The Ancient in the Modern

La Grange Terrace, The Astor Opera House, The Aberles Theater, The Cooper Union, and The Astor Library is the peribolus.

peribolus- the wall which encloses the sacred area such as a temple.

The civic institution enclosed by the peribolus is a sacred space. It contains the sacrellum.

sacer- belonging to a god.

The individualistic huts did not provide a space for the community.

According to Gottfried Semper there are four elements of architecture: the wall, the mound, the roof, and the hearth.

Where is the column?

“The wealth of the land had to be wrenched from the earth and water; hence there arose the need to unite for large communal works. Great national enterprises became the band that kept the people together, at least outwardly. A method of building developed as an antithesis to the hut, which for brevity's sake we might call the court building.”

-Gottfried Semper

As the need for the civic institution grew, larger spaces to accommodate more people were needed, thus the column was necessary. The intercolumniation, the span between columns, grows. The span increases as the need for communal works and the community itself increases. The community is the span.

What is the architrave of the cantilever?

The sacrellum is the cantilever structure located within the peribolus. The program is the modern temple. The cantilever is a space absent from vertical support. The absence of the column.

“In contradiction to the exterior form of the temple, they found it necessary to make the interior into a peristylar courtyard, in the background of which stood the sacrellum with the image of the diety... The wealth of relations and the sublimity of the idea was further intensified by the fact that in many cases the citadel, the market, the theater, the hospital and so on we brought into the area protected by the deity, where they and their surroundings formed the peribolus of the temple.”

-Gottfried Semper

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