ARCHITECTURE HISTORY

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Byzantine Architecture Comparative Analysis ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Byzantine Architecture Comparative Analysis • A. Plans • The churches plan distinguished by a central space, covered with a dome on pendentives • Short arms on each side form a Greek cross, and the filling in of the angles brings the plan nearly to a square • Opposite the entrance was the apse for the altar in the sanctuary, which was screened off by the " Iconostasis " with its three doors, and there were also lateral ritual chapels. • The narthex formed an entrance vestibule and was frequently crowned with domes. ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

The essential difference in plan between a Byzantine and an Early Christian church may be summed up as follows : • Byzantine churches, unlike Early Christian churches had no bell-towers. • The Byzantine church, because of the grouping of subsidiary domes round a central dome,- gives a vertical impression ; for the eye is gradually drawn upwards towards the central culminating dome . The Early Christian church, because of the vista of columns, entablatures, and simple timber roof, gives a horizontal impression ; for the eye is led along these horizontal lines to the apsidal sanctuary which is the important feature. ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Domical form -Hagia Sophia - Constantinople ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

The 6th-century church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople is a superb sample of the early Byzantine architecture ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Basilica form ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Byzantine plans ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

المساقط الأفقية للكنائس Byzantine plans ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Apse and sanctuary ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Chora Monastery - Constantinople ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Vatopediou Monastery - Macedonia ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Osiosloukas ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Hagia Eirene Constantinople 2007 ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

B. Walls • The walls were usually constructed of brick and internally encrusted with rich colored marbles and shining glass mosaics, which swept from wall to arch and arch to vault almost to the exclusion of mouldings and sculptured ornament. • full expression of oriental love of magnificence on colored flat surface. • Externally the walls were comparatively plain and depended largely for effect on the brilliant oriental sunshine • The facades were characterized by alternate layers or bands of brick and stone, reminiscent of the strata of a quarry • This simple device accentuated the connection of the building with the ground in which it had its foundations. ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Palace - Constantinople ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Adrianus' Gate ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Layers or Strata ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

C. Openings • Arcades of semicircular arches on monolithic columns with convex capitals to support the galleries. • Doors are usually spanned by semi-circular arches but flat, segmental, and horse-shoe arches were also used. • Windows, similarly spanned, are small and grouped together while sometimes they are arranged in tiers within the semicircular arch beneath the dome. • The encircling ring of windows at the base of the dome or in the " drum " upon which the dome was raised was often the chief source of light in the church . • The problem in the East was to exclude rather than to admit light, and windows were therefore small, so as to make the interior restful and cool, • Consequently large unbroken wall spaces were available for brilliant mosaic pictures. ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Windows were also occasionally formed of a thin frame, 3 ins. thick, of translucent marble, filled in with glass and creamy, golden-hued alabaster which the brilliant sunshine wrought into colour like stained glass. • The Gothic architects of Northern Europe, where large windows were necessary owing to dullness of the climate, adopted a translucent scheme of decoration by means of painted glass pictures in the large traceried windows instead of sheathing their walls with mosaics ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

الفتحات ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

Hagia Sophia Interior Dome ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

imperial audience hall ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

D. Roofs • The method of roofing was by domes of brick, stone, or concrete • Sophia the vaults are covered with sheets of lead, a quarter of an inch thick, fastened to timber laths resting on the vaults. • Hollow earthenware jars were sometimes used in order to reduce the thrust on the supporting walls, as at S. Vitale, Ravenna . • The Byzantines practiced the system of placing the dome over a square or octagon by means of pendentives • Domes are of three types : • (i) Simple, • (ii) Compound, • (iii) Melon-shaped . ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

1. Simple type pendentives and dome were part of the same sphere. A good idea of this type is obtained by halving an orange, cutting off four slices, each at right angles to the last, to represent the four arches and then scooping out the interior ; the portion above the crown of these semicircles is the dome and the intervening triangles are the pendentives. the only example is Tomb of Galla Placidia 2. Compound type With greater height and was of two varieties, in the first of which the dome ceased to be part of the same sphere as the pendentives, but rose independently above them and in the second the dome was raised on a high drum pierced with windows . 3. Melon-shaped type Consists of convolutions, as in S. Theodore and SS. Sergius and Bacchus, which avoided the necessity for pendentives ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

1. Simple type 2. Compound type ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

greater heightof domes ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

3. Melon-shaped type. ENG.NABEEL M. AIAD

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY