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City Planning

City Planning, the unified development of cities and their environs. For most of its history, city planning dealt primarily with the regulation of land use and the physical arrangement of city structures, as guided by architectural, engineering, and land-development criteria. In the mid-20th century it broadened to include the comprehensive guidance of the physical, economic, and social environment of a community. Elements characteristic of city planning include (1) general plans that summarize the objectives of (and restraints on) land development; (2) zoning and subdivision controls that specify permissible land uses, densities, and requirements for streets, utility services, and other improvements; (3) plans for traffic flow and public transportation; (4) strategies for economic revitalization of depressed urban and rural areas; (5) strategies for supportive action to help disadvantaged social groups; and (6) guidelines for environmental protection and preservation of scarce resources.

City planning is conducted by governments on all levels—local, county, regional, state, and federal—and by private groups. It is also a subject of university-level study. Professional societies include the American Planning Association, the Canadian Institute of Planners, and in the United Kingdom, the Royal Town Planning Institute.

HISTORY OF CITY PLANNING

Processes that Led to Early Urbanism
Encarta Historical Essays reflect the knowledge and insight of leading historians. This collection of essays is assembled to support the National Standards for World History. In this essay, Charles L. Redman argues that expanding food production, emerging industry and trade, and increasingly hierarchical governments—as well as the resulting changes in social relations—were the major forces behind early urbanism.

Archaeological excavations of ancient cities reveal evidence of some deliberate planning: the arrangement of housing in regular, rectangular patterns and the prominent location of civic and religious buildings along main thoroughfares.

A. City Planning in Greece and Rome

Aerial view of Central Athens Symmetry and geometric design played an important role in city planning in ancient Greece and Rome. City planners designed distinct residential, marketing, recreation, and religious areas and interspersed them evenly throughout the city. Streets often followed a gridiron pattern as developed by Hippodamus, the father of city planning. Many cities were surrounded by high fortification walls. Hippodamus’ gridiron pattern of city blocks remains a legacy in many Greek cities, as in this photograph of modern Athens, Greece.

The emphasis on planning broadened during the Greek and Roman eras. The Greek architect Hippodamus of Miletus planned important Greek settlements such as Priene and Piraeus (Pireás). Called the father of town planning, he emphasized a geometric design for towns. Religious and civic citadels were oriented so as to give a sense of aesthetic balance; streets were arranged in a grid pattern; and housing was integrated with cultural, commercial, and defense facilities.

The Romans continued these principles. Their designs for monumental temples, arches, gymnasiums, and forums are classic examples of city planning based on strict regard for symmetry. Their colonial cities, planned as military camps called castras, were laid out with a grid of streets surrounded by rectangular or square defensive walls. After the fall of the Roman Empire, cities declined in population and importance. From the 5th to the 14th century ad, medieval Europe planned towns around castles, churches, and monasteries, with informal street arrangements.

B. The Renaissance and Beyond

Vienna The design of Renaissance cities departed significantly from that of medieval cities. Whereas cities built in the Middle Ages often had narrow, curving streets, Renaissance cities were built around wide boulevards. Renaissance planners and designers often used statues and fountains as focal points throughout the city. They constructed circular streets around these points with other streets shooting out from the points in a spoke-and-wheel design. This 19th-century painting, View of Vienna, shows some of the effects of Renaissance city planning.

The emulation of Greco-Roman classicism during the Renaissance revived city-planning efforts along classical lines. The Piazza of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome and the Piazza of Saint Mark's in Venice exemplify an ideal of grandeur in civic structures and public places. In sharp contrast to the narrow, irregular streets of medieval settlements, Renaissance planning stressed wide, regular radial and circumferential streets, that is, streets forming concentric circles around a central point, with other streets radiating out from that point like spokes of a wheel. Examples include the street design in the Plan for London (1666) by the English architect Sir Christopher Wren and the streets of Mannheim and Karlsruhe in Germany.

Olmsted's "The Unplanned Growth of Cities"
The pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who helped design Central Park in New York City, described his vision of the role of parks in urban development in a speech given in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 15, 1870. He understood that the physical and mental well-being of a city’s population translated directly into its economic health. Olmsted also saw parks as emblems of social democracy where all classes of city dwellers could mingle in a rejuvenating environment. Olmsted eventually became discouraged by the lack of public support for his projects and spent his later efforts designing private parks for wealthy clients.

