Architecture and the Phenomena of Transition: The Three Space Conceptions in Architecture [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674491717, 9780674491700

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A R C H I T E C T U R E A N D T H E P H E N O M E N A OF T R A N S I T I O N

Architecture and the Phenomena of Transition

THE T H R E E SPACE C O N C E P T I O N S IN A R C H I T E C T U R E

BY

SIGFRIED G I E D I O N

1971 HARVARD U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS · CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

© Copyright 1971 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Published in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 71-95921 S B N 674-04337-5 Printed in Germany by Verlag Ernst Wasmuth

PREFACE This volume deals with the three space conceptions in architecture, which I touched u p o n at the end o f v o l u m e II o f THE ETERNAL PRESENT.

The first space conception arose in the first high civilizations, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and continued through until Greece. W h i l e Greek architecture represented the final stage o f the first space conception it also embodied the n e w European democratic w a y o f life with its emphasis upon the individual. The second space conception was formulated in R o m e , whence it spread all over Europe. Its basic principles were rediscovered in the Renaissance and Baroque. But history is neither a direct repetition nor a simple continuation. The medieval interlude, springing from a barbarian background, contrasted strongly with Greek and R o m a n ideas. Its Gothic cathedrals, with their upward thrust, were rediscovered by the R o m a n tics and then, in the second half o f the nineteenth century, by the engineer-architects. The third space conception has only just begun. W h e r e it will lead no one can tell. As I said in SPACE, TIME AND ARCHITECTURE, its preliminary stage was occupied with reuniting thinking and feeling, which had been reft asunder in the nineteenth century. The next stage was to bring about a necessary distinction between the collective and private spheres within human society, with an acute awareness o f the changes occurring in contemporary life.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful for the hospitality o f Professor Frank B r o w n and the Principessa Margherita Rospigliosi at the American Academy in R o m e , as well as the helpfulness o f the librarian, Mrs. Inez Langobardi. I will not forget the courtesy o f Professor Gianfilippo Carettoni, Superintendant o f the Forum R o m a n u m , and Professor Giovanni Joppolo, one of the excavators o f Lepcis Magna, nor the fruitful conversations about Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli with Dr. Friedrich R a k o b o f the German Archaeological Institute in R o m e . I am indebted to Professor Alfonso de Franciscis, Sopraintendente di Napoli, w h o made it possible for me to visit recent excavations at Pompeii. Special thanks g o to Dr. Ernest Nash o f the Fototheca Unione in R o m e , whose vast knowledge was very helpful to me in many respects. Finally m y thanks g o to Brigitte Zehmisch, for her invaluable help during the study and working out o f this book, and to Christian Casparis and Jaqueline T y r w h i t t for their translation. S. Giedion Amden October 1967

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION The Three Space Conceptions in Architecture

ι 2

THE LAST PHASE OF THE F I R S T SPACE CONCEPTION : GREECE Mythopoetic Thinking Group Design Hypostyle Halls

7 8 9 15

PHENOMENA OF T R A N S I T I O N : C I R C U L A R F O R M S The Temples of Malta The Tholos The Tumulus

20 21 48 59

THE SECOND SPACE CONCEPTION Architecture and Order Architecture and Symbolism The Roman "Wall The Roman Arch The Triumphal Arch The Roman Vault Perforation of the Wall Construction for Private Life Construction for Public Life Rome and Later Periods

69 72 78 79 91 126 135 159 179 2x4 253

PHENOMENA OF T R A N S I T I O N : USES OF M A T E R I A L S Concrete Iron and Steel

260 260 262

THE THIRD SPACE CONCEPTION Heritage of the First and Second Space Conceptions Group Design Separation of Functions Individuality and Mass Production

266 267 269 274 286

Notes List of Illustrations Index

295 301 309

INTRODUCTION The decisive impetus for my work has been given by contemporary artists, who, by conceiving a new interpretation of space, broadened the history of optical perception. Taking the present time as my starting point, I have traced this history. In my first studies I questioned how it had been possible for Classicism to take two different forms, and I pursued this in my doctoral thesis, SPÄTBAROCKER UND R O M A N TISCHER KLASSIZISMUS (Munich, 1922). I found that the umbrella of Classicism had sheltered two divergent epochs. This led me to a search for the roots of our present age, a search that has occupied me until today. In 1925 I went to Paris. There Le Corbusier showed me his Pavillion de L'Esprit Nouveau which he had built on the outermost fringe of the International Exhibition of Arts and Crafts, 1925. It was conceived as a single apartment, extracted from one of his unexecuted high-rise buildings. The Pavillion had more vitality than anything else in the exhibition. This first meeting with Le Corbusier prepared the ground for our later collaboration in C I A M (International Congresses of Modern Architecture). And it was Le Corbusier who, in our talks as well as in his book V E R S UNE A R C H I TECTURE (1924), directed my attention to the sources of contemporary architecture: the iron architecture of the nineteenth century, which came most strongly to the fore in the great world's fairs. In my book B A U E N I N F R A N K R E I C H (Leipzig, 1928) I made a first attempt to set this down. The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (193 7-3 8) enabled me to enlarge on this theme, and to link it with earlier and later developments. These were published as SPACE, T I M E AND A R C H I T E C T U R E (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1 9 4 1 ; fifth edition, 1967). I now became interested in the roots of the development that had led from handicrafts to industrial mass production. I followed the trail back through the nineteenth century. The sources were widely scattered and it took time to assemble the material for M E C H A N I Z A T I O N T A K E S C O M M A N D (Oxford and New York, 1948). One of the most fruitful sources was the United States Patent Office inWashington, where I was able to gain a new insight into the prerequisites as well as the first beginnings of mechanized building. Inmy conclusion to M E C H A N I Z A T I O N T A K E S C O M M A N D , I pointed to the coming end of a rational approach to the world, and our move away from the one-way street of logic. I then added: "Every generation must carry both the burden of the past and the responsibility for the future. The present is coming to be seen more and more as a mere link between yesterday and tomorrow... Every generation has to find a different solution to the same problem: to bridge the abyss between inner and outer reality" (p. 723). At this point I became concerned with the problem of continuity, with those elements that remained constant despite the advent of mechanization and the tragic nineteenth century rift between thinking and feeling. The search led me to a study of the beginnings of art, and in the two volumes of T H E E T E R N A L P R E S E N T — T H E B E GINNINGS OF A R T and T H E B E G I N N I N G S OF A R C H I T E C T U R E (Pantheon, 1962 and 1964) — I attempted to get at some fundamental principles. The foremost question was the relation between constancy and change. Constancy does not imply mere continuation, but rather the ability of the human mind suddenly to bring to life things that have been left slumbering through long ages. In contemporary art we can perceive an inseparable interweave of past, present, and future. One of its most marked characteristics ι

