Section 2:

Why is mythology/religion relevant to architecture?

Order, Hierarchy, Ritual

When do we get relevant Christian architecture?

When Rome becomes Christian

_____ became the principal patron of Christianity.

Constantine

After Rome became Christian, Christianity did what?

Took on the aura of imperial Rome

Why did early Christian architecture put greater emphasis on the interior?

Christian churches needed large interior spaces to house the growing congregations and to mark the clear separation of the faithful from the unfaithful.

This leads to the architectural form that would become the core of western Christian

architecture up to our own time: _______.

The Christian Basilica

What is the general layout of the Basilica?

Typically more utilitarian in general layout and decoration than the temples. Basic brick and arch construction, usually timber roofs.

This basilica building type becomes a) appropriated for use as, and b) the model later for, _______.

Early Christian Churches

Early Christian basilica is known for what?

Its purity and simplicity of its design

An austerity in decoration is seen early on where?

In the west

Churches divided into two types: ______.

The Basilica church (Roman basilica) and the Central-Plan church (Roman Pantheon)

The Basilica becomes the dominant _____ church form.

Western

The Central-Plan becomes the dominant _____ church form.

Eastern

1. Apse

2. Nave

3. Aisle

4. Narthex

5. Atrium

A semi-circular or polygonal projection serving as the termination of the main building axis, containing the altar.

Apse

The main space of the basilica church, where the congregation sits/stands during worship service. Has higher ceiling than the aisles, usually with clerestory windows.

Nave

Ambulatory/circulation space on the side perimeter of the nave.

Aisle

An enclosed porch or narrow meeting area at the entrance to a church.

Narthex

An open courtyard at the entrance of a church, usually surrounded by covered aisles. The area of the Early Christian church was originally a place for the congregants to wait and prepare for worship.

Atrium

1. Apse

2. Clerestory

3. Atrium

Columns were likely _____.

Spolia (the re-use of earlier building material or decorative sculpture on new monuments).

Santa Sabina; Rome, Italy

What was special about Santa Sabina?

Oldest surviving ecclesiastical basilica, meaning built specifically to be a Christian church

The Santa Sabina’s decorations have been restored to their _____.

Original restrained design

What is the central plan church?

Main form is a centralized symmetrical shape (square, circle, octagon), topped by a dome

1. Dome

2. Atrium

3. Narthex

4. Apse

1. Apse

2. Naos

3. Aisle

4. Narthex

5. Atrium

6. Central Dome Area

7. Sanctuary

Constantine moves the capital from where to where?

Rome to Constantinople

Basilica of St. Apollinare in Classe; Ravenna, Italy

A bell tower, usually built beside or attached to a church.

Campanile

1. Narthex

2. Aisle

3. Nave

4. Campanile

5. Altar

6. Apse

Traits of Byzantine Architecture: ______.

1. Central-plan churches most common

2. Use of multiple domes, half-domes, towers, and vaults

3. Exterior – ornate decoration. Often brickwork. Striped arches and patterned walls

4. Interior – colorful mosaics and giltwork (gold)

Basilica of San Vitale; Ravenna, Italy

A _____ in architecture is a piece of construction used for filling in the upper angles of a square room so as to form a proper base to receive an octagonal or spherical dome.

Squinch

Decoration of a surface with designs made up of closely set, usually variously colored, small pie. Very typical of Byzantine architecture.

Mosaic

Hagia Sophia; Constantinople, Turkey

Pendentive

The _____ is a concave triangular area which enables the dome to transition gracefully into the square shape of the piers below.

Pendentive

_____ were added _____ the conversion to a mosque, 16th century. Also, the interior mosaics depicting Christianity were covered or destroyed.

Minarets; after

What were Byzantine capitals known for?

Highly ornate, with deep recesses for a tracery effect

St. Mark’s Cathedral; Venice, Italy

Cathedral of St. Basil; Red Square, Moscow

Why did churches spring up all over the Christian world?

To accommodate a population increase enabled by relative stability and prosperity

Pilgrimage was the medieval equivalent of tourism. Pilgrimage routes developed along the major roads, and these routes included numerous relic-holding churches to visit along the way. Relics brought in donations, so they were big business for the cathedrals and monasteries who owned them. So how did the churches accommodate?

The churches needed to be large enough to accommodate flocks of the faithful

_____ architecture is the style of architecture prevalent in Medieval Europe in the late middle ages, approx. 1000 – 1200 CE; characterized by heavy mass and round arches, similar to earlier Roman construction as filtered through Early Christian and some Byzantine sensibilities.

Romanesque

The _____ form of Early Christian churches is the norm, Now transformed into a ______ (cross-shaped) plan with the addition of the →_______.

Basilica; Cruciform; Transept

A linear space set crosswise/perpendicular to the main nave, creating a cruciform church plan.

Transept

Key Characteristics of Romanesque Architecture:

1. Round arches

2. Heavy Mass

3. Decorative Masonry

4. Horizontal Banding

5. Towers

6. Cylinders

7. Increased height / verticality compared to earlier churches

Used in great abundance; as structure, to define openings (windows/doors), in arcades, as barrel and groin vaults, and also as decoration (blind arcades and blind arches).

Round Arches

A succession of contiguous arches, with each arch supported by a colonnade of columns or piers. Exterior ones are designed to provide a sheltered walkway for pedestrians.