These themes of Renaissance planning were transplanted to the New World in British and Spanish colonial cities settled in the 16th and 17th centuries, among them Savannah, Georgia; Williamsburg, Virginia; Mexico City; and Lima, Peru. City planning in the early United States also reflected the preference for grand public buildings and thoroughfares. A notable example is the 1791 design of the District of Columbia by the French American engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant. His plan featured a network of wide streets converging on major parks, malls, and other open spaces and on public structures such as the Capitol and the White House. The ideals of public grandeur and radial, circumferential streets continued in the 19th century, exemplified in the plan for the reconstruction of Paris (1850-74) by the French administrator Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann.

In the U.S., extensive public park systems were developed in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere by landscape architects such as the American Frederick Law Olmsted and the Anglo-American Calvert Vaux.

During this century of the Industrial Revolution, the few design standards that were introduced often neglected basic physical and aesthetic considerations. This is evident in New York City's Commissioner's Plan of 1811, which divided Manhattan into identical rectangular blocks as a means to encourage further rapid settlement. By the end of the 19th century, the largely unfettered growth of New York and other major cities led to serious overcrowding, with a host of attendant problems. The reaction to these conditions became the basis for a new era of city planning.

C. 20th-Century City Planning

The U.S. and Britain responded similarly to the need to improve the living conditions in cities. Their initial action was to regulate the sanitary conditions and density of tenement housing. A movement then arose in both countries for a more comprehensive, long-term approach, a process of city planning that would examine and control the many forces affecting modern cities. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago featured a planned “White City” that stood in vivid contrast to the squalor of most urban settlements. In the U.S. it sparked the “City Beautiful” movement, which emphasized municipal grandeur embodied in handsome new public buildings, park systems, and main thoroughfares.

Important steps were taken in the early 20th century to formalize and legalize city planning. In the bellwether year 1909 Britain passed a Town Planning Act, which authorized local authorities to prepare “schemes” controlling new development. In 1909, in the U.S., the First National Conference on City Planning was conducted; this was the first of a series of annual meetings, which continue even today, that proved influential in coalescing support for city planning. Also in 1909 the American architect Daniel Burnham published his Plan of Chicago, a design that was groundbreaking in its regional perspective and comprehensive integration of transportation systems, parks, streets, and other facilities.

City planning received further support during subsequent years. In 1919 Britain made the preparation of planning schemes obligatory for many local governments, and in 1921 Canada enacted a city-planning law. Other European countries and Australia also undertook city planning.

In the U.S. during the 1920s local planning increased significantly. In 1920 approximately 100 cities had municipal planning commissions; by 1930 the number was almost 500. This growth can be accounted for in various ways. In 1928 the U.S. Commerce Department published a Standard City Planning Act that provided communities with a convenient procedural model for their planning efforts. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Euclid v. Ambler (1926) removed any lingering doubts about the legality of zoning, a critical end product of city planning. (The first zoning ordinance in the U.S. had been enacted by New York City in 1916.) Other influences leading to the increased acceptance of city planning were the rapid growth of cities during the 1920s and the ensuing pressures on transportation facilities and public services.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s regional and national governments intervened more forcefully in city planning. To foster economic development in depressed regions, the United Kingdom authorized the appointment of special commissioners with wide-ranging powers. Britain, France, the Netherlands, and other European countries carried out extensive public-housing projects. In the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, under his New Deal program, established a Public Works Administration to deal with capital improvements, a National Planning Board to coordinate long-range development, and a program that produced three greenbelt towns. The Tennessee Valley Authority was created to prepare and implement a sweeping regional plan. Federal housing insurance and public housing became important in city building.

D. After World War II

The extensive physical rebuilding of cities following World War II lent new urgency to city planning. In 1947 Britain enacted its significant Town and County Planning Act, which placed all development under regional control. The building of new towns was also encouraged. The founding of new communities had been pioneered in Britain in the early 20th century by the British city planner Sir Ebenezer Howard. The “garden city” settlements of Letchworth (1903) and Welwyn (1920), built according to his ideas, had been designed as self-contained cities that were protected from urban encroachment by greenbelts, or farmland areas. In the 1950s and '60s British development of new towns received new emphasis; it became official policy, and numerous new communities were built, many on the outskirts of London.

Other European countries similarly emphasized physical planning after World War II. Major urban reconstruction took place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Hamburg, West Germany (now part of the united Federal Republic of Germany); Helsinki, Finland; and elsewhere. New towns were also built, among them Tapiola, in Finland, and Melun Senart, on the outskirts of Paris. Europe's new towns in turn encouraged the planning and construction of similar self-contained communities in other areas of the world, including Brasília, in Brazil, and Ashdod, in Israel.