is a need for elementary expressions. Artists probe deep into human experience. A r t brings out the fundamental affinity between the desires o f modern and primeval man. Abstraction, transparency, and symbolization are constituent elements o f both prehistoric and contemporary art. T h e n e w tradition has g r o w n f r o m a complex culture and is closely bound up w i t h the relation between the state and the individual. Here again, I was intrigued to study the earliest beginnings. W h a t happened to man w h e n states started to become organized, w h e n masses o f people became subject to the will o f a single individual; W h a t experiences and traditions o f prehistoric man persisted through the high civilizations o f Egypt and Sumer; This is the problem that occupies the second v o l u m e o f THE ETERNAL PRESENT to the extent that it is reflected in architecture. Every period concentrates upon certain problems. Scholars o f the nineteenth century concentrated upon intensive studies o f individual styles, though they did not stop there. Careful comparisons were then made between stylistic periods, so t h a t — b y such juxtaposition—the peculiarities o f each w o u l d become more evident. RENAISSANCE UND BAROCK b y Heinrich W ö l f f l i n (1888) may serve as an example o f this method. Such studies formed the background for scholars o f the twentieth century. M e n n o w began to seek broad relationships, across the barriers o f individual states and specific religious or social groupings. T o d a y w e are interested in what it is that great periods have in c o m m o n no matter h o w greatly individual forms may vary. T h e problem o f continuity is far more important to us than the definition o f separate styles and their special characteristics. T o put it another w a y , in order for us to establish our position at the present t i m e — w h i c h has closer ties w i t h the w h o l e o f the human past than any other period before i t — i t is essential to understand the continuity through past, present, and future. O n e period can penetrate another. T h e Gothic straining for height and their structural rib system were carried over into the formation o f Baroque domes. There was a continuity o f principles, though a great change in the w a y they were expressed. In its later development, the R o m a n conception o f forming interior space continued on through the Romanesque and Gothic periods into the Renaissance (which again studied and re-adopted R o m a n forms) and on into the Baroque and the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century w e are experiencing an interweaving o f the architectural conceptions o f all periods. Attention is again directed to the play o f volumes in space without losing the tradition o f forming interior space.

THE T H R E E SPACE C O N C E P T I O N S IN A R C H I T E C T U R E O n the last pages o f THE BEGINNINGS OF ARCHITECTURE I made brief mention o f the three architectural space conceptions. These exemplify one o f the aspects that great periods have in c o m m o n : their attitude toward space. T h e three space conceptions discernible in the history o f architecture have one thing in c o m m o n , despite other major differences: all accept the dominance o f the vertical. T h o u g h the ground was laid m u c h earlier, ziggurats, pyramids, and the rectangular house were all evolved in historic times. T h e prehistoric—prearchitectural—space 2

conception was not dominated by the vertical. In the cave paintings of the Magdalenian Age, the animals never stand on a precisely horizontal base. They stand at various angles on the sloping rock walls of the caverns, sometimes tilted to such a degree that, to our eyes, they appear to be falling; but to the eyes of primitive man, the Eskimo for instance, they are simply standing near one another. The beginning of architecture is closely linked with the development of a sense of order: a sense of the vertical and its corollary, the horizontal plane. The first space conception: architecture as space-radiating volumes. The three long periods of architectural development cannot be treated in the same proportion. The first space conception was that of the first high civilizations: Mesopotamia and Egypt. These were the subject of T H E BEGINNINGS OF ARCHITECTURE. The present book opens with the final stage of the first space conception : the architecture of Greece. The relation of Greek architecture to preceding and succeeding developments reveals the importance of the phenomena of transition. Greek architecture is the first to express the European democratic approach. It is totally different from the Eastern autocratic architecture that preceded it. Yet both share the same space conception. The pyramids and the Parthenon both stand as volumes in space. But though the organization of this transitional architecture is still connected with volumes in space, it expresses a new democratic way of life. Further east, the first space conception continued to evolve independently from the new Western development. One can instance the sculptural temple towers and stupas of eastern Asia. Roman architecture, based on the evolution of interior space, inaugurated the second space conception, which persisted in different forms up to the beginning of the twentieth century. The Romans accepted and admired Greek art, but they held to their own spatial expression. They used the Greek orders to adorn the facades of their amphitheaters. And Hadrian, who fell under the spell of Greek art, placed masterpieces of Greek sculpture on the grounds of his villa at Tivoli, so that he could be constantly aware of them while entertaining his guests. Yet simultaneously with his fascination with the past, he incorporated the most audacious vaulting experiments in his beloved villa. The classic orders and Greek sculpture continued to represent standards of excellence right up to the Late Period of Roman development : a period renowned for the expressiveness of its magnificent portrait sculpture. In discussing Rome, I do not touch on the development of sculpture as I did when tracing the history of Egypt in T H E BEGINNINGS OF ARCHITECTURE. The true greatness of the Romans lay elsewhere: in the creation of interior space. It was their inventions of new techniques of construction that brought about the differentiation of interior space, and it is the purpose of this book to describe how this occurrcd and how it developed. The second space conception: architecture as interior space. Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture, with all their stylistic differences, adhered to the same space conception. Following its birth in Rome, it was further developed in the West, so that one might call it the Western space conception. The emphasis of the second space conception was always upon interior space : hollowing it out as well as opening it up by means of windows. From the Roman Pantheon on, there was a constant 3

elaboration of the form and lighting of interior space. The penetration of sunlight continued to expand from the great windows of the Roman baths to the tall stained glass windows of the Gothic cathedrals, the light-flooded Baroque stairways and halls, and the curtain walls of our own century. In each period of transition, religious and social changes are behind the changes in architectural forms, as well as new inventions and the development of new techniques. Imperial Rome faced social problems which have reappeared in our own time, though it took another approach to their solution. In the section below on Roman public buildings we consider the great Roman shopping center, the Mercatus Traiani, and the Flavian amphitheater, the Colosseum. The monumental scale of these structures built for the general public has no modern equivalent. Nor is there a parallel to the imperial thermae, the public baths which the rulers of Rome built and maintained for the people of the city. These great bathing establishments, which indicate the high living standards of ancient Rome, acted as social gathering places. Such a provision for regeneration was generally accepted as part of the duties of an organized society. On the other hand, in spite of numerous complaints by a number of Roman writers, the same society paid no regard to the wretched housing conditions of the masses, crowded into six-story tenements. At the time of Constantine, Rome had eleven large public baths, apart from the hundreds of privately operated establishments. It is possible to compare this with the modern elaborate provision of urban hospital services, though these are only for the sick, not for regeneration and promotion of physical well-being. The rise of the monumental buildings of ancient Rome was intimately connected with developments in building technology. We will see this in sections on the Roman wall, the Roman arch, and the Roman vault. The Romans rationalized building construction almost in a modern sense. We find a man-made material—concrete—used for the first time, structurally and extensively, for walls and vaulting. This required a highly organized division of labor. Although in the post-Roman period the hollowing out of interior space was greatly developed, the wide window openings disappeared, and there was a return to primitive methods of building construction. There are many reasons why the Roman development was not carried further in the Middle Ages. In the section on R o m e and the Middle Ages we note how the way of life sank back to a primitive condition, and the only large undertakings were the cathedrals. At the end of the Gothic period many of these were still unfinished; some were completed in the nineteenth century, partly for romantic reasons and partly because construction methods were then sufficiently developed. I opened SPACE, T I M E AND A R C H I T E C T U R E with a discussion of our architectural heritage from the Renaissance. I examined one of the earliest manifestations of the Renaissance in Florence : Masaccio's fresco in S. Maria Novella (around 1425) of the crucified Christ with God the Father above him. Above the scene is a heavily coffered barrel vault, painted so strongly that it dominates the entire composition. This may well have been derived from one of the side aisles of the Roman Basilica of Constantien. In the section in the present book on Roman building concepts in the Renaissance and Baroque, I show how the Renaissance was indeed a rebirth of antiquity, and how it was Imperial Rome that gave the cue. In the section on wall perforation in the architecture of R o m e and the Middle Ages, I trace how, at the end of the first century after Christ and throughout the second century, window openings became larger and 4

