in a part of the abbey, reviving the ministry to pilgrims. This has been a complicated story, whose point is just this: the architectural feat of Mont-Saint-Michel was not achieved in a day, a month, or a year. The harmony and the unity of its parts, diverse in date, style, and function, took 500 years to realize.
Mont-Saint-Michel is a craggy, conical island, about half a mile (0.8 kilometer) across and standing half a mile from shore in the Gulf of Saint-Malo, near the border of Brittany and Normandy on Frances northern coast. The north side of the island is wooded and the west presents a barren face to the sea. A fortified village of fewer than 100 inhabitants huddles on the lower southern and eastern slopes and the great Benedictine abbey, dating from the thirteenth century, crowns the entire mount, towering about 240 feet (73 meters) above. The integration of monastery with village and both with the rock was noted by UNESCO as an unequalled ensemble when the site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1979. Mont-Saint-Michel is an architectural feat for that reason and others: the audacity displayed by the builders on so difficult a site and the harmony achieved between its parts, which were built in many architectural styles over five centuries. The place known as Mont Tombe, which became Mont-Saint-Michel, has a spiritual history dating from pre-Christian times. There the Gauls had worshiped Belenus, the god of light, and there the Romans consecrated a shrine to Jupiter. By the fifth century a.d. the secluded crag and the Scissy Forest around it had become a retreat for hermits. There is a tradition that in 708 St. Michael appeared to Aubert, twelfth bishop of Avranches, directing him to build a sanctuary to the archangel on the mount. In October of the following year, Aubert consecrated a simple circular oratory, to accommodate about 100 people, and built cells to replace the earlier huts, but not before an abnormal tidesome sources say a tidal wavehad gouged a channel between rock and shore, creating the islet. At low tide a land bridge connects to the mainland across beaches of gray silt at high tide it is covered by about 40 feet (14 meters) of water. Under the sponsorship of Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy, Abbot Mainard occupied the island in 966 with twelve Benedictine monks from Monte Cassino. He built a rectangular chapel with 6.5-foot-thick (2-meter) stone walls on the ruins of the oratory. By that time, the Benedictines had enjoyed four centuries of prominence in western Europe and monasticism had reached a zenith. In France, the abbeysthere were about 120 of them exercised great influence in many spheres: spiritual, artistic, intellectual, economic, and political. Besides the Benedictines, whose other Normandy houses were at Fecamp, Lessay, and Lonlay, the Premonstratensian (Canons had established themselves at Ardenne and La Lucerne. Eventually, Mont-Saint-Michel would become a magnet for thousands of the faithful from all over Europe. The next building phase was initiated by Abbot Hildebert II in 1017. An extensive masonry foundation leveled the entire top of the island and an abbey church was built on the summit. Mainards sturdy chapel formed its crypt and was later named Notre-Dame-sous-Terre (Our Lady Underground). The rest of the new cruciform churchwith its seven bays, the nave was nearly 230 feet (70 meters) longwas supported on masonry walls and piers. The project, designed in the latest style (now known as Romanesque), was completed by 1135. That was not the end of the architectural development, and about thirty-five years later Abbot Robert de Torigny commissioned a new west front with twin towers.In 1203 the French king Philip II Augustus sent an expeditionary force against the abbey, and some of its dependencies were destroyed by fire. To compensate for the damage, a generous endowment allowed Abbot Jordan to immediately commence the granite conventual building known as La Merveille (the Marvel), flanking the church on the seaward side of the rock. Remarkably, the extensive, logistically difficult works were completed by 1228. The Marvel began at 160 feet (49 meters) above the sea and consisted of three terraced levels. The lowest housed the almonry and cellar. The second was taken up by the kitchens a huge refectory with timber barrel vaults a guest hall, adorned with tapestries, stained glass, and glazed tiles and a scriptorium (now called the hall of the knights). At the top was the monks dormitory and a beautiful arcaded, vaulted cloister attributed to Raoul de Villedieu. In contrast to that tranquil security, the Marvel has been described as half military, half monastic. Louis IX visited the Mont in 1254 and later helped to pay for its fortification. Strategically located, it acquired a defensive role and housed a garrison jointly paid by king and abbot. Through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, both the abbey and the town were enclosed by walls on the land side, adding another texture to the varied architecture of the rock. Frequently attacked, it would never be captured, even remaining unconquered when English armies took most of the fortresses of Normandy early in the fifteenth century. There was a series of structural failures in the abbey church. In 1300, one of de Torignys west towers fell down. More serious was the collapse in 1421 of Hildeberts Romanesque choir. France was still at war with England, and all thought of reconstruction was deferred until 1446, when a massive base known as the Crypt of the Large Pillars was built as foundation for a replacement building. Work on the new choir began in 1450 and it was completed in 1521. Apsidal in plan, with radiating chevet chapels, it was naturally built in the contemporary, highly ornate French style, appropriately named flamboyant because of the flamelike patterns of its window tracery. Other architectural failures followed: in 1618 the de Toringy west facade started to collapse, and eventually it was pulled down in 1776, together with, the three western bays of the nave. The monastic foundation seemed to decline with the buildings. Although by the twelfth century under de Toringy, the Benedictine abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel had acquired fame for its intellectual life, drawing pilgrims from across Europe, about a century later its power had begun to slowly wane. As the balance of its role tipped from devotion to defense, the size of the community decreased. In 1523 it was granted in commendam to Cardinal Le Veneur, the series of commendatory abbots continuing until 1622by then hardly any monks remainedwhen control passed to the reformed congregation of St. Maur. In turn, the Maurist monks were dispossessed during the French Revolution. From 1790 the abbey, its name ironically changed to Mont Libre (Mount Freedom), was used to incarcerate criminals and political prisoners. Napoleon III abolished the prison in 1863. Having gone full circle, the buildings were leased to the Bishop of Avranches until 1874, when the Commission des Monuments Historiques appointed the architect E. E. Viollet-le-Duc to restore it. In 1966, in recognition of the monasterys millennium, the French government allowed the resumption of monastic life on Mont-Saint-Michel since then a community of monks, nuns, and lay oblates lives in a part of the abbey, reviving the ministry to pilgrims. This has been a complicated story, whose point is just this: the architectural feat of Mont-Saint-Michel was not achieved in a day, a month, or a year. The harmony and the unity of its parts, diverse in date, style, and function, took 500 years to realize.
