When comparing the Acropolis and the Xianyang Palace I think that first you need to look at the way they were built. Clearly the Acropolis was built over many years and was constantly being added to. When you look at the ruins now you can see where some buildings have perfectly standed the test of time while others have collapsed to almost nothing. This gives evidence to how long the time frame was because if it was all built at once then they would either all be fine or all be demolished. However, when you look at the terracotta warriors of the Xianyang Palace you can see that they were all commissioned at once. While they most likely were not all completed at once because of the massive number of statues, they were probably not available for anyone to see until they were completely done. Also the Xianyang palace consists of one massive building instead of multiple different ones all set in the same area.
When looking at images of both structures, you can see the immense amount of effort that was put into both. You can see a million different uses of lines throughout the acropolis. With so many different buildings enclosed in the acropolis, there are many different forms, shapes, and lines used in each individual building. I would say the emphasis is clearly on the building that lies at the very top of the structure because it stands out over the rest of the buildings. With the Xianyang Palace the emphasis is set on the middle section of the building. In the middle section there is a large grand staircase that brings you up to the tallest section of the structure. Your eye is immediately drawn here and moved up the stairs towards the massive area of the building. The palace also has a great deal of lines, forms and shape throughout the structure, as you can see from the image above there are a great deal of small details located in each building that comes up from the stair area. There is clearly a bigger sense of harmony, unity and rhythm in this structure than in the Acropolis. This is most likely because the palace only consists of one structure and was most likely all completed at once instead of overtime.
Lastly I would like to compare the size of the structures. While the acropolis is made of many buildings that span over a relatively large space, it took many years to complete it, which makes me wonder why more wasn’t added to it. When you look at the Xianyang Palace, there is one massive building as well as thousands of terracotta warriors, horses, animals and musicians that were built to protect the structure. It is interesting tome because all of this structure was finished at once instead of over a long span of time and they still have a huge amount of work to show for it.
Interior Design as viewed by MG 