Physical planning also dominated city planning in the United States during the 1950s and '60s. Efforts were focused on designing vast new suburban housing subdivisions and providing for their transportation needs. The redevelopment of older central cities was also a major concern. The Housing Act of 1949 authorized significant federal funding for urban renewal. For the next two decades the typical redevelopment strategy in the U.S. was to replace slum areas with new construction. The Housing Act of 1954 required the formulation of “workable plans” to forestall urban deterioration, and it provided the backbone of funding for most of the master plans then in existence. Additional federal housing subsidies led to new urban residential projects that included both the construction of new housing and the rehabilitation of existing housing. The interstate highway network of expressways, begun in the early 1950s, influenced the shape of all metropolitan areas.

The development of new towns was also tried in the U.S., although without notable success. The two best-known new towns—Reston, Virginia, and Columbia, Maryland—were begun in the early 1960s. Later in the decade the development of new towns was encouraged by several federal housing acts. Reston and the federally aided communities, however, experienced financial and operating problems.

MODERN CITY PLANNING

City planning in the U.S. and other countries broadened in the late 1960s beyond a purely physical orientation. In its modern form, city planning is an ongoing process that concerns not only physical design but also social, economic, and political policy issues. As a fabric of human organization, a city is a complex weave. On one level it consists of the arrangement of neighborhoods, industry, and commerce according to aesthetic and functional standards and the provision of public services for them. On another, perhaps more important, level it also comprises (1) the background, education, work, and aspirations of its residents; (2) the general functioning of the economic system to which they belong, as well as their positions in and rewards from that system; and (3) their ability to make or influence the policy decisions that affect their daily lives.

Viewed from this perspective, city planning requires more than a narrow specialist who can develop and implement a physical plan. More general skills and activities are also needed. They include (1) the collection and analysis of data about the city and its population; (2) research into the need for and availability of social services; (3) the development, evaluation, coordination, and administration of programs and timetables to supply these services; (4) programs for economic and housing development and redevelopment—not only planning, but also packaging, financing, and carrying out the development, establishing public and private partnerships, and so forth; and (5) effective use of political activity and citizen participation to influence the character of and give support to development programs.

A. The Comprehensive Plan

The basic city-planning document is a comprehensive plan that is adopted and maintained with regular revisions. The plan receives its day-to-day expression in a series of legal documents—zoning ordinances, subdivision regulations, and building and housing codes—that establish standards of land use and quality of construction. The comprehensive plan serves many purposes: It brings together the analyses of the social, economic, and physical characteristics (such as the distribution of population, industry, businesses, open spaces, and publicly built facilities) that led to the plan; it examines special problems and opportunities within the city and establishes community-development objectives; it coordinates land development with transportation, water supply, schools, and other facilities; it proposes ways to accomplish these coordinated objectives over time; it relates the plan to its impact on public revenues and expenditures; and it proposes regulations, policies, and programs to implement the plan. The comprehensive plan is the guide to making daily development decisions in terms of their long-range consequences.

B. Development Controls

Land is allocated and private activities are coordinated with public facilities by means of zoning ordinances and subdivision regulations. A zoning ordinance governs how the land may be used and the size, type, and number of structures that may be built on the land. All land within a city is divided into districts, or zones. In these districts certain land uses are allowed by right, and general restrictions on building height, bulk, and use are specified. The zoning regulations carry out the land allocations recommended in the comprehensive plan. Specific locations are given for different types of residences, industries, and businesses. Specific numbers are given for allowable heights of buildings, coverage of a lot, and density. Allowable land uses are specified for each zone, including special conditions such as required off-street parking. Most regulations are termed “matter-of-right”; if the specified requirements are met a permit will be given. Other regulations provide general standards with considerable flexibility in the mixture of building uses or the building design. These require more extensive review before approval.

The conversion of raw land (construction on previously undeveloped land) is controlled by subdivision regulations and by site-plan review. These ordinances establish standards of land development by regulating such features as roadway width, drainage requirements, traffic circulation, and lot sizes. Subdivision regulations and site-plan review guide orderly development, protect prospective and current residents from poorly designed buildings or business districts, and ensure that most of the costs of land conversion are borne by those who will benefit from the development, that is, by the developer and the future residents.

Building and housing codes govern the quality and safety of construction of new buildings, as well as subsequent maintenance. In most instances, the codes specify the materials to be used, their minimum quality, and the building components necessary in a structure that is suitable for human occupancy.

