tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66632068104511380732023-11-16T03:54:19.832-03:00Notes to StylePreliminary readings, notes, and illustrations for Semper’s “Style in the technical and tectonic arts”. Texts by K. O. Müller, Karl Bötticher and Gottfried Semper. Translations, notes, and illustrations appendix by Juan Ignacio Azpiazu. Ignacio Azpiazuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10191455525309644697noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6663206810451138073.post-56277249436935210362013-09-11T06:22:00.003-03:002013-12-29T18:43:44.841-03:00Norman and Chinese constructionIn the sections on Norman architecture in ‘Carpentry (Tectonics)’, and repeatedly along the rest of the book, Semper refers to the similarities between Nordic and Chinese architecture, contrasting them with the Saxon and Southern European architecture. Both are excellently described and explained in the book. In this edition fifty-seven drawings and photographs are added to Semper’s own engravings —and I am including here some illustrations of works not specifically mentioned by Semper, which were left out of this edition on account of the volume taken by the notes and illustrations of that which he does mention specifically.<br />
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First a few images from an extraordinary book which gathers material produced during 1931-46 by the Chinese architect and researcher Liang Ssu-ch’eng, originally published as <i>A pictorial history of Chinese architecture</i> (MIT Press, 1994) and republished by Dover as <i>Chinese architecture: a pictorial history</i> (2005). Liang (1901-72) came from a Beijing family of intellectuals, and was formed as an architect in the Beaux Arts tradition at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Architecture under Paul Cret, around the same time as Louis Kahn (Kahn graduated in 1924, Liang’s first year). I hugely recommend this book.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pavilion from 1196. Liang Ssu-ch’eng, <i>A pictorial history of Chinese architecture</i>.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXWo8nT7MBL7beYMHkorM-HPfAvjirMCN-_KYi1UPXdNJB_yOUV8dDK4e3vUzCfppSwQTjMDVxyO897rvqyeJfLZYrsquHU8ooNxjXaZMIHOpIrXWajXqkm7BkKouq8ZvbNXo4tUP3UwU/s1600/Stave_church_construction-red.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXWo8nT7MBL7beYMHkorM-HPfAvjirMCN-_KYi1UPXdNJB_yOUV8dDK4e3vUzCfppSwQTjMDVxyO897rvqyeJfLZYrsquHU8ooNxjXaZMIHOpIrXWajXqkm7BkKouq8ZvbNXo4tUP3UwU/s320/Stave_church_construction-red.jpg" width="307" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Borgund church. <a href="http://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:Stave_church_construction.jpg">Håkon Christie</a>.</td></tr>
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The next example, remarkable for its architecture, dimensions, and age, is interesting also for understanding aspects of the Greek temples (see for example <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvEHDGJ3sTDz5WHP0p2kVlrF4o24O8hwjmL6lgTkt-9ZTlWQciO-lzopski93hQmpQu3FDikBXdaO8ydFjBACJPvQzsOMUq_hRowZjOxTMaYWUEaHLymEJUfOLSrvHtUGM2uAwGaSCEHs/s1600/garnier+Egina+1884-57-CROP.jpg" target="_blank">Garnier’s reconstruction of the temple at Aegina</a>, included in the appendix to illustrate Semper’s discussion of the Doric temple, or <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijiOYbfu9Tf_fRHnbBM9V7PaE2QpTq2lzPDZpb3OvtGqrD7fVVZ3c9wosWtqHr7E7_QjBYdId7__CBP_yyLsJwDmZl5hyphenhyphenqEdZoR0ZUsbt058NyyA5FZZdBGXPGc2AQKOwR-vQb1eK76Gg/s1600/Jupiter+Olympien+par+QUATREMERE.jpg" target="_blank">Quatremère de Quincy’s reconstruction of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia</a>, illustrating Semper’s section on <i>Stoffwechsel</i>, the change in material).
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pabellón del 984. De Liang Ssu-ch’eng, <i>A pictorial history of Chinese architecture</i>.</td></tr>
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The following picture from Thomas Allom, <i>China in a series of views </i>(1843) immediately recalls Semper’s descriptions of the Scandinavian hall.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Allom, <i>China in a series of views</i> vol. 1. Published digitally by Bayerische Staatsbibliothek - MDZ.</td></tr>
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The composition of building complexes, from these detached pavilions defined by carpentry bays, is also similar in both architectures. Compare the following drawing with Semper’s description of the Old Norse farmhouse and the monastery <a href="http://www.stgallplan.org/recto.html" target="_blank">plan of St. Gall</a> (<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rahn_Kloster_Sanct_Gallen_nach_Lasius.jpg" target="_blank">here</a> a perspective drawing published by Rahn).
