Reference
links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dry%C5%AB-ji https://www.art-and-archaeology.com/japan/horyuji3.html Video: https://www.360cities.net/image/houryuji-temple#99.51,-25.52,80.0 Keywords: Unit 4, Case Study 7, Horyu-ji, ca. 675–700 CE, Nara, Japan, East Asia, temple, monastery, pagoda
Study Questions
TOP Choose five of the study questions to answer.
1. Choose two case studies from the Study Guide for this unit. Find their sections in A Global History of Architecture, and then examine two online resources covering each of these cases. What is the difference in the organization of information, point of view, analysis, emphasis, visualization, and use of sources between your print textbook and the online media?
2. In this unit we witness imperial states harnessing new or reformed religions to consolidate and expand territorially. How did architectural symbolism become propaganda in the service of: Christianity in the Byzantine West; Islam in the Levant; Mahayana Buddhism in India and Sri Lanka; and the Zapotecs in Mexico?
3. In Rome-centred Christian Europe a Roman imperial bath building was adopted as the prototype for congregate churches. Using a series of diagrammatic sketches, illustrate the evolution of this adaptation, and mark how it accommodated a new form of sacred ritual.
4. The Holy Wisdom church (Hagia Sophia), built by Emperor Justinian I, consolidated Christian ritual and symbolic meaning for church architecture in his expanding eastern empire. Mark up a ground plan of Hagia Sophia explaining the ritual and symbolic use of space, particularly focusing on the roles of the imperial court, the clergy, and the lay people.
5. Hagia Sophia was one of the largest domed structures ever built, an engineering marvel in its day. Using either sectional or three-dimensional sketch diagrams, explain how the arcuate walls, roofing, and support systems worked.
6. St. Peter’s, Rome; Monte Albán, Mexico; the stupa complex at Anuradhapura: all seemed to serve a secondary role, that of commemorating important people either via reliquaries or entombment. Explain how each structure accomplished this within the context of quite different beliefs and practices.
7. The central-plan baptistery, attached or free-standing that developed in the early Christian church, both in the East and in the West, combined a number of powerful symbolic elements. Annotate a plan of the baptistery at Ravenna, indicating why this “sacramental rite” (baptism) was given special architectural treatment and how the building elements express the theology of this ritual.
8. Using an elevation sketch, illustrate the structural and decorative elements of the pagoda at the Horyu-ji Temple. Annotate it with the names of the parts and their symbolic significance in Buddhist belief
