ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

1000 – 1200 A.D.

INDEX

• Romanesque architecture

• Romanesque style

• Introduction

• Expansion

• Characteristics

• Typology

• Romanesque furniture

• Town houses

• Romanesque in different countries

INTRODUCTION

• This art appeared during the Middle Age

• It is the first style that can be found all over Europe, even when regional differences

• The expansion of the style was linked to the pilgrimages, mainly to Santiago.

INTRODUCTION

• Romanesque art developed thanks to a series of causes:

• The end of Barbarian invasions

• The decomposition of Cordoba’s caliphate

• The establishment of peace in the Christian world, with the development of the cities, commerce and industry.

WHAT IS ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE ?

• Inspired by roman architecture.

• Round arches, stone materials, and the basilica-style plan similar to roman

• Romanesque style are far more complex

• Influenced by Visigoth, Carolingian, byzantine, and Islamic architecture.

• Romanesque architecture period 1000 – 1150 (not precisely)

• At its high between 1075 and 1125.

EXPANSION

•The factors of the expansion of Romanesque arte were:

• Development of feudal system,

that demanded works (castles)

• The expansion of religious orders (Benedictines), expanded the monasteries

• The pilgrimage routes

ROMANESQUE STYLE

• Combination of contemporary western roman and byzantine buildings

• Known for its massive quality, thick walls, round arches, sturdy piers, groin vaults, large towers and decorative arcading.

• Every building has clearly defined forms, very regular and symmetrical plan

• So that overall appearance is one of simplicity when compared with the gothic buildings that were to follow.

• The style can be identified right across the Europe, despite regional characteristics and different materials.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

• Harmonious proportions

• Stone barrel vaults or groin vault

• Thick and heavy walls

• Thick and heavy pillars

• Round arches supporting to the roof

• Round “blind arches” used extensively for decoration inside and out(especially exteriors)

CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

• A transept

• An apse

• An ambulatory

• Multiple towers, usually at the west end and over the transept crossing

• Sculptured decoration on portals, capitals and other surface

• Painting decoration throughout the interior

ROMANESQUE – TO SUM UP

• Use of roman round arch, adoption of the major forms of antique Roman vaulting(contained, strong, weight and sober style)

• Most Romanesque churches retained the basic plan of the early Christian basilica

• European movement in architecture (10-12th centuries), especially in Italy, France, England and Germany

TYPOLOGIES

• There are three main architectonical typologies:

Churches Monasteries Castles

MONASTERY

• It was designed as a microcosm, as the city of God• They had several dependencies:

• Church• Cloister• Chapter room• Abbot’s house• Monks/ nuns rooms• Refectory• Hospital

CHURCH

• It was the main building

• It symbolized God’s kingdom

• The holiest part was the apse

• It had cross shape

• Symbolism was important:

• Circular parts reflect perfection so they were linked to God

• Squared parts are related to the human.

CHURCH

• Characteristics:• Monumental, trying to imitate the

Roman models in the Pilgrimage churches

• Small in country churches• They were designed for advertising

Catholic church• They were lasting, made of stone• Plans could be:

• Latin cross• Polygonal• Basilical

CHURCH

•Parts of the plan

CHURCH

•Parts from the outside

CHURCH

• Elevation:

• The church is covered by

stoned vaults

• Wall are thick

• They need strong

buttresses

• Foundations are strong

• Few windows

CHURCH

• Interior elevation: it consists of three levels:

• First floor with columns or cross-shaped pillars

• Second floor with the tribune (corridor over looking the nave, over the aisles)

• Clerestory: area of windows opening to the outside.

Column

Pillar

Tribune

Column

Tribune

Clerestory

CHURCH

Barrel vault: it was used mainly to cover the central nave

Groin vault wascommon in aisles and ambulatory

Dome: spherical were used in apses. The central could stand on pendentives or squinches

CASTLE

• Castles were defensive constructions

• They were fortified for providing shelter

• The wall was one of the essential elements

• They tend to be build in stepped areas, easier to defend.

ROMANESQUE FURNITURE

ROMANESQUE FURNITURE

• Romanesque furniture consisted mostly of pieces designed and constructed for church use.

• Altars, canopies, shrines, silver chalices, throne chairs, caskets, and tapestry were all common Romanesque furniture pieces.

ROMANESQUE FURNITURE

• Since the common people of this era lived very simply, Romanesque furniture was predominantly designed for churches and for the aristocracy. The poorer classes would make do with a rough bed, or just a mattress of straw on the ground, perhaps a storage chest or two, and a board supported by tree trunks that served as a dining table.

ROMANESQUE FURNITURE

•Churches

•decorated with either carvings or paintings in an imitation of the old roman furniture styles.

•Arches and curves were the design theme, both in the shape of the item itself, and the carved paneling and decoration.

•Simple animal and plant forms were also used in carving.

• Many items were brightly painted to lighten up gloomy interiors.

ROMANESQUE FURNITURE

• Pictures of Romanesque furniture show carved chests, simple stools, benches and trestle tables, and roughly carved, pillared bedsteads.

• Chairs as we know them, with back and arm rests, were mainly the prerogative of important personages such as bishops and overlords.

• Such chairs were often heavily decorated with carving, painting and inlays, and were a symbol of power.