larger, and the R o m a n villas became oriented toward the outer landscape. Renaissance and Baroque architecture followed this trend. The reason R o m a n architecture appears so familiar to us today is largely because w e recognize in it the features that were selected and taken over by architects of the Renaissance and Baroque. The typical streets of Renaissance and Baroque cities, with their arcaded sidewalks, were already in being in R o m a n Ostia. It was not only the R o m a n vaults and cupolas that proved a source of inspiration to the Baroque architects. One can find many similarities in R o m a n and Baroque forms and their feeling for space, as in the standard prototype of the Baroque church, the Gesù in R o m e by Vignola (1568-84). Its general plan, its expression of width as opposed to length, and its dignity are scarcely conceivable without the prior experience of R o m a n architecture—above all the Imperial thermae. Flooding the interior with light was characteristic of eighteenth century architecture. The grand stairway of the town hall of Nancy (1755) is one example. The wall of this stairway, rising several stories, was almost dissolved into glass (fig. 144). In the nineteenth century the engineers with their new construction technology were not aware of what they were offering to architecture by the industrialized production of plate glass. It was only in the twentieth century that the possibilities could be realized. The transition. In the section entitled "Phenomena of Transition: Uses of Materials" I recapitulate the first steps of the third space conception that are set down in SPACE, TIME AND ARCHITECTURE. I note there how the most decisive influence came from the revolutionary construction methods developed by nineteenth century industry. It was the engineer, not the architect, w h o opened the way. This development started with the anonymous iron construction of the nineteenth century and reached its zenith at the last important world's fair in Paris, 1889, with the erection of the Eiffel T o w e r and the enormous "Galerie des Machines," a structure a quarter of a mile long with a single span of over 350 feet, whose steel trusses become increasingly attenuated, until they appear scarcely to touch the ground. For the architects of the period, these two structures were incomprehensible. They needed first to be interpreted by the eyes of artists: G. Seurat, w h o painted the light-drenched skeleton of the Eiffel T o w e r at the time of its construction (1889), and later R . Delaunay, w h o was haunted by its multisidedness. They found a w a y to communicate the message of this design to the coming architecture: transparency and light. The third space conception : architecture as both volume and interior space. In the twentieth century technological development progressed rapidly and penetrated into the human habitat. A similar phenomenon can be observed in the transition f r o m Republican to Imperial R o m e when the technologies of vaulting were transferred from utilitarian structures—the Cloaca Maxima and the aqueducts—and employed to create monumental public buildings, giving them a totally new expression. In the twentieth century it was the painters w h o introduced the new space conception. This was in conscious opposition to the restless superficiality of painting and architecture in the late nineteenth century and to the Art Nouveau. The first architecture of the third space conception was based upon the principle of the plane surface. A n example of transition to the next phase is Le Corbusier's Swiss pavilion (1930-32) in the Cité Universitaire, Paris. 1 Architecture in its third phase 5

approaches the first space conception : architecture as space-radiating volumes. The present age has again become sensitive to the powers of volumes in space. It recognizes that structural volumes, like sculpture, emanate space. There are as yet relatively few buildings which fully express the third space conception's synthesis of volume and interior space. One example is the staggered vaults of Jörn Utzon's Sydney Opera House which not only dominate the exterior space, but are also visible from within. In his gymnasium for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Kenzo Tange links the outward expression of his sculptural tent-shaped building with the interior hanging ceiling. A further problem of the sculptural organization of building in space arises from the need for "group design." At first tall buildings were incorporated chaotically in existing rows of urban houses. The sculptural organization of buildings of differing heights involves the double problem of isolation (privacy) and interrelation. Independent buildings, volumes in themselves, set up an active spatial relationship with other volumes, as can be seen in Le Corbusier's plan for the Civic Center of St. Dié (1945). The group design of the third space conception is closely bound up with the dynamically changing aspects of our period. A series of two-dimensional strata has replaced the earlier three-dimensional concept of a city. Separate horizontal levels are interlinked. The dynamism of changing conditions and the dynamism of traffic flow are brought together in contemporary urban design, as for example in Kenzo Tange's i960 project for a megastructure over Tokyo Bay. 2 In this project planning for the collective sphere predominates. Apart from a striving to interrelate the space-emanating powers of volumes and a free differentiation of interior spaces, there is another aspect of the third space conception. We can perceive a simultaneous striving both for freedom and for order. There are many indications of a much greater development in this direction.

6

T H E LAST PHASE OF T H E FIRST SPACE CONCEPTION: GREECE The first architectural space conception did not end with Sumer and Egypt. Greece is the home of its final phase. The forms in which the first space conception is expressed change in its final phase to accord with the newborn democratic consciousness of Western man. Gigantic temples and gigantic palaces both disappear. The identity of the ruler with the deity is a distinguishing mark of the first high civilizations of Sumer and Egypt. In Greece this disappears, and Greek architecture reflects the new importance of the individual man, who demands his right to participate in legislation and government. In the first high civilizations, the religious center was also the fortified seat of the ruler ; in Greece the religious center became a meeting place of the people, a cluster of individual sanctuaries, grouped freely in space. The Greek temple was ringed by sculpturally conceived columns that stood on the top level (stylobate) of its stepped platform. Worshipers had no access to its dark interior. On feast days they stood before the temple, waiting until the heavy bronze doors of the cella were opened, when—as at the Parthenon on the Acropolis at Athens—the monumental statue of the goddess Athena came into view. The interior space only housed the cult statue of the deity, which was often of gigantic proportions. The inattention paid to finish and treatment of the interior relates the Greek temple to its Egyptian predecessors. Both the Greek and Egyptian temples stand as volumes in space. But the shadowcasting colonnade of the Greek temple and its elaborately sculptured entablature and pediment distinguish it from its Egyptian counterpart as much as a Greek statue, fully modeled in the round, differs from the flatness of an Egyptian sunken relief. The first space conception was concerned with the space-radiating forces of volumes, and the tension of their interrelation with one another. The Parthenon is perhaps the most perfect example of a temple standing as a sculptural volume in space. The far-reaching affinities of Greek and Egyptian architecture, despite their very different means of expression, can be well followed in the history of the hypostyle hall, crccted by many different peoples for many different purposes. This large dark hall, filled with a forest of columns, lies at the heart of the first space conception. Its transformation proceeded slowly into the second space conception. Its interior began to be developed in R o m a n designs; from then on it continuously evolved, taking different directions and employing different forms. Greek architecture is related to Europe. Its development moved westward, and it is indeed the first European architecture. Hybrid dwellings arose, like the Pompeian mixtures of local traditions with Etruscan and Greek forms. And there were very early attempts to combine Greek and Roman elements. R o m a n emperors transported Greek sculptures to their palaces and set them up in the public baths. The marvel of the Greek genius is not only its crystal-clear definitions of thought processes, nor its totally new means of expressing human feeling in word and stone. The democratic center of Hellas, constantly beset by hostile forces from within and without, laid the foundations of Western culture. 7

MYTHOPOETIC THINKING It is not the immediately tangible aspects of Greece that move us today. It is the completely new intensity of their approach to nature, animated and humanized by a never flagging imagination.

The cosmos as the focus of mythopoetic thinking

In the first high civilizations, especially in Egypt, the approach was different. There the full force of mythopoetic thinking was concentrated upon the cosmos itself.1 The early, precise observations of the stars and their movements reflect a longing to establish an interdependence between man and the heavens. This was obviously important for practical reasons: to establish the onset of the seasons, for example the coincidence of the rising of the Nile with the appearance of Sirius. But especially in Mesopotamia, man also sought a relationship between the heavenly constellations and human destiny (astrology). To the Sumerians and the Akkadians the starlit sky was a great chart upon which their destiny was inscribed. For the Egyptians, in accordance with their essential nature, the decisive feature was the daily cycle of the sun, not the nocturnal movements of the stars. The traditional rites of Heliopolis—the city of the sun—which reached back into prehistory, still exercised their all-pervasive power when Plato was initiated into their secrets. Thus the Egyptian calendar was based on the sun year—360 days—and the Mesopotamian calendar on the moon year of 345 days. The whole intensity of Egyptian mythopoetic thinking was concentrated upon the day side of life. The goddess Nut, whose outstretched body spans the entire nighttime firmament, only just touches the earth with the very tips of her fingers and her feet. Man's life on earth was governed by the daily journey of the supreme deity, the sun god Ra, across the daylit sky. Such a concept is unthinkable for the Greeks. They left the sun's journey to one of the lower gods, Helios, who drove his sun horses across the sky as though on a race course. In Greek thought nothing remains of the untiring cosmic imagery that gave every hour of the day a different countenance.

