Department of History

The Fieldston School

The Birth of Modern Europe: London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin

Andrew Meyers

Agora and Forum: Origins of the Civic Ideal

Origins of the City

Definition: "civitas" and civilization

Concept of Surplus

Wheat Kartik Festival

Early Examples

West Asia 8,000-700B.C. Mesopotamia

Jericho (c. 8000 B.C.) Catal Huyuk (c. 7000 B.C.)

Sumer (c. 2750) Ur (c. 2100) ; Tel-el-Amarna (c. 1360)

"Formal" Terms and Themes: Qualified Dichotomies

organic versus planned

Siena, Il Campo Scamozzi, Palma Nova, 1593

asymmetrical versus symmetrical

Rome, plan Karlsruhe, plan

positive space versus negative space

Hospital of the Innocents, Brunelleschi Radiant City, Le Corbusier

background building versus object building

Piazza San Marco, Venice Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamps, Le Corbusier

empirical versus rational

Model Man of Perfect Proportions, Leonardo da Vinci

informal versus formal

Map of Athens (5 C. B.C.) Map of Miletus (5 C. B.C.)

The Agora of Athens

Natural Determinants

Ritual and Democracy

Acropolis:

Athens 5th C. BC Pan-Athenaic Way
                                   Propylea (Mnesicles) Acropolis 400 BC

Propylea from East Erectheum,

Parthenon; Ictinus (c. 450 B.C.) Parthenon Frieze, "The Pan-Athenaic Procession," Phidias (c.450 B.C)

Orders

Agora: Negative Space

Plans (3C., 2C. BC, 2C. AD, Environs)

New Typologies

Stoa of Attalus (background building)

Odeon (engaged building)

Terms: morphology, figure/ground, engaged building, Hellenic, Hellenistic

The Fora of Rome

Natural Determinants

Map of the Seven Hills Etching from 16 C

Ritual and Empire

Plan of Monumental Center of Rome (c. 2 C. A.D.)

Forum : Negative to Positive Space

Plans of Forum Romanum (42 B.C.; 10, 96, 203-608 A.D.)

Plans of Imperial Forum (30 B.C. to 1 C. A.D.)

New Typologies

Basilica Julia (55 B.C.)

The Hippodamean Grid and Roman Castrum

Hippodamus of Miletus (fl. c. 500-440 B.C.)

Aristotle Politics

size: 10,000

class: soldier, artisan, husbandman

use: sacred, public, private

Miletus, c. 475 B.C. Priene, c.f. 350 B.C.

The Roman Castrum

Applications of the Castrum

Cardo and Decumanus and (Groma)

Forum

Timgad, Algeria, 75 AD