the invention of the christian church was one of the brilliant

7/30/2019 The Invention of the Christian Church Was One of the Brilliant

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The invention of the Christian church was one of the brilliant--perhaps the most brilliant--solutions in architectural

history. This was achieved by a process of assimilating and rejecting various precedents, such as the Greek temple,

the Roman public building, the private Roman house, and the synagogue. The Early Christian period saw the growth

of Christianity, effectively an underground Eastern mystery cult during the first three centuries AD. It was

established as the state religion of the Empire under the successors of Constantine. Ecclesiastical administration set

up within the framework of the Roman Empire. Little change in social and economic order. Gradual split between

Eastern and Western Empire in state and church. Political and economic breakdown of the West, ending in barbarian

invasions.Early Christian Architecture: basilical church developed from Roman secular basilica; centralized type

from Roman tombs. Basilical plan modified for liturgical requirements; congregation and clergy segregated in nave

and aisles vs. transept and apse. Different variants in East and West.In Rome, classical marble wall membering and

vocabulary, and emphasis on massive wall, gradually replaced by broad, flat surfaces, evenly lighted; plain brick

exteriors; mosaic bands of interiors. Long planes with little articulation, either horizontal or verticaEarly Christian

art and architecture works of art exhibiting Christian themes and structures designed for Christian worship created

relatively soon after the death of Jesus. Most date from the 4th to the 6th cent.Before the legal recognition of the

new faith in the early 4th cent., Christian places of worship were of necessity inconspicuous and had no fixed

architectural form. Afterward, however, imposing cult edifices were erected in many parts of the Roman Empire,

especially in its major cities, Rome, Constantinople, Milan, Antioch, and Ravenna. Early Christian builders adapted

structures that had long been used in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. The basilican hall, consisting of a nave

flanked by lower aisles and terminated by an apse, was adopted as the standard structure in Christian congregational

worship. Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna and Santa Sabina in Rome still survive as largely unaltered examples of

this type.In Early Christian architecture a distinct emphasis was placed on the centralized plan, which was of round,polygonal, or cruciform shape. Baptisteries and memorial shrines (martyria) were based on the traditionally

centralized Roman funerary monument. Martyria were erected on sites connected with certain events in the life of

Jesus and other places held to be sanctified by the sacrifice of the martyrs. In such buildings as Saint Peter's in Rome

and the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the martyrium structure and basilica were combined, creating a new formal

synthesis of great significance for the religious architecture of the medieval period.

Constantine founded three large basilicas in Rome, all of which have been buried or destroyed. The chief objects to

be thought of in these churches was to build without too much cost, to do it quickly, and to accommodate large

congregations. A great structural principle which they used in roofing, or spanning spaces, is the truss. This is a

frame of beams, or of beams and rods, so disposed and fastened as to make a continuous support or bridge across an

open space. The truss was used by the Romans in roofing their basilicas.


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Basilica -Early Christian period-@ 33-400 AD.Constantinemade it acceptable with the Edict of Milan 313 AD,

which stated that Rome would tolerate all religions

-Byzantine period-@ 400-1300, when Roman leadership moved to East
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Mosques; from Masjid (place of worship)

-where Muslims go to kneel facing Mecca and pray (qibla wall withmihrab)

-Dome of the Rockin E. Jerusalem-place where Mohammed ascended into heaven

TheGreat Mosque, Cordoba-system ofdouble arches

-large interior space-rectangular

-faces South, not toward Mecca (it symbolically faces Mecca) -interiordome

Taj Mahal-was built as a memorial to a sultan's wife

Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from thefoundation of Islamto

the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures inIslamic culture. The principal

Islamic architectural types are: theMosque, theTomb, thePalaceand theFort. From these four types, the

vocabulary of Islamic architecture is derived and used for buildings of lesser importance such as public

baths,fountainsand domestic architecture

Right away you can see thatIslamicmosquesare very different fromChristian churches. Instead of being made like a

Romanbasilica, long and narrow, the Dome of the Rock is hexagonal (six-sided). The architect may have been

thinking of Roman funeral chapels, which were sometimes polygonal (many-sided) like this, or he may have been

thinking of early Christianbaptistries, which also were polygonal.

Inside, the Dome of the Rock had a series of roundarchesall around it, surrounding the actual rock, which Muslims

believed to be the rockAbrahamstood on when God spoke to him. These arches had stripes of dark and light-

colored stone, which soon became very popular in other West Asian andEuropeanbuildings
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Interior of the Dome of the Rock

.