The landscape as focus of mythopoetic thinking

The Greeks filled the landscape with psychic and religious meaning : they gave a spiritual import to rocks, mountains, and sea. The abode of the gods lay on Mount Olympus, barely 10,000 feet in height. A totally insignificant mountain, Parnassus, of around the same height, was the domain of Apollo and the Muses. A small gorge at its foot was the home of the earth mother, Gaea, and the great serpent Python, whose slaying by the male god, Apollo, was a symbolic manifestation of the victory of the male principle. Immediately adjacent was the Castalian spring from which pilgrims drank before consulting the Delphic oracle. Their dynamic mythopoetic imagination extended to the vegetation. The olive tree was the center of a dramatic event: the nymph Daphne, pursued by Apollo, was 8

Platel Athens: The Acropolis. A most impressive use of the horizontal plane as a constituent element in group design is the situation of the small temple of Nike on a projecting, man-made terrace, so that it catches the eye of all who approach the Acropolis.

transformed into an olive tree. The cypress, planted in groves sacred to Apollo, was connected with another drama: a beloved companion of Apollo, Cyparissus, accidentally killed the god's favorite stag and was consequently metamorphosed into a cypress tree. Demigods inhabited the sea, lakes, woods, and groves. Even the small caves of the rock bastion of the Acropolis at Athens were populated with divinities. Wherever we turn, we find nature was given a spiritualized human content. Everything was personified in a natural landscape whose structure directly evoked anthropormorphic images.

GROUP DESIGN The layout of Greek monumental buildings gives rise to the freest interplay between their volumes. In this, it represents the culmination of the first space conception. The principle of group design is extensively applied to the planning of the democratic Greek city-states, where the rights of the individual and the rights of the community are clearly demarcated. Group design means that a spatial harmony is set up between several independent buildings, each of which has its own formal individuality. An optical interplay is created between their volumes. The term was first brought into use by Robert Scranton to describe the placing of sacred buildings within a walled temenos, or of the assembly buildings and stoas in an agora.2 The Acropolis at Athens shows well how group design was used in the fifth century. Looking inward from the entrance, the Propylaea, the Parthenon appears as a complete entity. So does the Erechtheum. From the step of the Propylaea one sees both standing on the rising terrain within the same angle of vision. The Greek city planner C. A. Doxiadis made an early attempt to establish "the distribution of the building masses according to a system of polar coordinates, so that they ... are optically evenly distributed at the entrance."3 Some archaeologists have raised objections to his procedure, but the methodology he presents, of establishing the angular distances between the different buildings at the point of their first visual appearance, seems decisive. R . D. Martienssen, a young South African architect (i905-1942), was one of the first to investigate the "idea of space" in Greek architecture, pointing out that " E x position of Greek architecture has too often tended to regard the temple as an isolated structure, aesthetically measurable in terms of its own form." 4 The buildings on the Acropolis stood free in space. Before them rose the gigantic statue of Athena Promachos with her long lance, the gilded tip of which was visible to ships at sea. But this is not all. If we turn to look westward from the Propylaea we see more evidence of group design at three different levels adjacent to the Acropolis : the Pnyx, where the Athenians held their public assemblies, on a rock terrace under the open sky; the Areopagus, site of the courts of justice; and, at the lowest level, the Agora, the marketplace of Athens with its variety of buildings. All the important centers of the city's community life fall within one's field of vision. It is unlikely that this optical interrelation is simply due to the accidents of local topography (fig. 1 ). Athens is but one of numerous examples of Greek group design. The disposition of 9

the buildings in the sanctuary at Delphi affords another outstanding instance of the same sensitivity for the intrinsic interdependence and the visual relationships between sculptural volumes. The richness of relations between volumes in space reached its transcendence in Greece. Its origins are rooted in prehistory. A few freely disposed huts—mostly circular—stand in relation to one another in various settlements that date back to the fourth millennium (Khirokitia in Cyprus, Orchomenus in Boeotia). The Greeks, with a keen artistic sensitivity, developed and refined this system. Their sacred precincts and centers for political life, laid out on the principles of group design, express the same psychic intensity that we find in the Greek myths.

Volumes and horizontal planes N o w , in the twentieth century, we are regaining an ever stronger awareness of the role of horizontal planes, and the interaction between one horizontal level and another. The horizontal plane has always been an important architectonic element, though its present significance is of very recent date. It looms stronger or weaker at different times. During the first space conception it appeared in full strength. Volumes that relate to one another in space demand a common basis (for example, the pyramids which stand upon the desert plateau). Martienssen wrote as early as 1941 of "the terrace ... as an external or extending element in the conscious arrangement of structural forms for spatial definition," 5 though it should not be forgotten that these insights developed from hints put out by Le Corbusier, whose work and writing had greatly extended his awareness. Robert Scranton recognized the horizontal plan as a constituent element of Greek group design. It is striking to note the care with which the Greeks—under the most varied conditions—made use of natural and man-made terraces: at the archaic Heraion at Argos (sixth century B.c.); the temple of Apollo at Corinth (ca. 540 B.C.); the temple of Aphaia at Aegina (ca. 500 B.C.), an early masterpiece whose man-made terrace was raised on the mountain top ; the sacred precinct of Apollo at Delphi with its three great terraces ; and, most impressive of all, the Acropolis at Athens. At the Acropolis the small temple of Nike was placed upon a projecting man-made terrace, held up by tall supporting walls, in order that it should first catch the eye of one approaching (plate I).

The Ρηγχ One of the most impressive manifestations of the Greek attitude toward building is represented by the Pnyx, the place of assembly of the Athenian legislators. Upon passing through the portals of the Propylaea one enters into the sacred precinct of Athena. When passing out, one's vision encompasses a valley with the Agora at its foot to the far right of the rocky crag of Areopagus, and, straight ahead, the leveled rock plateau of the Pnyx, halfway up the hill of the Muses (fig. 2). Thus, from the entrance to the Acropolis, all four of the most important religious and civic centers are visible upon four different levels : Agora, Pnyx, Areopagus, Acropolis. 10

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ι Athens: Plan of the environs of the Acropolis, second century B.c. As one looks outward from the Propylaea (west of the Acropolis) the Pnyx, the Areopagus, and the Agora (north of the Areopagus) all fall within the field of vision.

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J Tiqig RAVLOa "The north-eastern slope of the central Pnyx Hill was probably frequented by the popular assembly early in the city's history. At this time the site was undoubtedly still in its natural state... the First Period of artificial construction... secured the upper part of the seating floor by dressing down the rough rock surface so as to present the appearance of a segment from the rim of a shallow bowl." In the next, definitive, period a new supporting wall was erected, forming the rim of a "great parabolic curve." 6 Two things are necessary for a public assembly: an orator and the electorate. This is perhaps nowhere more clearly expressed than on the Pnyx of Athens. II

2 Athens : The Pnyx from the Acropolis.

The orator's rostrum rises up like a prehistoric monolith. It is raised upon a high stepped platform and mounted from the side by more stone steps ( f i g . 4). From this vantage point orators such as Demosthenes exercised their powers of rhetoric, while responsive audiences of around 10,000 people gathered in the semicircular arena of the Pnyx. These were the two essentials : The rostrum and a gathering place for an attentive audience. Even today it is an awe-inspiring experience to walk across the empty expanse that was once the dignified setting for democratic debate. 12

3 Athens: The Acropolis from the Pnyx.

From the Agora the citizens could proceed directly up the shallow slope to the Pnyx It was already in operation as the legislative assembly place around 500 B.C., and it retained this purpose until around 330 B.C., when the Dionysus theater was erected on the southern slope on the Acropolis.

Greek temples as sculpture in space

Like the pyramids and temples of Egypt, Greek temples, assembly buildings, and stoas stand as independent sculptural objects in space. But, in contrast to the Egyptian temples, which were incorporated within the orbit of a kingship priesthood hierarchy, the Greek temples stand alone in prominent positions, freely visible from afar : on the Acropolis at Athens, the promontory of Sunion, a mountain at Aegina. The stepped platform and surrounding wreath of columns give full expression to the concept of a purely sculptural form. The sculptural configuration is as much enhanced by raising the temple upon an encircling stepped pedestal as by the crystalsharp fluting of the shafts of its columns. Greek temples were never disposed or oriented according to axial principles, as was later the case in Rome. They were set freely in space. It is true that we encounter regular gridiron layouts of cities in Hellenistic times (as in Miletus and Priene) whose origins reach back to the gridiron layout of the Egyptian city of the dead behind the great pyramid at Giza (2750 B.C.). But even in Hellenistic Pergamum the main buildings do not follow an axial disposition. 14

4 Athens: The orator's rostrum on the Pnyx.

HYPOSTYLE

HALLS

T h e term hypostyle was used b y Diodorus in the first century B.c. 7 to describe a hall w i t h its r o o f supported on columns. Halls o f columns—hypostyle halls—are frequent in the first space conception : in Egypt, Persia, Greece.

Hypostyle halls in Egypt The hypostyle hall of Amott at Karnak. During the N e w K i n g d o m in Egypt (1554 to 1069 B.C.) hypostyle halls were filled w i t h rows o f close-packed heavy columns, built f r o m huge stone drums, up to four meters in diameter. T h e columns are crowded so close together that they appear to f o r m a solid wall. T h e spaces between them disappear. 8 T h e most impressive o f all is the great hypostyle hall o f A m o n at Karnak, built b y Rameses II. This hall is, in fact, a monumentally conceived passageway. Its 134 thick-set columns seem actually to banish space, for the intervals between them are smaller than their diameters. In the d i m twilight o f this great hall ritual ceremonies were performed. Here, the utterances o f the g o d were pronounced. T h e dark cella w h i c h housed the statue o f A m o n , usually within his sacred barge, could only be entered b y the Pharaoh and the high priest. A t the time o f certain festivals the g o d w o u l d visit Luxor or the temple o f Hatshepsut, on the other side o f the Nile. O n these occasions, his veiled statue was carried in procession through the great hypostyle hall, the Pharaoh walking backwards, facing the sacred barge w h i c h was borne on the shoulders o f falcon-headed priests. This ritual j o u r n e y o f the g o d is depicted on the south wall o f the great h y p o style. 9 A millennium later in Greece, the g o d resided permanently within his cella, and his statue had g r o w n to monumental dimensions.

Hypostyle halls in Persia and Greece The hypostyle halls of Persepolis. In later times the hypostyle hall changed in its purpose, its ground plan, and its dimensions. " T h e best k n o w n Archaemenian site is Persepolis. Here w o r k continued for over fifty years, through three successive reigns, f r o m Darius I, w h o began it in 518 B.c., through the reign o f Xerxes into that o f Artaxerxes I, about 460 B.C."10 T h e hypostyle halls on the castellated mountain o f Persepolis and at Eleusis are closely related, although they served entirely different purposes. In contrast to the Egyptian hypostyles, both are almost square in plan. Their columns have become astonishingly slender in proportion to their height, o f about 65 feet. T h e hypostyle halls o f Persepolis, forests o f slender columns, served as assembly halls for the rulers o f the Persian empire (fig. 5).

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The Telesterion of Demeter at Eleusis. The hall of the mysteries at Eleusis—the Telesterion of Demeter—was also a "vast square hall some 51.20 m. in length... 51.55 m. in w i d t h . . . The roof of this immense hall was supported by forty-two columns, arranged in six rows of seven columns in each r o w . " 1 1 The later, enlarged form of this Telesterion is closely linked with the name of Ictinus. For it was Ictinus, architect of the Parthenon, who was commissioned by Pericles around 440 B.C. to enlarge the building Cimon had erected around 460 B.C. to replace an earlier structure destroyed by the Persians. Ictinus transformed the interior of Cimon's long, rectangular building into a near square with the sacred shrine at its center (fig. 7). T o open the view, he intended to reduce the number of columns and increase the intervals between them to spans of 8 to 10 meters. It has been calculated that the columns were approximately 2.20 meters in diameter, or about half as wide as those of the hypostyle at Karnak. 1 2 What was in fact built after the death of Ictinus, who succumbed to the plague in 431 B.C., was a dense forest of columns, with less bold intervals. W e do not know whether Ictinus' daring spans were too great, or whether there were other reasons for not carrying out the building as he intended. 13 All information suggests that Ictinus intended to move to a freer space. The hypostyle halls of Darius and Xerxes were, in principle, moving in the same direction. In the center of the Telesterion stood the uncovered shrine ofDemeter,the anaktoron. Beside it the covered throne of the priest of Demeter, the hierophant. G. Gruben emphasizes that, through all the different building changes, from the sixth century B.C. up to R o m a n times, the anaktoron "constituted the fixed focus of all earlier stages of the structure which had expanded . . . during a centuries-long process of consistent growth." 1 4 " A l o n g the walls of all four sides of the naos were arranged tiers of eight steps, now wide enough to be used as seats... Wherever possible, they were hewn out of the living rock and these have survived" 1 5 (figs. 6 and 8). The Telesterion was fully in accord with the ritualistic ceremonies that it sheltered. Their procedure has been vividly described by Gruben: "the large central area with its labyrinthine forest of columns seems to have provided space, during the long nocturnal celebration, for dramatic procession, in the course of which the myths of the sacred marriage between Demeter and Zeus, of Hades's abduction of th;ir daughter, Persephone, of the mother's search and lament, and, lastly, of the promise concerning the afterlife made to the initiates w h o associated themselves with all of this became movingly real. When, after a night full of anxiety, pierced by the dim light of torches, dawn brought the moment of deliverance, the shutters of a broad aperture in the roof (opaion) were opened—or so it is inferred from the tradition—the 'great light' suddenly broke into the hall, and, in deep silence, the priest of Demeter held up the goddess's sacred gift, the ear of corn." 1 8

Thersilion at Megalopolis. The large Thersilion or "federal assembly of the newly founded Arcadian state" 17 at Megalopolis measured 66 by 52 meters and was erected after 367 B.C. (fig. 9). It was a hypostyle hall containing 67 square piers with seats between them, arranged so that from every seat one had a clear view of the central speaker's rostrum. 18 The building stood on the axis of the great open air theater, and the outer wall of tsi entrance lobby, with its row of Doric columns, formed the back of the stage of 16

5 Plan of the fortified palaces of Persepolis, $18-460 B.C. The large hypostyle halls of Darius and Xerxes are marked J and M on the plan.

the theater. Thus, here, as also at the Heraion of Argos (mid-fifth century B.c.), a hypostyle hall is incorporated into a group design.

