70 architecture: Asia and the Pacific only sought to demonstrate their power and impress people by building huge monuments but also wanted their capital city to reflect the order of the cosmos Accordingly, the architects of Angkor designed towers that imitated the towers in India that represented mountains, atop which dwelled the god Brahma Around these structures were situated reservoirs of water that had profound symbolic importance, as they represented the primordial cosmic sea out of which life arose The temples and palaces built by the Khmer were designed like stacks of ever-narrowing blocks, with ledges intended to hold statues of deities and of spirits When the royal family converted to Buddhism, large blocks of stone with the face of Buddha carved on them were added to the sides of structures, often covering ledges, doorways, and windows In Angkor Wat the effect was such that visitors might have felt as if the Buddha were watching over every place benevolently from every direction Almost all of that temple was originally built with precisely cut stone and without the use of mortar, and the careful working of the masonry remains impressive in modern times Despite all their skill in designing impressive stone buildings, the architects of Angkor were not skilled in building them to weather the years At first, foundations of stone rubble and sand were used, allowing the easy fashioning of level surfaces on which to rest buildings Rainwater penetrated the sands, however, causing foundations to shift and walls and towers to collapse In efforts to build stronger foundations, they hollowed out foundation stones, placed tree trunks inside them, and fitted additional hollowed stones over them; on these stones they set their buildings The humid climate caused the tree trunks to rot, however, and from time to time entire walls of masonry would slide down Sometimes the faces of the Buddha would drop The buildings required constant repair Indonesia The Indonesian archipelago is composed of thousands of islands with many cultures, some very remote from the rest of the world All seem to have in common the building of structures with wood In medieval times two kinds of structures predominated: the longhouse and the boat-shaped or saddleshaped house The longhouse was usually built lengthwise beside a stream or river It rested on pillars of wood, keeping it above seasonal floodwaters On the side by the stream was a veranda of wooden planks, on which people fished, prepared food, and sometimes practiced their crafts The interior was one long room enclosed by walls of wood or woven branches The roof was a wooden frame covered by leaves that was usually pitched to shed rain, with the eaves overhanging the veranda Sometimes communities of several families lived in- side one longhouse, sometimes so deep in the rain forest that a hike of several days would be required to reach the island’s edge or other people The boat-shaped house was deliberately constructed to resemble a boat and symbolized a community’s connection to the ocean It was built on wooden stilts, partly to place it above floodwaters and partly to allow the structure to sway rather than break during earthquakes The boat-shaped house usually had no door on its sides; instead, a trapdoor could be found in the floor near one end of the house, with the residents using a ladder to climb in and out of the house Typically, walls were wooden boards In Sumatra roofs were clad with wooden shingles; in Sulawesi the roofs tended to have a more exaggerated sway and were covered by thatch The walls of Sulawesi houses tended to be made of bamboo This kind of house was particularly favored by farmers and is still common on the island of Sumatra in the northern mountains and in Batak country Building with stone was uncommon on the islands of Indonesia When Hinduism and later Buddhism reached the region, converts to the new religions built stone monuments in imitation of those built in India and on the Southeast Asian mainland The most impressive of the monuments still standing is Borobudur, in central Java, on the Kedu Plain, built in the 800s A towering structure symbolizing the climb from mortal existence to spiritual freedom, it was constructed of unmortared stone It was a flawed masterpiece, with too much pressure pushing the walls outward, and the walls indeed buckled over time, owing also to the foundation shifting from the effects of rain and earthquakes Yet Borobudur never collapsed, despite outward signs that it would The stones had been fitted together with stone mortises and tenons, which took a long time to decay; moreover, the stones had been locked together with iron joints, and when the walls buckled, the added pressure served to lock the joints more firmly into place Much of the structure held together until repairs were made in 1907 and then in 1982 Oceania Oceania is a vast region encompassing many different styles of building reflecting environmental needs as well as cultural tastes In Australia people built huts These huts consisted of frames of wooden branches tied together with roots and walls and roofs of reeds strapped in place by roots This sort of structure was used by people who did most of their living outside, using shelters only for sleep and protection from the elements Similar huts were to be found throughout much of Oceania The people of the islands of Oceania were often dependent on the ocean for survival, so, as in Indonesia, some of