architecture and society

Architecture is a reflection of the society that fostered and refined it

Architecture is an art form. And yet, appreciation of architecture goes beyond beauty and concept, because it deals directly with life, or specifically on how human beings evolved from the basic concept of building crude structures for shelter until they eventually learned to harness it as an expression of their dreams and aspirations.

It is essentially an auspicious symbol of man's progress, an overall gauge of the level that a specific civilization has attained. Nowadays, it has become easy to identify what point of history you're dealing with, simply by looking at the buildings and monuments, and analyzing their characteristics, as well as the style that their builders had adopted or the materials they used.

It is a graceful merging of form and function, and a convergence of the artistic, cultural, economic technological and political factors that define a specific age or race. In short, it is a reflection of a society that built it — how its citizens lived, worshipped, played, worked, schooled its young, and entertained, and how they conceived and measured beauty.
 
How does architecture define an age or a culture? Simple. Think of the ancient Greeks with their passion for symmetry and balance, and the Parthenon, with its fine Doric pillars, immediately comes to mind. The Romans derived amusement from gladiatorial combats in venues like the Colosseum. Egyptian pharaohs glorified their rule with soaring structures such as pyramids (Great Pyramid of Giza) and temples. The Baroque (Les Invalides, France), Byzantine (Hagia Irene, Turkey), and Gothic (Notre-Dame Cathedral, France) periods are well delineated by buildings built during these times. Traditional Chinese architecture, with its emphasis on the horizontal axis and the visual impact of the width of buildings (Forbidden City, China), is just as distinctive and representative of China's deep cultural past