On the 15th September 2018, I took a trip to the Natural History Museum in Kensington, London. Although this day out wasn’t originally supposed to be a study visit, I took the opportunity to take plenty of photos to use as reference for Romanesque architecture. On the Natural History Museum website, they explain the history of the architecture, stating that it “is one of Britain’s most striking examples of Romanesque architecture, which is considered a work of art in its own right,” (Natural History Museum, 2018) which I truly agree with. This sparked my interest in the magnificent architectural style, which has ultimately become the theme of my Final Project.
Romanesque architecture was “dominated in Western Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries,” inspired by the Byzantine Empire. It was developed due to “the end of barbarian invasions, the decomposition of Cordoba and the establishment of peace in the Christian world.” (Tom, 2012) To accommodate the increase of religiosity, “churches became larger, and tended to be cross-like in shape,” (Durham World Heritage Site, 2018) which is the architectural typology I’ve chosen to focus on. The symbolism of this structure was very important, as the circular parts of the architecture reflect perfection, which they linked to God, while the squared parts reflect the human. (Tom, 2012) Romanesque architecture is often confused with Gothic architecture, but I discovered that they’re two different architectural styles. I looked into these differences, which revealed that while Gothic architecture dates “from the mid 12th century to the 16th century,” Romanesque architecture “was a product of the great expansion of monasticism in the 10th–11th century.” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018)
Characteristics of Romanesque architecture are varied in each country. For example, in England, the extension eastward of the Latin cross plan may be long, while in Italy it is often short or non-existent. In Italy, they sometimes had apses on the transept ends as well as to the East, while in Germany, apses could be at both East and West ends of the building. The East end of the church was usually semi-circular, although in Germany and Italy, there would be a square end from which an apse projects. Large churches would have two towers at the West end of the building, but smaller churches in England and France often had a single tower. (Shah, 2015) As I’ll be aiming to make my modular assets very versatile, I’ll be considering every possible variation of the Latin cross characteristics. This way the environment can be built to suit as many different floor plans as possible. So I gathered some floor plans of the Latin cross, and made them into a mood board to reference from.
I started off by building some minimalistic tiles of what the church will be made up of, which included the ground, first and second floor tiles, where you can find the nave/aisles, triforium and clerestory. In the photo below, you can see the six individual tiles on the left, which make up the attached tiles on the right. I used these tiles to build the majority of the nave, aisles, triforium gallery and clerestory areas with arches in the appropriate areas. As you can see, each tile is coloured separately to clearly define each part of the environment. This whole tile could be made up of a selected number of the individual tiles, depending on how it should be built. For example, if the church is smaller, it may only need the first floor tiles with the clerestory, without the triforium.
As I built up each tile, I found that other tiles were needed such as concave and convex corners (figure 6), while also visualising variations of floor plans. Some modest churches only have one floor, without a triforium or clerestory, so I’ll be making sure that the environment can be built to suit a variety of different size churches and cathedrals. I carried on building corners, floors and ceilings to fill in gaps, while starting to work on the transept area of the floor plan. While referencing the mood board of floor plans I found earlier, I made some variations for the end of the transept. In the photo below, you can see that I made a triforium gallery and clerestory following around to the opposite side, another variation that stops at the end of the transept and starts again on the opposite side, and a final variation where it stops before the end, so there is an open area on the first floor at the end of the transept, which can be made longer if necessary.
I continued onto the East side of the building to work on variations of the apse, ambulatory and chapels for each floor level. I found that this area could potentially have a vast variety of tiles, such as having either a solid wall or open arches for the apse, an open number of chapels extruding from the ambulatory, as well as all the possible ways that features could work on all three floors. This could be made into a selection of large tiles, which could be more efficient rather than leaving the tiles detached. I will explore this option while building it into the rest of the architecture. I also made sure that the chapels could be used anywhere else in the environment where appropriate.
Next week, I’ll be carrying on with research and building more of these minimalistic tiles for the West end of the building, including the facade, portal, towers, and stairs. I’ll also be refining each tile to know how many I will need to make and if they can be grouped together in a more efficient way to build a modular environment. I have also arranged a visit to St Alban’s Cathedral in the second week of December this year, to get a stronger visual understanding of the structure and floor plan, to help me develop my work. This cathedral has the longest nave of any cathedral in England at 85 metres. (Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban, 2017) I’m planning to be there in time for a guided tour to find out more information on its history, architecture and ministry.
Bibliography
Durham World Heritage Site (2018) “Romanesque Architecture - Durham World Heritage Site” [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.durhamworldheritagesite.com/architecture/romanesque [Accessed 23 November 2018].
Encyclopædia Britannica (2018) "Gothic architecture" [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/Gothic-architecture [Accessed 23 November 2018].
Encyclopædia Britannica (2018) "Romanesque architecture" [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/Romanesque-architecture [Accessed 23 November 2018].
Natural History Museum (2018) "History and architecture" [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/history-and-architecture.html [Accessed 23 November 2018].
Shah, A. (2015) “Introduction to Romanesque architecture” [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/amalgshah/introduction-to-romanesque-architecture. [Accessed 23 November 2018].
Shrivastava, A (2015) "What's the difference between Gothic and Romanesque architectures?" [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-Gothic-and-Romanesque-architectures. [Accessed 23 November 2018].
The Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban (2017) “Highlights - The Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban” [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.stalbanscathedral.org/visit/what-to-see/. [Accessed 23 November 2018].
Tom, B. (2012) "Romanesque architecture" [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/BinumolTom/romanesque-architecture-14165982?next_slideshow=1. [Accessed 23 November 2018].
Photo References
Archive of Affinities (2013) “tumblr_mr2mpx3wlv1qe0nlvo1_500” [ONLINE]. Available at: http://archiveofaffinities.tumblr.com/post/57444617143/plans-of-romanesque-churches [Accessed 26 November 2018].
Art 3 Lecture 22 (2018) “5b22f7f52ebb84d2830bfac25085becb” [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.theslideprojector.com/art3/art3lecturepresentationssummer/art3lecture22.html [Accessed 26 November 2018].
Art for all ages (2018) “Saint – Sernin in Toulouse, France Floor plan” [ONLINE]. Available at: https://sites.google.com/site/completearthistory/art-progress-from-the-renaissance-through-the-20th-century/romanesque-architecture [Accessed 26 November 2018].
History of Architecture (2018) “8911199” [ONLINE]. Available at: https://historyofarchitecture.weebly.com/romanesque.html [Accessed 26 November 2018].
SlideShare (2012) “romanesque-architecture-15-728” [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/BinumolTom/romanesque-architecture-14165982 [Accessed 26 November 2018].
ThoughtCo. (2017) “romanesque-cluny-floorplan-89865529-crop-58e30cdb3df78c51625e0435” [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/romanesque-architecture-4134212 [Accessed 26 November 2018].
Wikizie (2014) “picture141354825088555” [ONLINE]. Available at: https://wikizie.co/romanesque-church-floor-plan/ [Accessed 26 November 2018].
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