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

THE BUILDING MATERIAL USED IN ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

• Brick

• Italy, Poland, much of Germany and parts of Netherland

• Limestone, granite

• Other areas

• The building stone

• Small and irregular pieces, bedded in thick mortar

BUILDING MATERIAL AND METHODS

• Romanesque buildings ware made of people were still not very good at building stone roofs yet.

• It they did have stone roofs, the walls had to be very thick in order to hold up the roofs, and there couldn’t be very many windows either, so Romanesque buildings were often very heavy and dark inside.

PIERS

• Support arches at the intersection of two large arches

• Cruciform in shape masonry and square or rectangular in section

• Horizontal moulding

• Vertical shafts, horizontal moldings at the level of base

• Highly complex form

• Half segment of large hollow-core column

• A clustered group of smaller shafts

COLUMNS

• Salvaged columns

• Drum columns

• Hollow core columns

• Capitals

• Alternation

COLUMNS

• In Italy, during this period, a great number of antique roman columns were salvaged and reused in the interiors and on the porticos of churches

• The most durable of these columns are of marble and have the stone horizontally bedded. The majority are vertically bedded and are sometimes of variety of colors.

• They may have retained their original roman capitals, generally of the corinthan or roman composite style

• Salvaged columns were also used to a lesser extern in France.

DRUM COLUMN

• In most parts of Europe, Romanesque columns were massive, as they supported thick upper walls with small windows, and sometimes heavy vaults. The most common method of construction was to build them out of stone cylinders called drums.

HOLLOW CORE COLUMNS

• They were constructed of ashlar masonry

• The hollow core was filled with rubble

• These huge untampered columns are sometimes ornamented with incised decorations.

CAPITALS

• Round at bottom

• It sits on a circular column and square at the top

• It support the wall or arch

• Octagonal at the bottom

• Manuscripts at the illustrations of biblical scenes and depictions of beats and monsters, others are lively scenes of the legends of local saints

CAPITALS

ALTERNATION

• The alternation of piers and columns.

• The most simple form that this takes is to have a column between each adjoining pier

• Sometimes the columns are in multiples of two or three

VAULTS

• Barrel vault

• Groin vault

• Ribbed vault

• Pointed arched vault

BARREL VAULT

• A tunnel vault or a wagon vault,

• The simplest style

• A single arched surface extends from wall to wall

• The length of the space to be vaulted

• Required support of solid walls, or windows which have small windows.

GROIN VAULTS

• A groin vault or groined vault produced by the intersection at right angle of two barrel vaults.

• The word groin refers to the edge between the intersecting vaults; cf. ribbed vault.

• Sometimes the arches of groin vaults are pointed instead of round.

• In comparison to barrel vault, a groin vault provides good economies of material

• The thrust is concentrated along the groins or arrises(the four diagonal edges formed along the points where the barrel vault intersect), so the vault need only be abutted at its four corners.

GROIN VAULT

• For the less visible and smaller vaults

• Square in plan

• Groin vaults are frequently separated by transverse arched

• Ribs of low profile

RIB VAULT

• In ribbed vaults, not only are there ribs spanning the vaulted area transversely, but each vaulted bay has diagonal ribs.

• In a ribbed vault, the ribs are the structural members, and the spaces between them can be filled with lighter, non-structural material.

• Because Romanesque arches are nearly always semi-circular, the structural and design problem inherent in the ribbed vault is that the diagonal span is larger and therefore higher than the transverse span.

RIBBED VAULT

• One was to have the center point where the diagonal ribs met as the highest point, with the infill of all the surfaces sloping upwards towards it, in a domical manner.

POINTED ARCHED VAULT

• Late in the Romanesque period another solution came into use for regulating the height of diagonal and transverse ribs

• Use arches of the same diameter for both horizontal and transverse ribs, causing the transverse ribs to meet at a point

ROMANESQUE TOWN HOUSES

TOWN HOUSES

TOWN HOUSES

TOWN HOUSES

ROMANESQUE IN FRANCE

• It was the original region of Romanesque art

• It appeared in Cluny’s abbey

• From there it expanded thanks to the pilgrimage routes, specially to Santiago in Spain.

ROMANESQUE IN FRANCE

Cluny Sanite Magdalena, Vezelay

ROMANESQUE IN ITALY

Saint Ambroggio, Milan Saint Miniato, Florence

LEANING TOWER OF PISA

• The tower of Pisa is the bell tower of the cathedral

• It was started constructed in 1173 and continued for about 200 years

• Architect is believed to be Giovanni di simone

• In the past it is widely believed that the inclination of the tower was the part of the project ever since its beginning, but now we know that it is not so.

• The tower was designed to be “vertical”, and started to incline during its construction.

ROMANESQUE IN ITALY

Cefalu, SicilyPisa Cathedral, in Tuscany, presents three separate buildings.

ROMANESQUE IN GERMANY

Laach Worms

ROMANESQUE IN ENGLAND

Tower of London

Durham cathedral

ROMANESQUE IN SPAIN

ROMANESQUE IN SPAIN

• Pilgrims route to Santiago was an important route for Romanesque Art expansion.

ROMANESQUE IN SPAIN

ROMANESQUE IN SPAIN

Santiago cathedral

ROMANESQUE IN SPAIN

Santiago cathedral

CONCLUSION

Modern architecture affected from Romanesque architecture

A new kind of society planning was started

A large influence of Romanesque in architecture today

THE END