West Asiatic Architecture

Sketching for the prehistoric architecture was WAY easier than sketching for the west Asiatic architecture. Why? Well, it’s obvious. During the prehistoric architecture, it was all basic. Rocks on rocks, lean to shelters, huts – everything was made out of pure purpose for shelter and with no intention of making those shelters ‘beautiful’. What started out as drawing slabs of rocks piled up on top of each other for prehistoric architecture became drawing structures for the west Asiatic architecture that was more complicated, detailed, en Grande and some even, to me, was over the top. Literally. LARGELY, over the top.

I think by that time, the people had become civilised. This was reflected in the way their structures were built and the difference between the prehistoric architecture and the west Asiatic architecture became vast. Before, everything was assembled using natural ‘raw’ materials and even though during the Babylonian-Persian era, they used most natural materials as well, since they were plentiful, during the Assyrian era, they started to appreciate materials which looked beautiful and appealing to the eye such as the Persian tiles and the coloured limestone, which they incorporated into their designs. This, to me, was one of the movements of ‘evolution’ of the architecture back then. Instead of using materials that were dreary and common, they used materials that looked more appealing for their structures such as Susa and Persepolis. They also acknowledged the resources that were plentiful to them such as crude( in which they made sun dried bricks, which were also covered in alabaster by the Assyrians), bitumen (used as ‘cement’), stone, colored limestone, rood timbers and Persian tiles.

Another difference we can see from the prehistoric-west Asiatic architecture is the sizes of the structures. From the Babylonian period, we already start seeing the sizes of the towers, structures and they intend to build like the ziggurats, palaces and empires. What we know, is that they built their extravagant structures as a form of contribution to their kings and Gods.

Architecture to them did not only mean basic shelter needs anymore, but also became a form of display of their knowledge and skills in craft and arts.