Arcade

This is composed of a series of arches that has no actual openings and that is applied to the surface of a wall as a decorative element. Can be made with pilasters or engaged columns.

Blind Arcade

Arches attached to wall or other surface, for decorative purposes (usually used in a repeating line on wall).

Blind Arches

Thick masonry walls with small openings; and thick structural piers, pilasters, and buttresses to support the outward thrust of high arched forms.

Heavy Mass

______ are extremely heavy and difficult to construct. To support them, Romanesque churches have massive piers or compound columns and thick walls that could only be interrupted by small windows. External buttresses helped as well.

Stone Vaults

A structural ____ in Romanesque architecture is a massive vertical masonry support designed to carry the heavy weight and outward thrust of rounded stone arches and vaults.

Pier

A clustered masonry support made of a central core with attached vertical shafts, half-columns, or pilasters.

Compound Pier

A projecting structure for supporting or giving stability to a wall or building.

Buttress

A shallow, rectangular architectural element that projects slightly from a wall, giving the visual appearance of a supporting column.

Pilaster

Ornamentation is primarily done through the elaboration of the brickwork or stonework, and as bas-relief sculpture.

Decorative Masonry

Articulation of decorative layers of the building in contrasting lines of material. We see this in main walls and contrasting voussoirs of arches.

Horizontal Banding

Large and solid, serving as landmarks for the city. Often paired on a façade, and/or located at the crossing of transept and nave.

Tower

Multiple cylindrical forms around building (multiplying the apse).

Cylinders

Romanesque buildings gain their impact through their?

Their monumentality and simple, horizontally-focused arrangement of architectural forms

The structures have more of the austerity of Early Christian churches, but bigger and more masonry articulation. Basically, a grey zone of overlap.

Early Romanesque

The main body of what we call Romanesque, with all the traits we associate with the style.

Main Romanesque

The style becomes more elaborate in decoration, with layering, arcading, more decorative contrast, and more external sculpture.

High Romanesque

The Basilica of Saint-Sernin; Toulouse, France

A ____ is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower.

Spire

Smaller projecting apses around the transept and main apse for the display of relics.

Apsidiole Chapels

Le Puy Cathedral; Auvergne, France

A covered walk in a convent, monastery, college, or cathedral, typically with a wall on one side and a colonnade open to a quadrangle on the other. This is usually the area in a monastery around which the principal buildings are ranged, affording a means of communication between the buildings.

Cloister

Whats the common Italian church layout?

1. Main church basilica

2. Round or octagonal baptistery

3. Detached or semi-detached campanile

Limburg Cathedral; Limburg, Germany

What is a key characteristic of the Limburg Cathedral?

Polychromatic decorative masonry

What becomes more common in High Romanesque?

Elaborate blind arcades holding sculpture

Florence Baptistery; Florence, Italy

What’s special about the Florence Baptistery?

Decorated with bands of white and green marble

Church of San Michele; Lucca, Italy

The Leaning Tower of Pisa; Pisa, Italy

Siena Cathedral; Siena, Italy

Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was popular in Europe from the late 12th to the 15th century, during the Late Middle Ages. It is noted for its ______.

Lightness, intricacy, and verticality

Gothic architecture was known during the period as ______.

Opus francigenum ("French work")

Basilica of Saint-Denis; Paris, France

The Abbot rebuilt portions of the abbey church using innovative structural and decorative features. In doing so, he is said to have created the first ______.

Truly Gothic building

Key Characteristics of Gothic Architecture:

1. Verticality

2. Flying Buttresses

3. Pointed Arches

4. Spires and Pinnacles

5. Rib Vaults

6. Tracery

7. Rose Windows

8. Stained Glass Windows

Having a strong or exaggerated sense of rising upward to the sky. In Gothic architecture, this is done through the building height and its proportions (achieved with flying buttresses), as well as through the upward thrust of the other elements: spires, towers, pinnacles, pointed arches, vertical buttresses, etc.

Verticality

A specific form of buttress composed of an arch that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass, in order to convey to the ground the lateral forces that push a wall outwards.

Flying Buttress

What is the defining, functional characteristic of a flying buttress?

It is not in contact with the wall at ground level

What does a flying buttress allow for?

Allows for thinner, more skeletal, inner wall

An arch with a pointed crown, whose two curving sides meet at a relatively sharp angle at the top of the arch.

Pointed Arch

A tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples.

Spire

An architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, later also used on parapets, at the corners of towers, and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire.

Pinnacle

A variation on a groin vault, where a framework of crossed or diagonal arched ribs conceal the groins, the intersections of the panels. These ribs are all the structure, with thin stone panels filling the spaces between the ribs, thus greatly reducing the weight and thus the outward thrust of the vault.

Rib Vault

An architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone bars or ribs of molding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the glass in a window.

Tracery

A decorated circular window, with radial stone tracery, usually glazed with stained glass.

Rose Window

Windows infilled with portions of colored glass, used to form decorative or pictorial designs, both by painting and especially by setting contrasting pieces in a framework.

Stained Glass Window

Notre-Dame de Paris; Paris, France

A spout in the form of a grotesque human or animal figure projecting from a roof gutter to throw rainwater clear of a building.

Gargoyle

Chartres Cathedral; Chartres, France

Sainte Chapelle; Paris, France