Disappearance of the hypostyle In the second space conception, in R o m e , the hypostyle hall was no longer used. R o m a n architecture, based on the free movement of interior space, could never conceive of filling a space with an even distribution of columns. In R o m e the place of honor was given to the arching vault. T h o u g h columns are retained as an element in R o m a n architecture, they are pressed against the body of the wall. However, often, as in the Basilica of Constantine, the central vault appears to rest upon columns. This is only true of R o m e . In Islamic architecture, for example, the interior space continued to be filled with a forest of stocky columns.

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6 The Telesterion of Demeter, Eleusis. One of the tiers of stepped seats in the background.

7 Plan of Telesterion of Demeter, Eleusis, from the time of Pericles to the R o m a n period. In the center of this hypostyle hall stood the shrine of Demeter. Around it, on all four sides, were tiers of eight stepped seats. 18

8 Tiers of seats in the Telesterion of Demeter, Eleusis.

9 The Thersilion and theater, Megalopolis, fourth century B.C. The hypostyle assembly hall is on the axis of the theater, and its porch, fronted with Doric columns, forms the background to the stage.

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P H E N O M E N A OF T R A N S I T I O N : CIRCULAR FORMS It becomes ever more clear that there are many expressions of the transition from one period to another. W e can recognize undeniable similarities between basically different periods, as between Greece and the first high civilizations. In spite of strong contrasts in their forms of society, both used the same means of architectural expression and shared the same conception of architectural space. Yet European—or let us say non-Eastern—tendencies found their first outlet in Greece, where, even at the smallest scale, democratic communities were established that succeeded in protecting both the rights of the community and the rights of the individual. Even though the R o m a n Empire—probably harking back to Asiatic m o d e l s reinstated the godlike ruler to govern its world-encompassing empire, it continued to take account of the demands of the people, following the traditions inherited from Greece. Public buildings—amphitheaters, hippodromes, thermae—were built in the name of the ruler for use by the R o m a n populace. The elaborate apparatus of R o m a n law continued to guard the rights of the individual. But, up to the present day, Europe continues to work out the altercation between democracy and absolutism. Ever and again in the history of art, there are periods of marvelous unity of artistic expression. But it is part of man's nature that past, present, and future should intermingle. The phenomena of transition are always with us, though their intensity varies. In the nineteenth century they are far more apparent than, for instance, in the early eighteenth century. In the Renaissance and Romanesque periods, the R o m a n influence is marked, and in R o m e itself—in spite of its different space conception—the influence of Greek art, and the Greek canon of beauty, is omnipresent. There are many signs and even long periods of transition in anticipation of the second space conception. One example is the architecture of Malta. W e shall see h o w interior spaces were formed in Malta as far back as the Bronze Age. Here the emphasis lay upon lateral apsidal projections from a central axis, which served merely as a corridorlike connection between these broad, semicircular spaces. In R o m e it was the central axis that became dominant. It must not be overlooked that wherever we turn to find the origins of the second space conception, we find ourselves studying sepulchers. This is most striking on the island of Malta. The Maltese Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni, for instance, is a labyrinth of several levels of subterranean ritual chambers and sepulchers. The Mycenaean tholos tombs also come into the category of transitional forms. Their cylindrical shape never lost its magic f r o m the time of its early appearance in northern Mesopotamia in the fifth millennium to the circular mausolea of Augustus and Hadrian, and even the Christian mausoleum of St. Costanza in R o m e . The circular form is long-lived. Man returns to it again and again, north and south of the Alps. In the tholos and tumulus it existed long before the dawn of the second space conception. Then it went through a significant stage of expansion, closely linked with the conception of interior space. A building with far-reaching consequences was the circular Pantheon of Hadrian. The ingenious construction of its great cupola is completely concealed f r o m view, 20

in marked contrast to the Gothic period, when the supporting structure was exaggerated to show symbolically the upward thrust of all forces, any expressions of massivity and weight being then prohibited. A legacy from the upward-thrusting movement of Gothic architecture is apparent in the strongly expressed ribs on the outside of large domes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries : the cathedrals in Florence and St. Peter's in Rome. The circular form, as developed in Rome, was later adopted by Renaissance architects: Donato Bramante's circular temple church, the Tempietto of St. Peter in Montorio (1502) on the Gianicolo in Rome, is an example. Michelangelo raised the circular form of the tempietto aloft to crown the great dome of St. Peter's in Rome. Thus the form has been closely connected with very different cultural periods.

T H E T E M P L E S OF M A L T A In the Neolithic Age, the island of Malta developed an extraordinary spatial architecture. This is remarkable because this was a period with a wholly sculptural orientation. Malta is indeed a historical curiosity. It is undeniable that the Maltese temples represent an exception to the general development of their period, even though the dates of construction are not entirely certain: J. D. Evans places the temples of Mgarr, Ggigantija (on the island of Gozo), Hagar Qim, Mnadjdra, and Tarxien in the second millennium, but L. Bernabò Brea puts them some centuries earlier.1 Megalithic structures almost invariably consist of mighty blocks of stone. This holds good for the rough menhirs of northern France, the refined obelisks of the New Kingdom in Egypt, and the huge smooth slabs of the Old Kingdom mortuary temples. Work in Greece, Mycenae, Tiryns, and Orchomenus, though centuries later in time, also come into the megalithic category. Different ways of employing these enormous blocks create very different impressions. From Egypt to Greece, from the pyramids to the Parthenon, architecture was sculptural in conception, whether the stones employed were roughhewn or highly polished. This line of development continued unbroken until Rome broke through the solid walls of masonry with large apertures that let the light stream in. Malta—a lonely island that emerged late from the sea, far distant from the events of the world—presents an exception to the sequential development of megalithic building. In Malta, no interest is expressed in sculptural volumes in space. The Maltese temples, like the tholos tombs of Mycenae, were covered over with earth and sometimes surrounded with an outer wall that enclosed two or three temple mounds. All attention was concentrated upon their interior space.

Malta's isolated development

There is no fully preserved Maltese temple. Only a few remnants remain of their corbeled vaults, and a small model (fig. 10) shows how straight beams, the short ones of stone, the longer ones of wood, covered the corridors between the corbeled semicircular chambers: "From Mgarr comes a tiny limestone model... apparently made 21

of slabs. The roofing appears to have been done partly by courses of corbeled blocks, but completed [in its horizontal part] by a series of horizontal slabs."2 W e have nothing to tell whether there were openings in this corridor or whether the temples were in utter darkness. Darkness might have been associated with the earth mother, the womb of life. The oversized female statues from Tarxien (fig. 25) hint at this, as do the numerous small female figurines found at Hal Saflieni (figs. 12 and 13) and Hagar Qim. It is generally believed, and very probable, that there are links between cave tombs and the Maltese temples. The "more or less kidney shaped ground plan with two to five recesses"3 of these cave tombs is accepted as the prototype of the temples. Early in the nineteenth century, when the temples of Hagar Q i m were excavated, many were amazed at the careful finish of their interior spaces, with their spacious almost semicircular chambers. They were not remotely comparable to anything else in the Neolithic age, to which they certainly belonged. They seemed to represent a preliminary stage of the later Roman development : the spacious hollo wed-out interior. For this reason, the 1930's saw Italian archaeologists, such as Luigi M. Ugolini, searching in Malta for direct antecedents for the Roman vaults: " O n l y R o m e ... could solve better the problem of the relations between covering a space and the a m o u n t o f material e m p l o y e d . " In his b o o k MALTA, ORIGINI DELLA CIVILTÀ MEDI-

TERRANEA, Luigi Ugolini compares the spaciousness of the Maltese temples with contemporary and later monuments in Sardinia, Sicily, the Balearic Islands, and eastern Spain. He states : "in Malta there is the first manifestation ... of an organic development superior to that existing in contemporary cultures in other places." 4 A little later G. von Kaschnitz-Weinberg wrote a book entitled MITTELMEERISCHEN GRUNDLAGEN DER ANTIKEN KUNST (1944). He recognized that the Maltese temples were derived from underground tombs and calls them "architectural caverns" "dedicated to a chthonic fertility goddess." Malta appears to have followed a lonely road during the late Neolithic period, developing an architecture at variance with the spirit of that age : the modeling of interior space. One cannot disregard the vast recesses of its temple buildings, once thought to be antecedents of the Roman space development. However, one now hesitates to consider them precursors of the new era. They are, in fact, late flowerings of the Stone Age : places in which consultation of the oracle achieved a monumental form. The oracle chambers have been found, with round holes pierced through a stone block: a speaking tube (fig. 21) leading from a cramped passage whence the "oracle" could speak. These oracle chambers have been found in the temples of Hagar Qim, Mnajdra, and Tarxien as well as the Hypogeum at Hal Saflieni. The Maltese temples were also places of sacrifice. At Tarxien the flint blade o f a sacrificial knife was discovered near the holiest part of the temple, and numerous animal bones have been found. But the temples were not merely places to receive predictions of fate, to offer propitiatory sacrifices, or to honor the dead. They housed female statues, some greater than life-size, some quite small. These women in labor, with bulging breasts and steatopygous bodies, stood or squatted or even lay down upon the floor (figs. 12 and 13). They are latecomers of primeval times. They occur from the Paleolithic Aurignacian to the Magdalenian Age 5 and again during the fifth and fourth millennia in Mesopotamia and Egypt. It may be safely concluded that the large Maltese figures are monu22

io Limestone model (length l'A inches) of a megalithic temple, found at the Maltese temple of Mgair.

mental representations of primeval images; that the ancestors of these heavily built women with their thick legs and heavy breasts can be found in the distant Aurignacian and Magdalenian periods. In Malta they were not banished, as in Mesopotamia and Egypt, to make room for a hierarchy of divinities. It is noteworthy that other, much later, Western cultures, which also passed through no elimination process, held onto the images of the old fertility rites.

The Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni The strength of a desire for utter darkness is expressed by the vertical descent into the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni, deep in the w o m b of the earth, burrowed out of the rock. This temple complex, which lies below inhabited houses not far from Valletta, was discovered in 1902. Themistocles Zammit, w h o carefully excavated the caverns, states that the temple complex "consists of a series of caves dug out of the living rock before the age of metals to a depth of about 30 feet." J . D . Evans is more specific: "Basically this amazing monument is an aggregate of many small rock-cut chambers... linked together by a series of underground halls, passages and stairways." 6 Over the centuries men dug deeper and deeper with their stone tools until they excavated three whole stories. The uppermost story contains rooms that are still "irregular in shape and relatively roughly finished." 7 Within them, as in many of the natural caves of Malta, some tombs were found.

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1 1 Interior wall in front of the "holy of holies" in the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni, Malta.

12 The "sleeping lady" from the Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni (terracotta, length 45/8 inches). Her heavy woolen skirt and bare breasts are reminiscent of Sumerian statues. 24

The second story contains architectonically elaborated spaces, such as must have existed in the middle temple of Tarxien, which seems to have been built about the same time. An interior facade, carved from the rock face, with carefully differentiated columns and curving beams, stands before the "holy of holies" (fig. 11). There are also the contrivances found in other temples, stone speaking tubes to enable the voice of the oracle to foretell the future. The small reclining female figurines found here (fig. 12) may have been associated with the oracle: priestesses who await prophetic inspiration in a trancelike sleep. "The Hypogeum w a s . . . used for the consultation of an oracle by incubation." 8 These small figures as well as the colossal statue from Tarxien (fig. 25) express the spirit of this late Neolithic age, though the latter is unique, since free-standing, oversized sculptures are otherwise unknown in primeval art. The Tarxien figure, like the hollowing out of the large artificial caverns of Hal Saflieni, represents something totally new. On 25

the one hand, we recognize in the Maltese statues a continued attachment to primeval religious cults; on the other, an incorporation of certain aspects of earlier high civilizations. The costume of the reclining figure at Hal Saflieni—the colorful woollen skirt and bare breasts—is strongly reminiscent of the dress of the Sumerians.9

Evolution of the Maltese temples A consistent effort to perfect interior space differentiates the Maltese temples from all other development in the eastern Mediterranean. T w o stages can be observed. In the first the chambers tend to be asymmetrically disposed, singly or in a series, as on the Corradino hill (fig. 14), southeast of the harbor in Valletta. Around this harbor with its peculiar furrows ("cart tracks")—partly built over with fortifications from the sixteenth century—there were a large number of sanctuaries; some outside the built-up area of the town have survived. One can trace their development, even though all that remains is the foundation walls, standing up to a meter in height. The most interesting group is to the east. Here "a series of four elliptical enclosures to the southwest are connected by a central corridor ... the main entrance is to the northwest." 10 These scanty remains demonstrate the plan adhered to in all later temples. Though the shape of the entrance chamber is not yet compressed, as later in Hagar Qim, the narrow central corridor is present, passing through all the subsequent rooms, which are not yet fully symmetrically organized. The badly damaged final chamber is separated off by a step and a partition "so that only a small gap of 0.65 meters remains," 11 similar to the middle temple of Tarxien. The whole of this layout rests upon a natural rock rise.

The temples of Ggigantija on the island of Gozo The first temples to be excavated were on the island of Gozo, just north of the island of Malta. Here two temple complexes were uncovered in 1827 (fig. 13), each with two pairs of curved chambers on either side of an uninterrupted axial corridor. "This plan with two sets of lateral chambers is found in all the later temples in Malta." 12 However, there are differences. In the older temple to the south, the main accent is laid on the second pair of chambers and there are several projections and recesses along the central axis (figs. 16 and 17). In the neighboring temple to the north the organization is more consistent with later structures : small recesses or niches in the corridor, and spatial emphasis laid upon the first pair of chambers. The contraction of the central axis and the corresponding horizontal expansion of the semicircular chambers continue up to the late Maltese temples such as Tarxien.

Hagar Qim We cannot find any principles of orientation in the temple layouts, any more than we can reconstruct their rituals from the remnants that remain. Their total freedom of orientation to the cardinal points can be well observed in Hagar Qim (figs. 18 26

and ig), where the west side of the second pair of chambers (B on plan) is opened up to give access to several oval-shaped rooms (F, G, H, and I on plan). These can also be entered at different points. This suggests that the Maltese temples still retained the free orientation of primeval times, and were not yet governed by an east-west axis. The main entrance to the temple was almost always marked by a curving facade as in Hagar Qim (fig. 20). Huge monolithic slabs are placed vertically on either side of the entrance. To the right is "the largest single stone used in any of the temples." "It is 2 feet thick, 9 feet high and fully 23 feet long." 1 3 These are clear indications of how closely this building corresponds to megalithic structures. The horizontal roofing with two rows of stone slabs is partly restored. Projecting stone slabs signal the entrance to the interior of the temple. The first pair of chambers is present: "both their apses... are separated from the central space by tall partitions." 14 Of the second pair, only the eastern chamber remains. Here was the stone speaking tube for oracular pronouncements (fig. 21): a circular aperture in the central stone slab "which opens at the back into a small room (M), the seat, probably, of an oracle." 15 The facing pair to this chamber, as has been said, was omitted or destroyed, as was also the case in the western temple at Tarxien. The consequent new, broad and slightly curving passage led at Hagar Qim to four large elliptical chambers "which may be entered either from the interior, or by separate entrances through the outer wall." 1 6 Maltese temples frequently show similar encroachments into previously sacred areas. They betray an indifference in dealing with their heritage of the past, in addition to their lack of concern for any special directional orientation. When first excavated, this comparatively early temple had a very different appearance from the sober sequence of chambers we see today, for all the statues and other ornamentations were removed in 1839 to the National Museum of Valletta.