C. Social, Economic, and Environmental Policy

Urban Renewal of South Street Seaport During the 1940s cities began implementing urban renewal programs to improve the condition of neighborhoods that had been allowed to deteriorate for many years. Architects and engineers reconstructed building facades, repaved streets, and stabilized the structure of the buildings. Unfortunately, this often happened without consideration for the people living there, many of whom were forced to find housing elsewhere because the costs of the improvements increased the value of the property and the cost of rents they paid. Today, city planners take environmental and neighborhood concerns into account before proceeding with urban renewal programs. These photographs show South Street Seaport in New York City before and after urban renewal.Ray Ellis/Photo Researchers, Inc. Rafael Macia/Photo Researchers, Inc.

Although the physical appearance and functioning of the city are the traditional focus of city planning, the city's population and economic resources are an important concern. Thus, contemporary city planning continues to focus on physical design, but also addresses the many long-range social and economic decisions that must be made.

A city has social needs and economic capital. The city government acts as a purchasing agent for many services needed by residents and businesses—for example, education, water supply, police and fire protection, and recreation. The quality, character, and efficiency of these services require planning to fit needs and desires with funding, with technological change, and with objectives for physical development.

City planning, moreover, should be concerned with providing decent housing (and minimal economic aid) to residents who cannot afford this basic amenity. When local housing is deficient and economic resources permit its upgrading, the city planning department may survey housing conditions and coordinate funding to finance its development and rehabilitation.

The city's economic development and redevelopment also fall within the scope of city planning. Economic development plans make use of a mixture of incentives, technical assistance, and marketing to create jobs, establish new industry and business, help existing enterprises to flourish, rehabilitate what is salvageable, and redevelop what cannot be saved. Economic development, however, must go beyond the enterprise and the facility to reach the workers. In a rapidly evolving technological environment with frequent global shifts in trade relations, skilled workers need new skills and unskilled people need some skills. Job training is a necessary part of development strategy, especially for the city's poor and unemployed citizens.

Capital improvement programming is the budgeting tool used by planners to schedule the construction and financing of public works. Capital projects—such as road improvements, street lighting, public parking facilities, and purchase of land for open spaces—must be sorted out and assigned priorities. A program prepared each year sets the priorities for the next six years on projects needed to implement the comprehensive plan and replace the wornout infrastructure. In rapidly growing regions, city planners are constantly faced with public facilities that have become inadequate for future development.

In declining areas, economic redevelopment is of prime concern. Before any new capital improvements are scheduled, the condition and viability of the neighborhood must be assessed and strategies for remedy must be adopted. Some declining neighborhoods require vigorous public development; others should be left to available private development.

The urban-renewal movement of the 1940s was insensitive to the cyclical ebbs and flows of city neighborhoods. From the 1940s through the 1960s it was believed that if an economic function such as business or industry failed, all that was needed was to crop out the “decay” and clear the land for reuse. In many instances the redevelopment never appeared. The multiple forces that affect neighborhood changes were ignored or improperly analyzed. City planners now understand that regional, interregional, national, and international economic forces affect a city. They also realize that the effectiveness of plans to bring about a city's continued economic viability depends on the correct analysis and interpretation of these forces. These are the lessons of the shifts in suburban, nonmetropolitan, and interregional economic patterns that took place in the 1960s and '70s.

City planners today are becoming ever more involved with environmental concerns. Environmental planning coordinates development to meet objectives for clean air and water; removal of toxic and other wastes; recycling of resources; energy conservation; protection of wetlands, beaches, hillsides, farmlands, forests, and floodplains; and preservation of wildlife, natural reserves, and rivers. Historic preservation strives to keep important buildings and places as part of the permanent environment and uses them to finance the maintenance costs.

Although city planners may report to mayors, city managers, or other officials, their true clients are the people and businesses of the city. Their plans must reflect the interests and priorities of these two groups, and the programs that are implemented must, at the same time, help the city survive and maintain the quality of life that these groups desire. Political astuteness is required in order to ensure that neighborhood programs and priorities will be properly perceived by local, state, and federal officials and will stand a chance for implementation.

THE FUTURE OF CITIES AND CITY PLANNING

City planning in the last decades of the 20th century is becoming increasingly involved in setting or executing policy about public services and with delivering these services. Since it is apparent that resources are limited and that global events affect the future of each community, city planning must be done within a framework of national and international planning for mutually sustainable development.

