History of Architecture

INTRODUCTION

Architecture is the profession of designing buildings, open areas, communities, and other artificial constructions and environments, usually with some regard to aesthetic effect. Architecture often includes design or selection of furnishings and decorations, supervision of construction work, and the examination, restoration, or remodeling of existing buildings. That’s the official definition or rather the working part of the term being referred to. If we take a look for the word: Architecture (Latin architectura, after the Greek ἀρχιτέκτων – arkhitekton – from ἀρχι- "chief" and τέκτων "builder, carpenter, mason") is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings and other physical structures. Architectural history begins with buildings. In order really see these buildings, one needs to use precise descriptive language. What is architecture? Certainly it is a shelter, but it be much more. In early beginnings it is possible to trace the early stages the process by which true architecture grew out of the first rude attempts of man at building. The oldest existing monuments of architecture –those of Chaldea and Egypt- belong to an advanced civilization. The rude and elementary structures built by savage and barbarous people, like the Hottentots or the tribes of Central Africa, are not in themselves works of architecture, nor is any instance known of the evolution of a civilized art from such beginnings. So far as the monuments testify, no savage people ever raised itself to civilization of which it appropriated the spirit, the processes, and the forms. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols and as works of art. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements. When someone says architecture the first thought people