Tarxien The most highly developed Maltese temple layout is at Tarxien, not far from Valletta (figs. 22 and 23). The three temples found here belong to three different periods according to Zammit, but all are megalithic constructions. The middle temple, with its three pairs of compressed elliptical chambers, has attracted the greatest attention. The main entrance to all three temples is through a wide curving facade. This leads directly to the western temple, whose broad semicircular chambers right and left are not yet symmetrically juxtaposed. They also contain many built-in elements. To the right (figs. 24 and 25) is "a colossal statue of the Maltese fertility deity ... there can be no doubt the original must have stood at least 8 feet high." Ward-Perkins has noted that the monumental sculpture which adorned many of these temples has no real counterpart in the western Mediterranean.17 The axis of the western temple is not yet rigidly aligned with the entrance corridor and the second pair of chambers is quite irregular in form, especially the right-hand one which was partly destroyed by the later main temple building. As termination to this temple, at the far end of its long central corridor, is a fully open chamber (fig. 26 and E on fig. 22) containing a "well constructed shrine with a trilithon in the middle, two flanking slabs, and a polished threshold." 18 The middle temple, as is usual, is entered through a monumental portal, and its 27

14 Plan of group of temples on the Corredino hill near Valletta, Malta. The semicircular chambers of this eastern group of temples are arranged on either side of a narrow passageway.

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first and largest pair of elliptical chambers is paved with stone slabs "forming a smooth surface of great uniformity," as Zammit described it. The second and third pairs of chambers have earthen floors. The first pair of chambers is separated by a rectangular entrance hall, in the center of which is a circular hearth 13 feet wide. This is in a direct line with the entrance. The axial passage through the second and third pairs of chambers, though narrower, was monumentally conceived. It is blocked off from the first pair of chambers by a tall stone slab. In the center of the second pair of chambers is a smaller circular hearth described by Zammit as about 1 foot high and 4 feet in diameter. It seems impossible to be certain whether the Bronze Age peoples who inhabited Malta cremated their dead, but it is not probable that these hearths were used for human sacrifices, since of these "there is no shred of evidence to be found in Malta." 19 It is conceivable that the larger circular hearth was used to cremate the dead before their ashes were placed in earthenware containers. The axial passage, which becomes still narrower as it enters the third pair of chambers, terminates in an altar niche, which is directly in line with the entry to the temple. To the right of the symmetrically organized central temple is a third smaller and more irregular temple with an independent entrance. In its northeast chamber (BB on fig. 22) another oracle aperture was found. L. M. Ugolini has made a diagrammatic plan of a three-chambered, staggered temple (Jig. 31). First comes the concave sweep of the entrance facade, then three elliptical spaces gradually diminishing in size, each containing two almost semicircular compartments. In this idealized plan of the later temples, the continuous axis is strengthened by a sequence of upright slabs that separate the curved compartments and emphasize the direction to the altar niche at the far end.

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15 Plan of the northern and southern temples of Ggigantija on the island of Gozo. Each temple has two pairs of semicircular chambers and a central corridor.

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16 The first right-hand chamber of the southern temple, Ggigantija, sketched shortly after it was excavated in 1827.

1 7 The first right-hand chamber of the southern temple, Ggigantija, as it appears today.

18 Model of the temples of Hagar Qim.

19 Plan of the temple complex, Hagar Qim. The chambers of the temple still have the free orientation of early prehistoric times.

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20 The curving facade before the main entrance, Hagar Qim. Though partly restored, this shows the megalithic structure of the temple complex.

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.. Í fettet»

21 The eastern chamber, Hagar Q i m (B on fig. 19). W e can see the aperture through which the utterances of the oracle were heard.

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Connections with prehistory T h e Maltese temples represent the latest phase of prehistoric development. W e do not k n o w h o w this came about, but the evidence is there. In Malta w e repeatedly come upon traces of primeval conceptions alongside distant echoes of the Eastern high civilizations. A millennium earlier, Sumer and Egypt had developed highly organized civilizations, symbolized by a differentiated hierarchy of deities and male supremacy. T h e plasticity of the erect figures of the relief of King Mycerinus flanked by the lovely goddess Hathor and a local deity, made around 2450, 20 already hints at Greek sculptures of the fifth century. In contrast, the oversized Maltese statues, although unthinkable in earlier prehistoric times, are monumental representations of the fertility goddesses of the Aurignacian period with their huge limbs and bloated breasts. In the Egyptian Fourth Dynasty, a n u m b e r of large sculptured figures were created, representing the newly f o r m e d pantheon of anthropomorphic deities. It remains conjectural whether these could have had any influence u p o n the gigantic Stone Age figures of the fertility goddess at Tarxien around a thousand years later. T o the left of the curved entrance facade at Tarxien "and in other parts of the temple . . . a great n u m b e r of stone halls, varying between 2 and 3 inches in diameter, were f o u n d heaped u p " (fig. 27). It was assumed, as Z a m m i t noted, that "these balls were used as rollers, which helped to m o v e the blocks about, and to drag these f r o m the distant quarry." Indeed a f e w large stone balls were actually found underneath some of the great megalithic blocks. However, "the round stones m a y also have had a magical significance, j u d g i n g b y their n u m b e r and their symmetrical arrangement in m a n y cases." 21 Similar stone balls can be traced right back to the Mousterian period. As I noted in the Eternal Present, the young prehistorian M . Gruet reported at the Second Panafrican Prehistoric Congress in 1952 that in Tunisia near the village of El Quettar, close to a n o w sealed artesian well, he discovered a cairn about 0.75 meters high and 1.5 meters in diameter, made up of about 60 stone balls; the diameter of the balls varied f r o m 4 to 18 centimeters. Comparing these w i t h other similar finds, I then concluded: " T h e systematically piled-up spheroids seem to us to constitute an altar constructed of offerings w h i c h . . . plead for the fulfillment of a deeply felt desire" (1,131). In the Maltese temples one frequently notices that stones have been pitted w i t h a n u m b e r of small circular indentations. These indentations are all over the great megalithic blocks around the entrance to the early Maltese temple at Mnajdra (fig. 29). As far as w e k n o w , such indentations were never used again in such profusion. Their origin goes back to very early times. T h e y were first f o u n d at La Ferrassie u p o n the underside of limestone slabs covering h u m a n burials of the Mousterian period. T h e French archaeologist w h o discovered t h e m stated: " F r o m minute observation of this stone it appears that, since a period of the Mousterian era, men have formed circular indentations in stone exactly the same as those w e find later in the Aurignacian period, and later still at paleolithic and neolithic sites. These hollows, b o t h f r o m their f o r m and still more f r o m their placing, appear to have the character of a sign, perhaps a symbol, perhaps even a ritual function." 2 2 T h e evenly spaced spread of small indentations at the entrance of the temple of Mnajdra m a y well have been a schematized reiteration of an age-old ritualistic f o r m .

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Torba floor

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