Opus Week Six

"The most conspicious property of Carolingian and Romanesque buildings is their combination of massive eclosure and manifest verticality. ...So the Romanesque church is simultaneously stronghold and gate to heaven, and the two main building types of the period, the church and castle, are profoundly related."

Christian Norberg-Schulz,
Meaning in Western Architecture, 1975 (Roth, 301)

"The Gothic church...stood for the Heavenly City of Jerusalem... [and] was a monument that seems to dwarf the man who enters it, for space, light, structure, and the plastic effects of masonry are organized to produce a visionary scale. There is no fixed set of proportions in the parts, ...and no standard relationship between solid and void."

Robert Branner, Gothic Architecture, 1961 (Roth, 301)

Porch: Court: Hearth
Porch is the part of a structure where transition is ensued along with a place of gathering. The porch is often found just before then entrance to a structure making way to the world of the structure as opposed to the outside world. The idea of a porch is credited to the Greek civilization, in which the temple form provided the earliest examples. The porch of a living space would be a porch itself, a patio… some form which leads to the entrance, providing the place of transition.
Court is the passage way in the structure which in a sense connects the structure, drawing one to the hearth after parting from the porch and entrance. The court in the early temple form was the hallway which led to the alter. The court in a living space would be the hallway and the den.
Hearth is the central place of focus in a structure, the place in which one gathers in and is the emphasis among which people are drawn to the structure. The Greek temple form provides the example that the alter was the hearth of the building. In a living space, or home, the hearth would be the kitchen, however Frank Lloyd Wright claimed for the hearth to be the chimney.
The earliest model of the idea of porch, court, and hearth would be the Megaron, which stated before, was the early Greek temple. The porch, court, and hearth also somewhat marked the start of a holy place being open to the public and providing order to which the public is to approach the hearth, or the central essence of the building. Since the Greek civilization, the idea of porch, court, and hearth can be traced in all building forms since Grecian times. The Romans continued these ideals, and in turn heavily influenced Western civilization, which fed to the rest of the world.


Composition
The composition of a structure again provides evidence for architecture being an art form. This is because the composition is the plan at which the structure is to me composed of, or build around. Just as any piece of art, the composition determines heavily the delight of the piece. Visually, the composition can either please the eye or distraught the eye. By creating the floor plan, the composition can be visualized, and the delight can be determined. As an artist, I am to focus on what I am going to put in the space I am given and to determine the emotions I want to inflict on the viewer; before I begin the construction of the piece, or intertwining the use of the elements and principles, I must first organize my piece in a way pleasing to the eye. Often, a sense of balance or rhythm is killer in providing a strong composition. These same concepts can be applied to the creation of a structure. Composition became important in Grecian times, and was emphasized heavily in the turn of the medieval times and into the Renaissance. This is apparent because of the emphasis on symmetry and geometry.


Diagram
Diagram is putting the composition ideals into drawing, sketches…diagrams. The diagram is similar in essence to the floor plan of a structure. A diagram makes possible the ability to visualize on a smaller scale the composition of a future structure. The more intimate the diagram, the clearer the structure, the clearer the composition, the clearer the aspects of delight. In the design process, composing diagrams are essential in the beginning to determine any other factor in the process.


Impression
Impression can be taken in a couple ways. Impression can be similar to the presence of a structure; it’s the reputation in a sense of the structure. The impression of a structure can help one determine the hierarchy of the building, the importance of the building, and the emotional connection between the viewer and the building. Just as a person inflicts a first impression when meeting another, a structure inflicts a first impression on a viewer. This once again relates to the composition and delight of the structure. A sense of balance and unity can give off a more positive impression than an unbalanced, non-unified piece. Impression applies to both the interior and exterior. The Gothic style church is a huge example of a visual impression on a viewer. The massive scale, immaculate arching system, front façade, and geometric angles provide a visual impression on the viewer, upon which the viewer themselves determines the impression. Essentially, the Gothic cathedral’s visual intentions were: to back up the reality that the church had reestablished order, to have a tower imposing the idea of the structure reaching heavenward, to have light in the interior to insinuate the emotion of a somewhat heaven on earth feel.
Impression can also be a design method. It’s something which is embedded in a sense into a material. As opposed to adhering material to material, the use of impression is a subtractive way at creating a certain texture or some form of ornament.


Details
The term detail is found in so many fields. Details, to me, are the icing on the cake. They determine the impression of a viewer; they make the many parts of a structure feel whole. Details are not necessary in a sense but once details are added they seem necessary. Without the heavy, ornate four petal flower design on Cologne’s flying buttresses, the buttress will seem lacking…having seen the buttress with the detail. The rose window is not necessary but it seems as though the Gothic form of cathedral would almost be incomplete. It’s the details which make a piece memorable. The front façade of a Gothic cathedral begins the emphasis of detail defining the structure. The ideals of intricate detailing continue and are almost perfected in the Renaissance through geometry. Once again, the importance and use of detail in a structure, both in the interior and exterior provide evidence for architecture being an art form. Details of a piece indicate a sense of communication in time of the construction. During the Dark Ages, details in the interior and exterior of a structure composed of images depicting the end of the world. Because of the anticipation of the millennium and the thought that the year 1000 would be the end of the world, much of the architecture of this time had details depicting this thought. The Sainte Marie church in Souillac has forms of people in fear and suffering, indicating the time in which the church was built. Through details, millennial observations are portrayed, and times of construction are as well. Details were also used to emphasize the idea of visual language; churches often depicted biblical stories through visuals. Once again, these details were not necessary but enhanced the structure as a whole.




This week has helped me begin to visualize the connections between bits and pieces of emphasis when it comes to architecture. Each of the terms this week, minus porch:court:hearth has had some sort of connection with another term. I am beginning to see a somewhat cycle in architectural forms. After having learned the foundations of structural forms in the early design world, I am able to see correlations between changing time periods. The general idea of the early ideas are there, these populations are now adding to the established ways…or creating alternatives.

When considering the communication between churches, the visual and structural ideals provide evidence of similar influences across countries. The use of the arch system, crossing vaults, the ideas of a tower (wu-wu) be built, the emphasis on the front façade, the vertical emphasis, the buttress system, the rose window, the four petal flower are all pieces of evidence which show the communication between the countries during this time period. The portraying of light varied from the cathedral forms, but the idea of creating heaven on earth was the same. Cathedrals were ways at deciphering regions and they each had their own personality, however the intentions of the impression were the same, the structural ideals were the same, and there were little details shared among the cathedrals.

Castle:
Horizontal Emphasis
Contains chapel
Courtyard
Outside of City
Protecting towers (Roth, 307)
….”rectangular solid or a hollow, marked by corner towers and a prominent central gate tower.” (Roth, 308)
Available for military efforts



Church:
Rectangular bases, incorporated dome form (Roth 131)
Groin Vaulting
Vertical Emphasis
Inside the city, marking the city
Open to public




Both:
Interior uses vaulting and arch system
Massive scale
Use of prominent towers/ spires
Pilgrimage church also marked by towers on the corners (St. Michael)
Have commodity, firmness, delight

The church of Saint Micheal shows the similarities between the castle and church. It shows the adoption of the 4 towers on each corner providing protection and portraying the look of a safe place or fortress. Like the castle, the church was to represent a stronghold because of it's pressure to reestablish order after the fall of the Roman Empire, so the common castle form evolved into the holy, church form at the time as well. Latterly, churches had a central tower, which once again created a place of power and a stronghold.

The sketches below was my way of seeing the relation between castle and church. Sorry they are unclear.