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ccunBNItrU-J0xbE9jKuA44yyYXWVUeDHUqkzHFWU0aRcRlDldHD0QpqYMWjHxARQmevbg13XFADtcQvrZVc6JPhFUpXnPe2e6MPS1NBPmIifFX2WiyEjmfHO_kaWjLwBtfXYNaH-II/s1600/canina1839bd2-202-red.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ccunBNItrU-J0xbE9jKuA44yyYXWVUeDHUqkzHFWU0aRcRlDldHD0QpqYMWjHxARQmevbg13XFADtcQvrZVc6JPhFUpXnPe2e6MPS1NBPmIifFX2WiyEjmfHO_kaWjLwBtfXYNaH-II/s320/canina1839bd2-202-red.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Luigi Canina, <i>L’architettura antica</i> tomo 2 (1839). Available digitally in <a href="http://katalog.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/">HEIDI</a>. </td></tr>
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Semper’s remarks, which merge technological, anthropological, and aesthetic considerations, sound particularly rich when compared for example with the much more limited approach to the same subject by Viollet-le-Duc, years later, in his lecture 19 of <i>Entretiens sur l'architecture</i>. Here translated by Benjamin Bucknall.
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It must be understood that I am speaking here exclusively of ordinary houses in the country, not of good substantial manorhouses or <i>châteaux</i> whose inmates are agreeably housed. It is ordinary country-houses that I have especially in view, because these are numerous, and the taste for buildings of this kind has been very widely diffused within the last half-century. Yet such is the disorder prevailing in the architectural domain, and such are the odd or puerile fancies of those who build houses, that it is only a very few buildings which fully satisfy the requirements of a country dwelling of moderate dimensions.
There are two different ways of meeting these requirements, one of which I shall call the English, and the other the French method.
The English method consists in uniting small blocks of buildings, each containing one or two apartments, according to the taste or convenience of the owner — often with a ground-floor only, without any regard to symmetry; each of these blocks being of such a height as suits the apartment it contains, with windows according to the aspect preferred, and communications more or less advantageously contrived. In such a plan as this for a dwelling in the country we see the impress of that practical good sense which distinguishes the English.
The French method consists in building a pavilion, that is, a concrete symmetrical block, in which the various services, instead of being scattered as on the English plan, are united in a succession of stories, under the same roof. This is an old traditional method in France, and which has its advantages. The genuine French country-house is the French <i>château de plaisance</i> of the sixteenth century in miniature, as the English “cottage” is the English manor-house of the middle ages in miniature, with its blocks of buildings variously placed according to the convenience of the inhabitant. Some French proprietors have indeed endeavoured to introduce the English style, but I do not think that these dislocated arrangements accord with our habits, unless these should change, which is hardly to be expected. The English method preserves, even amidst relations of close intimacy, a kind of independence, —a personal isolation which is very rarely to be found among ourselves. When Frenchmen find in each other groimds of an intimate friendship, or fancy they do, they seem disposed to have all things in common, and to make an absolute sacrifice of their individualities; though when intimacies too hastily formed give rise to disagreements, the quarrels that result are violent enough. This however is not our worst fault, as it has its good side. But when a family, or even when real friends, assemble, it would seem desirable that their life in common should be as concentrated as possible. The more strictly observed the community of habitation the better. For a Frenchman therefore a country-house is a kind of common tent, whose inmates all observe the same daily custom. Among ourselves, life in a country-house is regarded as lively and agreeable only when all are within reach of each other's voices, when the rooms closely adjoin, and conversation can be carried on through partitions or floorings. It will therefore be very difficult to persuade Frenchmen enjoying a retreat in the country that the best means of keeping up a cordial understanding with each other is none other than the avoidance of this enforced contact
at all hours of the day, and the preservation of a fair amount of independence. Of course I do not include exceptional cases. It is the result of our habits of life that the type of a French country-house of modest pretensions, hitherto at any rate, has been, and continues to be, what is called a <i>pavilion</i>. It is for the architect to conform to the established custom, doing his
