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How come old civilizations like the Greek and the Roman were so good in architecture and sculpting ?

Public Comments

1. The earth and clay were all they had.
2. Math and geometry were at the forefront of developing and that was what was on their minds (actually the Chinese were ahead a couple of centuries before). They were trying to understand the universe by forms and geometry, and applied it to architecture. Art, the statemements of who the people said they were and what they stood for, was part of that architecture. Architecture is where all the energy and collective money and efforts went -- something like our Movie Industry, or National Institutes of Health or NASA. The best and brightest minds and talent went to making living spaces, monuments and government buildings. The general public was not literate, but they could see the grandeur in a building or a sculpture and walk away with a sense of awe, I was amazed by the beauty and sophistication of ancient Asian archetecture and giant sculptures in SE Asia. The roofs are works of art. At a government palace in Thailand, the gardeners had t-squares and calipers to measure how to clip the shrubs outside. Every inch of the roof, porch, and portico was decorated in gold or some beautiful design. These structures really produced a feeling of awe in me and others who walked through them. The modernist approach is to throw out the human elements and just be 'functional'. Form defines function was the mantra just after the Art Deco period when buildings started being ugly boxes.