Cretan architecture
Cretan architecture. Large palace complexes, designed in the second millennium bc and later replaced with even grander structures planned on asymmetrical lines, with vast corridors, many chambers, courts, and columned halls, are known to have been built at Knossos and Phaestos in Crete. At the ‘Palace of King Minos’ at Knossos there was a formal axially planned arrangement with a great stair leading to the state rooms (so-called ‘Minoan’ architecture). Painted decorations were plentiful, vigorous, and strongly coloured, while contractura columns (often of cypress-wood) were set with the smaller diameter at the base, so the taper was downwards, without entasis, a curious reversal of natural form. The primitive character of Cretan architectural detail attracted some C20 architects, notably Plečnik.
Bibliography
Cruickshank (ed.) (1996);
Dinsmoor (1950);
Turner (1996)
More From encyclopedia.com
Peter Eisenman , Peter D. Eisenman
The American architect Peter D. Eisenman (born 1932) studied and made formal use of concepts from other fields—linguistics, philoso… Louis Isadore Kahn , Louis I. Kahn
Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974) was one of the most significant and influential American architects from the 1950s until his death. His work… Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov , Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov
Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov (1890-1974) was one of the Russian avant-garde's most prolific and internationally ce… Staircase , staircase.
1. Structure enclosing a stair, also called the staircase-shell, or well.
2. Stair with balustrade.
3. Whole stair with supporting framewo… Henry-russell Hitchcock , Hitchcock, Henry-Russell (1903–87). American architectural critic and historian. In 1929 he published Modern Architecture, the first English-language… Hugh Ferriss , Ferriss, Hugh (1889–1962). Distinguished American architectural draughtsman and visionary, his images of skyscrapers in which ornament was suppressed…
You Might Also Like
NEARBY TERMS
Cretan architecture