“Human actions have shaped the environment in which successive generations and different societies have lived […] the way in which human beings have thought about the world around them has been important in legitimizing their treatment of it. […] Are humans an integral part of nature, or are they separate from it and in some way superior to it?” Clive Ponting, A New Green History of the World, (p. 116),
Please answer Clive Ponting’s question above by referring to at least two distinct architectural cultures we explored during the second half of the semester. For instance, you might compare the architecture of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, with the Great Mosque of Cordoba, Spain, or with the elaborate interiors of the Basilica of San Vitale of Ravenna. Or you might consider comparing the pre-Columbian Inca or Aztec civilizations with those of Western Europe from that time. What can we glean from the manuscriipts and other archaeological remains of the latter or the architecture and the interior iconographic programs of the former in terms of changing ideas regarding our relationship to nature?