The capital infrastructures of many older cities need replacement. Public schools and city hospitals are a shadow of formerly dominant city institutions. For half a century the American public was mesmerized by the outer reaches of metropolitan areas. The force of this attraction has been so strong that when travel distances to jobs in the central city became excessive, companies moved and took the jobs to the suburbs. In the late 20th century, however, the newest generation of adults—younger than most city residents, more mobile, frequently childless, and having greater freedom in their living relationships—has become enamored of city life. Cities are responding by directing public services and capital improvements toward upgrading the quality of life in those areas that have unique attractions for this new population.

In this setting, different groups of city residents have become more sophisticated in pursuing their special interests. They are better informed, understand laws and procedures, have greater political skills, and are more militant and persistent. They have learned that planning brings order to change and, thus, they want to influence the planning. In turn, city planners are attempting to balance the demands of competing interests into a dynamic community consensus sufficient to allow decisions to be made.

In the future, city planning will continue to work under conditions of scarce urban economic resources and will constantly be faced with competing priorities—of neighborhoods, interest groups, businesses, and residents. The targeting and delivery of adequate public services will pose serious problems during the rest of the 20th century. As cities search for a revision of their role, they will undergo recurring adjustments. It is the task of city planning to minimize the impact that changing cycles have on the city's residents and businesses.

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Basilica

Large structure in ancient Roman or early Christian times, usually built on a rectangular, as distinct from a circular or cruciform, plan. Later the term was conferred as an honor on certain churches selected by the popes, such as Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.

PAGAN BASILICAS

Basilica of Maxentius This Roman basilica was begun by the emperor Maxentius between 307 and 310 and completed by Constantine the Great after 312. The quality and scope of the architecture was outstanding for its time. Although it was one of the most important monuments in classical antiquity, almost all that remains of the building are these three huge, barrel-vaulted bays.Scala/Art Resource, NY

Roman basilicas were used for law courts or for commerce. They consisted of a roofed hall entered from a portico at the side or end. The hall contained a wide central aisle, or nave, separated from two side aisles by rows of columns. The nave walls rose above the aisle roofs and were pierced with windows, forming a clerestory to admit light. At the far end of the nave was usually a raised platform, or bema, on which stood an altar. Behind the bema the hall terminated in a semicircular or polygonal area called an apse, which has seats for officials.

This basic plan had many variations. Some basilicas had a nave and four side aisles, as, for example, the basilica of Trajan (or Ulpia, 98-112), which also had a gallery and a semicircular apse at both ends. Others had no gallery or were almost square. Most had pitched roofs with wooden rafters, but some, such as the basilica of Constantine (or Maxentius, 310-13), were vaulted with masonry.


CHRISTIAN BASILICAS

Early Christian Basilica The basilica is an ancient Roman building type on which early Christian church designs were based. Basilicas have a long central hall, or nave, separated from side aisles by rows of columns. At the end of the nave is a raised platform, or bema, where an altar typically stood. Behind the bema is a semicircular apse. People enter the basilica through a roofed porch, or narthex, that faces onto a square courtyard called an atrium. The roofed walkways on the side of the atrium form an ambulatory.© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

In the 4th century, when Christianity acquired imperial support, churches throughout the Roman Empire, such as Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (432), were built on the basilica plan, usually over the grave of a saint. Many of them, notably San Clemente (11th century on a 4th-century foundation) and Old Saint Peter's (330, destroyed in the 16th century), both in Rome, were approached through a colonnaded atrium, or open court, like that of a Roman house. The basilica church consisted of an oblong space divided into a central nave and side aisles, sometimes with galleries. It was entered from one end through a porch, or narthex, beyond which penitents and those not confirmed were not admitted. At the far end was the raised bema terminating in the domed apse, or sanctuary. In the center of the sanctuary stood a canopied altar. Behind it was the bishop's chair facing the congregation, with seats for the presbyters and deacons on either side. Usually an area for the choir, surrounded with grillwork screens and called the chancel, lay between the nave and the bema. The larger basilicas had wings, called transepts, flanking the chancel, to accommodate additional clergy.

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Temple

Temple building, usually of large size, dedicated to one or more divinities. The word temple is derived from templum, the Latin word for a sacred, ceremonial space. A temple almost always stands out clearly from its surroundings and has a pronounced architectural character. The type is common to most societies, being thought of as the dwelling place of the divine. The broad concept includes the mosque, the synagogue, and the church, and the word is also used to refer to buildings for fraternal orders and religious organizations.