best under the circumstances, without falling into vulgar obsequiousness, and while studying carefully tne real conditions of the progranune as well as those which are concerned with the salubrity and the thorough and easily available means of preserving the dwelling.</blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">W. H. Bidlake, house in Edgbaston. From Muthesius, <i>The English house</i> (BSP 1987). </td></tr>
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For today’s reader Viollet’s description of what he calls “the English method” immediately recalls, in turn, his reader Le Corbusier and the first mode of “les 4 compositions” —the <i>genre plutôt facile, pittoresque, mouvementé</i>, illustrated with Maison La Roche.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5YFpWPL6LTzddcos-cAgtkcjwpoPVUokobXH4lP2imWnkzmw47ToxhJTvnhKjtMsZ4AM-PwH5Zx5UC1nnSR1EDiJAUxLru1NJTuCwCMJ6eh3gBATiCLXsaQEpDa8sZNlBKXB7Td3XYxA/s1600/LC+4+composiciones-red.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5YFpWPL6LTzddcos-cAgtkcjwpoPVUokobXH4lP2imWnkzmw47ToxhJTvnhKjtMsZ4AM-PwH5Zx5UC1nnSR1EDiJAUxLru1NJTuCwCMJ6eh3gBATiCLXsaQEpDa8sZNlBKXB7Td3XYxA/s320/LC+4+composiciones-red.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Le Corbusier, “les 4 compositions”. Casas La Roche, en Garches, en Stuttgart y Savoye. De <i>Oeuvre complète</i> 1910-1929.</td></tr>
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Contemporary variations on the Scandinavian carpentry building in César Pelli’s (demolished) <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv8zN69fdNI6dYUJRAGbkok6TKG2EXvTw3WUG6m1pANPVhmIlUDhyfCdkIsRBy0iaKW_zt383ooBLCZK7EOGJWG0dnUVWhwnML1S66WzLA4T8ophWVLHjTsoYJPjfCzCI1R3n5nbp90dM/s1600/fig25.jpg" target="_blank">Niagara Falls Wintergarden</a>, described in his lecture ‘Environmental Performance’(Crump, Harms, <i>The design connection - Energy and technology in architecture</i>), and more literally in the Sea Ranch units with their primary bays with ample bay windows —complex which brings us back, by way of its authors, students of Kahn, to Paul Cret teacher of Liang Ssu-ch’eng.Ignacio Azpiazuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10191455525309644697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6663206810451138073.post-75595199530652758132012-12-19T14:01:00.000-03:002013-12-29T04:12:56.611-03:00On dressed stereotomySome pictures from the 1710-illustration appendix added to this edition, along with some comments.<br />
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First of all two of the many illustrations of the remarkable <b>tombs of the Persian kings at Naqsh-i Rustam</b>, fifth century B.C., which Semper comments on repeatedly. Semper knew these and other works from Persia, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor from engravings, in this case from Gailhabaud.<br />
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The rock tombs appear as colonnaded galleries high on the cliff (today some 25 m, 75 ft above natural grade, which in its time was lower). Like the ancient Egyptian rock tombs, they are caves behind a portico. On the rock face there are full scale, carved reproductions of the colonnades in the Persepolis palace, with their wooden columns clad in stucco, and spans and slendernesses typical of wood construction —colonnades of which only the stone bases remained after Alexander.<br />
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The photograph is also particularly interesting because it very didactically presents two contrasts:<br />
- the cave and facade building cut into the cliff —a literal presentation of the analogy of the street as a canyon cut into the urban mass, and the block facade as urban drapery— as a backdrop for the freestanding building of the Kaaba, and<br />
- work cut into the rock against masonry blockwork.<br />
Tombs and kaabas (“cubes”) were originally plastered in colors —that is to say, the rock did not express as rock on the cliff, and the blockwork did not express as ashlar in the kaaba—, which leads us to a third point.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tomb of Darius the Great in Naqsh-i Rustam. The vestibule giving access to the vaults was extended asymmetrically to the left when a fault in the rock was found when cutting towards the right. The facades on the other tombs are almost exact replicas of this one. Erich F. Schmidt, <i>The Oriental Institute Publications</i> 70.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv1QXoygB9GGY8VbRML3eFcqKlX4y6ePUhMTLHJ_fYtUbDnB2eac-3Q8CItXIXv3Ka4qgXaCp3UWCaq9nhtEWbZ6HubLvKL607A9DXQ_N827tSAA7ZtXHKzeh0smDBLyBSmmRy592qvmI/s1600/Naqsh-e_rostam-iBA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv1QXoygB9GGY8VbRML3eFcqKlX4y6ePUhMTLHJ_fYtUbDnB2eac-3Q8CItXIXv3Ka4qgXaCp3UWCaq9nhtEWbZ6HubLvKL607A9DXQ_N827tSAA7ZtXHKzeh0smDBLyBSmmRy592qvmI/s320/Naqsh-e_rostam-iBA.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The top of the Kabah-i-Zardusht (Cube of Zoroaster), partially below today’s grade; on the left Tomb IV (Darius II), and behind the cube Tomb III (Xerxes). There are two other similar tombs in this complex, and three additional ones on the slope of the mount the nearby Persepolis leans against. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Naqsh-e_rostam.JPG" target="_blank">Roozbeh Taassob - Wikimedia</a>. </td></tr>