The first buildings that were built in theIslamic Empirewere designed byGreek architectswho had

already been living in the area when theArabsconquered it. Because of that, these buildings look a lot like

earlier buildings in the area - Late Roman Empire buildings. But because they were now building

Islamicmosquesand not Christianchurches, these Greek architects were able to experiment with some

new forms, developing a new Islamic style. One of the earliest mosques is theDome of the Rockin

Jerusalem, from the 600sAD. It's octagonal, like Hadrian'sPantheon, instead of being cross-shaped like

aChristian church. In the late 700s AD, the new Arab rulers of North Africa marked their new territory

by building great mosques like the one atKairouan(modern Tunisia) and the one atCordobain

Spain.In theAbbasid period, beginning about 800AD, the capital of the Islamic empire moved further

east, to Baghdad, and so the caliphs needed a lot of new beautiful palaces and mosquesbuilt in Baghdad.

Because Baghdad was in the oldSassanian Empire, the architects who lived there followedSassanian
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architectural traditions, and these buildings, like themosque at Samarra, looked very different from

the ones built by the Greek architects.

At Samarra, the caliph Al-Mutawakkil built a greatmosquein 847AD. When it was built, the Great

Mosque of Samarra was the largest mosque in the world. It was built out ofbaked brick. The picture here

shows theminaretof the Great Mosque of Samarra. The minaret is 52 meters high, and you get up to the

top to give thecall to prayerby climbing a long spiral ramp that goes all the way up to the top. The big

mosque that went with this minaret is mostly destroyed today, but it was a lot like the earlier mosque

atKairouan, only bigger. It had a big open courtyard, with three rows of columns going around it, just

like Kairouan, and a big covered prayer hall, with 17aisles. Artists covered the walls of the prayer hall

withmosaicsmade of dark blueglass.
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In the end, though, the Islamic Empire made it so easy to travel around that all the architects got to know each

other's styles, and there got to be one main style of building all across the Islamic Empire. As the empire broke

down into a lot of smaller kingdoms, the ruler of each kingdom needed to show how important he was, so he built

mosques and palaces in his own capital. TheFatimids, for example, built the Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo in the 900s

AD. In Spain in the late 1200s AD, theAlmohads, built their own palace at Granada, theAlhambra.

The Ottoman sultan built the last great Islamic building before 1500 AD - hispalace in Istanbul, which he built in the

late 1400s AD.

Great mosque damascus
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Unlike the Gothic style of religious edifices which had a strong vertical movement, the Florence Cathedral

emphasized a horizontal movement which was prevalent in Italy, particularly in the Renaissance. Work began on

this religious building at the end of the Gothic period of the Middle Ages that led into the Renaissance. The

campanile or bell tower was designed by Giotto; however he died after only finishing the first level. The remainder

was completed by other architects and deviated from Giottos original design of topping the campanile with a spire.

The dome of the cathedral was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. It measures 138 feet wide and 367 feet high and

was the largest dome since the building of the Pantheon in Rome. Although the idea for the dome likely was

influenced by Brunelleschis trips to Rome to study the antique, particularly the Pan theon; his dome was octagonal

buttressed with three half domes and had less of an outward thrust than a hemispherical one like that of thePantheon. The dome is created from stone and brick, with the heavier of the two at the bottom that created a self-

buttressing system like that seen in the Pantheon. However, unlike the concrete dome of the Pantheon, the Florence

Cathedral was a dome within a dome that made it much lighter. There are eight major ribs on the outside and three

minor between every two major on the interior. A lantern was added on the top by Michelozzo to stabilize the dome

with downward pressure that kept the ribs from spreading apart at the top. The dome represents Renaissance culture

because it was very visible and a cause for civic pride. Residents of Florence would say that they came from the city

with the dome. It is also representative of the talent of Brunelleschi who designed the dome on a drum construction

which was to be the model for all domes from that time forward. A great book to read that ties all the trials and

tribulations together regarding the building of the dome is Ross Kings Brunelleschis Dome. King bring

Renaissance Florence alive in is telling of the building of one of the most well-known features of the Florentian

landscape. Heavily annotated with historical references to other works and original documents located in the Italian

archives, it is well worth a read for both the art history student and anyone with an interest in this time period.

the invention of the christian church was one of the brilliant

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