Wat Phra Kaeo Thailand has nearly 18,000 Buddhist temples, called wats, throughout the country. The temples provide religious sanctuaries for Thailand’s Buddhists, who account for 95 percent of the population. The Wat Phra Kaeo (Temple of the Emerald Buddha), pictured here, stands in Bangkok and dates to 1782.Thailand Tourism AuthorityThailand Tourism Authority

The origin of the temple is found in the need for ancient peoples to make concrete their relationship to the forces of nature by means of substantial structures commanding attention. Around these the ceremonies of worship were elaborated, and in many societies the attendant priests became very powerful. Temples were often positioned with regard to some natural feature or phenomenon, such as a holy mountain or the apparent traverse of the sun, and they were often tall or placed on an elevated spot, in order to lessen the distance between mortals and the heavens.

Ancient Temple Found in England
Ancient monuments such as Stonehenge evoke misty images of intricate rituals and a mysterious civilization. In 1997 another Stone Age temple was discovered in Somerset, England. Made of timber, archeologists reported that it was as important as Stonehenge and much larger.
Archaeologists in the United Kingdom have discovered a prehistoric timber temple that is reportedly much larger than the famous monument at Stonehenge and equally as important, a government commission reported on November 10, 1997.

The temple was found at Stanton Drew in rural Somerset, England, in September 1997 during an archaeological investigation of a site containing three ancient stone circles. Using a new technique to measure small variations in the soil's magnetism, archaeologists discovered the outlines of a large, circular temple. The temple, most likely constructed of carved oak columns, was surrounded by a massive ditch with an outer diameter exceeding 135 m (443 ft). Within the large circle are nine smaller concentric circles believed to be burial pits.

Archaeologists said the structure, which is thought to date from 3200 bc to 2500 bc, is England's largest and most complex prehistoric temple, twice the size of Stonehenge and perhaps several hundred years older. About 3000 stone circles have been discovered in England, but the temple at Stanton Drew is just one of eight temples known to exist.

Many experts believe the temples were used in rituals by ancient societies seeking to control supernatural forces. But experts add that little is known about how these societies were organized or how they may have interacted with other groups.

English Heritage, the government commission overseeing the investigation, said the site would not be fully excavated, because the temple design appeared similar to others previously discovered. The group said the site would be partially excavated and eventually opened to the public.



TEMPLE FORMS

In form the temple ranges from a plain mound of heaped-up material to sophisticated complexes of numerous buildings, but a main, central structure for the temple proper is always found in these elaborate systems. Some have platforms for observing natural phenomena or for ritual fires, but most have a sanctuary, a special place reserved for the divinity, whose invisible presence is symbolized by a sculpted or painted image or some suitable relic. In order to show respect for the divinity, the sanctuary is usually set off from the rest of the temple by interposed doors, railings, or colonnades; the sanctuary is usually well inside the temple structure. Another common feature is an altar, a block of stone or tablelike feature where offerings to the divinity are placed and upon which the ceremony of worship focuses. The altars of the classical temples of Greece and Rome were outside and in front of the temple proper; the internal sanctuary (cella) was not normally entered by the laity.

Temples usually are set within a precinct (also sacred), an enclosure extending well beyond the temple proper. Gateways, often of elaborate design, helped to control crowds of worshipers and pilgrims. Grand temple complexes might include priests' quarters, healing centers, monasteries, shops, and hostels. Often granaries were included as well, for the connection between religious cults and agriculture was close; priests became bankers through the loan of seed grain. In many societies the main temple and dependent structures were the most important buildings, although many smaller, often isolated, temples existed as well.

In general, temples have two types of form: the solid, hill-like type—pyramid, stepped mound, circular shape—and the chambered type—with an interior sanctuary and exterior colonnades or other sophisticated architectural treatment. One is a monument reaching toward the sky, heavy with celestial symbolism; the other is a dignified house for a god. Both types are usually eminently visible, an unambiguous statement about the religious culture of the builders.