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<b>The Greek temple</b><br />
The Greek temple, its structure illustrated here by Furtwängler as stacked blockwork, in reality only presented itself in that way on the podium —and the expression of the stone block disappeared on the stone wall faces and skeletons (“carpentry”). The fine grain of the marble block allowed for a thin covering, a paint, while the rough shape of the cut poros stone in Southern Italy required a thicker covering.<br />
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In large luxury buildings the Romans did certainly at times use large monolithic columns —an effort beyond the possibilities of the small Greek free cities, with their limitations in workforce and local stones. The Romans were also driven by the desire to decoratively use the stone color, vein and grain of the rich marbles and granites, unlike the Greeks of the classical era. The Greek preference for the marvellous “white stone” as a base for the several types of coverings is discussed by Semper in his very first writings, and his evidence-based explanations for the architectural reasons which make perfectly understandably this apparently so contradictory use, is one of so many points in which Semper turns upside down all previous interpretations.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4p1TgY-yG3iwBHSSEeyJPg42tFDdEKFaf2t4K3syMmhs9u5mg7wLR2o3tcYhEmqZto7d-iqZCFyOdgeck2htz7-5jpqj1fAgH9mwcSMjgBpEByMN36dEXmKNr2maHF_7Fuycb2Dg4mbI/s1600/furtwaengler+Aphaia+Egina+1906a-59-GRAY-iBA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4p1TgY-yG3iwBHSSEeyJPg42tFDdEKFaf2t4K3syMmhs9u5mg7wLR2o3tcYhEmqZto7d-iqZCFyOdgeck2htz7-5jpqj1fAgH9mwcSMjgBpEByMN36dEXmKNr2maHF_7Fuycb2Dg4mbI/s320/furtwaengler+Aphaia+Egina+1906a-59-GRAY-iBA.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Temple of Aphaia in Aegina. Furtwängler, <i>Aegina</i> (1906).</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWiK1JLfAhNXxlFSBpFGAqFrXI9LSrNmiDIGc8Tu2B1k-YqyK7Kte17z559ksYdcBBAmOe-xK4KXbR1SyNbt5qFZUNXHQLzoh4bQRV4tjrvvfKR-d4yHfZubRKh4KzqHV-qC8_UC8THDE/s1600/garnier+Egina+1884-56-blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWiK1JLfAhNXxlFSBpFGAqFrXI9LSrNmiDIGc8Tu2B1k-YqyK7Kte17z559ksYdcBBAmOe-xK4KXbR1SyNbt5qFZUNXHQLzoh4bQRV4tjrvvfKR-d4yHfZubRKh4KzqHV-qC8_UC8THDE/s320/garnier+Egina+1884-56-blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The temple in Aegina after Charles Garnier, <i>Temple de Jupiter Panhellénien à Egin</i>e (1881).</td></tr>
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As is also mentioned by Semper, and is generally known but not always adequately pondered, not even the Greek temple stone block is properly a block: the faces are perfectly defined along their edges, resulting in perfect wall faces built without mortar, but it is only at their edges that the blocks stack and abut; the bottom and end faces are recessed. Conceptually, the simple parallelepipedic block along the face of the Greek temple wall, even in those cases where the wall is one block thick, resembles our concrete masonry units or Lego blocks, and even drywall walling, more than single-wythe common brickwork.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9N9iHGwXFvXkzhehV2kvEIP3Tcwiv95yWFDvyjMO7ss2aq8mM4zY6_Svsn4qG8xJD4PuMrtdEVOOl9vKzDh0jNAW6gYCAyh-5xKvtAiTP7ztezK22u3PiYiwggPQnXtceuEOLswecw4c/s1600/OneBlockForPDF3R2-iBA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9N9iHGwXFvXkzhehV2kvEIP3Tcwiv95yWFDvyjMO7ss2aq8mM4zY6_Svsn4qG8xJD4PuMrtdEVOOl9vKzDh0jNAW6gYCAyh-5xKvtAiTP7ztezK22u3PiYiwggPQnXtceuEOLswecw4c/s320/OneBlockForPDF3R2-iBA.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Corner block from the Propylaea. Edge strips for contact with the adjacent blocks, cavities for hoisting tools and anchoring clamps, and the recessed wall face perimeter strip (peritaenia) defining the finished plane of the still unfinished wall. The finish work on the stone blocks, done by cutting instead of plastering, and leaving them ready for painting, was called “dressing” up to the well into the twentieth century. <a href="http://csanet.org/newsletter/spring09/nls0905.html" target="_blank">Harrison Eiteljorg, II, csanet.org</a>.</td></tr>
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Not only each block face, but also the overall shape of each individual block can only be understood as a fragment of a larger, complex shape. See below the threshold piece of the Temple of Athena Niké. (This beautiful building had been disassembled by the Ottomans in 1686, in order to use its stone for new Acropolis defenses. When these defenses were torn down in 1835 enough blocks were found to enable the full reconstruction of the temple. The drawing makes perfectly clear that any given block found in the mass of a fortification wall perfectly reveals its original position and relationship to the adjacent blocks —the reconstruction process, which was completed very fast, must have been fairly straightforward.)
