Hypostyle: Contemporary Interpretations of an Ancient Concept

© Archive Miguel Marcelino (photo by Lourenço T. Abreu)

Many ancient Egyptian, Greek and Islamic religious buildings share a common feature known as hypostyle. Defined as rows of columns that support a roof, this solution has developed in different cultures in different periods of time, which can explain the variety of materials, shapes, sizes and distances between the columns that can be found around the world. Famous examples of the use of this concept are Great Hypostyle Hall (c. 1290–1224 BC), part of the Karnak Temple Complex and one of the most visited monuments of Ancient Egypt, and the Wooden Hypostyle Mosques of Medieval Anatolia (c. 13th and mid-14th centuries), World Heritage Site located in present-day Turkey.

In contemporary architecture, it is possible to see different kinds of examples of how this concept is revived. While some projects use the concept to refer to vernacular architectures that correspond to the same program and use as the proposed building, as is the case with some mosques, others rely on the abstraction of the term through an interpretation that highlights the pillars and their organization in the proposition of the space. In all of them, however, it is clear that the relationship between the hypostyle inspiration and modular architecture is very close, practically intrinsic.

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