EGYPTIAN AND MESOPOTAMIAN TEMPLES

Temple of Hatshepsut The temple of Hatshepsut is a rock-cut tomb and mortuary temple built in the 15th century bc at Dayr al Ba'ri near Thebes. It was designed by the royal architect Senemut for the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. The temple consists of three colonnaded terraces connected by ramps. The surrounding area was planted with trees and flowers during Hatshepsut’s reign and for many years after.Gian Berto Vanni/Art Resource, NY

In ancient Egypt, temples were grandiose, built of huge blocks and columns of stone. Often they were enlarged by successive rulers to form strung-out series of temple parts, as in the gigantic Temple of Amon (circa 1550-1070 BC) at Al Karnak. The Nile cliffs were used as settings for temples, such as the massive mortuary temple (15th century BC) of Hatshepsut at Dayr al Ba?ri, the superhuman scale of which still inspires awe. A profusion of sculpture (both in the round and in incised relief) and painting told of the gods and their special connection with Egypt's rulers. In the Middle East the hill form called the ziggurat predominated for a long time; this was a huge stylized constructed mound, sometimes encircled by a walkway. The best preserved is the ziggurat of Nanna at Ur (about 2100 bc) in present-day Iraq. Smaller, plainer constructed mounds also appeared. In the last few centuries bc columned temples with cellas appeared.

GREEK TEMPLES

Temple of Apollo at Didyma The Greeks built the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, Turkey (about 300 bc). The design of the temple was known as dipteral, a term that refers to the two sets of columns surrounding the interior section. These columns surrounded a small chamber that housed the statue of Apollo. With Ionic columns reaching 19.5 m (64 ft) high, these ruins suggest the former grandeur of the ancient temple.Bernard Cox/Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

Beginning about the 7th century bc, the Greeks created the temple with columns around all sides that support a plain, pitched roof—the image that comes most readily to the Western mind when the word temple is mentioned. This form, perfected in the Parthenon (circa 447-432 bc) on the Athenian Acropolis, has had a long life in the history of art. Often atop a city hill (acropolis) and built of fine-grained marble, the Greek temple is justly famous for its fine proportions and elegant clarity of form. It sits on a three-stepped stone platform upon which the columns and the walls of the cella are set; the gable ends of the roof, and other parts, were embellished with sculpture. As time passed, the kinds of columns (see Column) used by the Greeks—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—became the touchstones of classically inspired buildings everywhere.

ROMAN TEMPLES

The Roman temple (4th century bc-3rd century ad) at first seems to be almost entirely derived from the Greek. Unlike the Greek examples, however, it is emphatically emphasized on one end with a high staircase set between two projecting wall sections that form part of the high platform, or podium, on which it is built. Every Roman town had one or more temples of this kind, placed not upon an acropolis but amid the urban fabric; its elevation on its podium helped give it distinction. The number of public buildings, both secular and religious, that descend from the centered, one-ended Roman temple, with its lofty porch, is beyond count. A well-preserved example, the famous Maison-Carrée (four-square house), in Nîmes in southern France, has been a major architectural source; for example, Thomas Jefferson's design for the State Capitol at Richmond, Virginia, was based on it. The forms of Greek and Roman temples are among the most influential of all Western architectural creations, not only because of their historical associations but also because of their solid symmetry and stable composition. They have stood, for centuries in the West, as architectural metaphors of civilization itself.

INDIAN TEMPLES

Great Stupa The Great Stupa is an ancient Buddhist temple located in Sanchi, a historic site in the state of Madhya Pradesh in central India. Constructed between the 3rd century bc and the early 1st century ad, the temple is solid and enclosed by a stone outer fence with toranas, or gateways, on all four sides. Worshipers at the site pay their respects to Buddha by circling the dome, which represents the world mountain. Atop the dome, a square fence called the harika represents the heaven. The harika surrounds the yasti, a spire with three chatras, or disk shapes. The yasti represents the axis of the universe.Scala/Art Resource, NY

The major Buddhist temple structures of India are the stupa, a hemispherical mound, sometimes of great size) and the cave-hall, or chaitya. Stupas are reliquaries and represent the heavens. Rising from bases that symbolize the earth, they are the goals of pilgrims and are often set in groups within precincts. The Great Stupa (3rd century bc-early 1st century ad) at Sanchi is the most notable extant example. Encircling the base of the stupa is a fenced-off walkway for the ritual passage around it. The hemisphere proper is solid and is surmounted by a fenced enclosure symbolizing the peak of Mount Meru, the world-mountain. Within is often a schematized tree of stone representing humanity. The cave-hall, on the other hand, is emphatically an interior space, usually cut out of the rock, as is the Great Chaitya Hall (circa early 2nd century ad) at Karle. It has a stupa at its far end separated from the curving back wall by an ambulatory. Both the stupa and the chaitya are usually decorated with a profusion of high-relief sculpture.