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Temple of Athena Niké, Athens. The cella threshold and the anta wall base. Wesenberg, “Zur Baugeschichte des Niketempels’, <i>Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts</i> 96 (1981). </td></tr>
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Nothing will be found in this blockwork of the temple itself (unlike in the podium) of the block expressed as a formal unit, with repetition, rhythms, or patterns —as in the exterior walls of the Italian Renaissance palaces, or even in the nineteenth century English brickwork (which presents, with its patterns and its pieces specifically designed for each corner, seam and border, a perfect example of the masonry wall face expressed itself as textile work, composed as if it were cross-stitch embroidery on canvas). Covered in Stereotomy, formal aspects.<br />
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<b>A bit more about kaabas </b><br />
Finally (these pictures are not included in the appendix), a few photographs of the Kaaba in Mecca, in the process of being ceremonially (and very literally) dressed. I think Semper would have loved this originary expression of dressing in architecture as illustration for his excursus.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-nG4TC1BZPo3Qdy2QUIgss1ath7jkvyJcvpFrEP3dyCog1ZSK8-d3Em7k_FKRdhoYFnrTkXP3eZlXHD1AENZKUy8LPiOuOgdzFN4coGgaGPEhE-_FaO3ml05V7eHM-zcOOeSs0zp53g/s1600/wp861.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-nG4TC1BZPo3Qdy2QUIgss1ath7jkvyJcvpFrEP3dyCog1ZSK8-d3Em7k_FKRdhoYFnrTkXP3eZlXHD1AENZKUy8LPiOuOgdzFN4coGgaGPEhE-_FaO3ml05V7eHM-zcOOeSs0zp53g/s320/wp861.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> By <a href="http://es.peperonity.com/go/media/10744241%213;jsessionid=4FFE77F79F811BBB325D7571F194C65C.cdb01" target="_blank">Asmiadi</a>.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioRAqFiUkEZGgZaNgHp6oTUPo2Hbz48uPlXnQdbWhyphenhyphenhEEtaHWVKxFjDvlwdeQnDYLEs0W_wu0pBdjQxi4DSOvh7GBKRxEC_KZkfXSJex93FXFg95vGXoDDK2IEE4DopeYeZdAxHcf5TBQ/s1600/Kaaba_at_night.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioRAqFiUkEZGgZaNgHp6oTUPo2Hbz48uPlXnQdbWhyphenhyphenhEEtaHWVKxFjDvlwdeQnDYLEs0W_wu0pBdjQxi4DSOvh7GBKRxEC_KZkfXSJex93FXFg95vGXoDDK2IEE4DopeYeZdAxHcf5TBQ/s320/Kaaba_at_night.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kaaba_at_night.jpg" target="_blank">Medineli - Wikimedia</a>.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjskyl1jNjH4EULtgotELfMkqhoAP0fk9_fGpnYFLZSr5ZsLtVH1RAegxtMBio4FfFf-BucJywe9InaqJYnSoCB0VoWyKAWfCV2bwqmrGEHsMZ6qHOgkziH4aibpNyvW-WpPq70hAmLLPc/s1600/Kaaba_(1910)-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjskyl1jNjH4EULtgotELfMkqhoAP0fk9_fGpnYFLZSr5ZsLtVH1RAegxtMBio4FfFf-BucJywe9InaqJYnSoCB0VoWyKAWfCV2bwqmrGEHsMZ6qHOgkziH4aibpNyvW-WpPq70hAmLLPc/s320/Kaaba_(1910)-2.jpg" width="251" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Kaaba in 1910. Library of Congress, and <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kaaba_(1910)-2.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia</a>. </td></tr>
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Ignacio Azpiazuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10191455525309644697noreply@blogger.com0