Freestanding Hindu temples are large, rectangular, symmetrical precincts containing a towering sanctuary and various subordinate structures. Typical is the Lingaraja Temple (circa ad 1000) at Bhubaneshwar. The sanctuary, placed at the intersection of the cardinal axes of the precinct, is very tall, resembling an immense fountain of stone with a domelike, small-scale top bearing a finial. The nearby structures echo this great form. This style is common to the north of India; in the south a main feature is the towering, intricately formed gateway or gopura. All Hindu temples are highly articulated and are charged with symbolic carvings. The sanctuary proper is a kind of cave, dark and vaulted over by cantilevered stones. Jain temples (see Jainism), such as the marble temples at Mount Abu (13th century) in western India, are placed in rectangular precincts lined on the inside with repeated cells. On the long axis are a dancing pavilion, a large gateway, a square vestibule, and then the shrine proper.

Buddhist architecture appears also in other Asian countries. In Indonesia, for example, near Magelang on the island of Java, the Borobudur temple was built in the 9th century in the style of the Gupta architecture of India. The temple-mountain design symbolizes the structure of the universe. The central stupa is on a massive stepped base and is surrounded by scores of lesser stupas, the whole representative of Buddhist beliefs. Borobudur architecture influenced the famous Khmer temples, or wats, of Cambodia such as Angkor Wat (early 12th century), which has three vast rectangular terraces, each edged with passages, one higher than the other. The outermost, largest terrace wall is marked by low towers, the second by higher ones, and the innermost by still taller ones centered around the tallest of all—an awesome composition. The whole is covered with miles of religious relief sculpture.

CHINESE AND JAPANESE TEMPLES

Chinese architecture is predominantly secular, with halls or monuments for ceremonies as much social as religious. When Buddhism arrived in China, it was the long, relatively low great hall of Chinese tradition that was first adapted to temple use. Later, more vertical structures were built to house the statue of the Buddha. Wood was the normal building material, assembled in an intricate system of posts carrying multiple horizontal brackets; the subtle manipulation of this technique produced the graceful roof shapes of traditional Chinese and Japanese architecture. Centralized buildings were constructed as well: The pagoda, often made of brick, is a tower of superimposed stories. The stories may diminish somewhat in breadth as the building rises, and each stage is normally accentuated by bold roof silhouettes that project beyond the mass. Circular buildings were not unknown; one of these, the Altar of Heaven (begun 1420; restored 1890) in Beijing, has a roof form that resembles a great conical hat. In Chinese wooden architecture extensive use is made of bright colors.

Japanese religious buildings, which descend from the Chinese tradition, are often well preserved because of frequent, meticulous rebuilding of the original (impermanent) wood. Therefore, at Ise one can see a sanctuary that, although a modern work, faithfully represents the original building of the 3rd century ad. In Japan the relatively low, great-hall type of building is found; the pagoda form is also found in Japan. The ingenuity of the carpentry and of the woodcarving in some buildings is exceptional, and much attention was paid to the texture and to the patterning of roofs of thatch, shingles, and tile. The temple interiors can be brilliant, but on the whole the effect is one of an economical clarity of forms.

PRE-COLUMBIAN TEMPLES

Temple of the Sun, Teotihuacán The Temple of the Sun at Teotihuacán, Mexico, was built between ad 50 and 200. The pyramidal structure is made of layers of clay faced with stone, and it stands about 61m (200 ft) high. Flights of stairs lead to the top, where a temple to the sun god Uitzilopochtli originally stood. The site is aligned with the rising and setting of the sun on the summer solstice.Sapieha/Art Resource, NY

In what is now Mexico and the countries immediately to the south, religious architecture predominated among monumental structures until the Europeans arrived. The Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon at Teotihuacán (a city that flourished from shortly before the beginning of the Christian era to about ad 650) show the development of this typical Mesoamerican form. The Temple of the Sun is a kind of step pyramid, composed of horizontal layers or slices of pyramids of diminishing size; a small dwelling for the god was once at the top. The later Temple of the Moon is more fully articulated than that of the Sun, carrying a series of richly sculptured bands around its base; both pyramids could be ascended by monumental staircases. Maya temples also used the pyramidal form, although usually as a base for a rectilinear structure above. At Chichén Itzá, the Temple of the Warriors was fronted by a sizable colonnaded hall. All such structures were of stone or of earth fill faced with stone; some were encased in painted plaster in lieu of cut-stone sculpture. Pyramid temples were often oriented to the passage of the sun; the Teotihuacán Temple of the Sun was oriented to the sun's passage at the summer solstice.

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