Europe from East to West through Architecture

Architecture is the profession of designing buildings, open

areas, communities, and other artificial constructions and
environments, usually with some regard to aesthetic effect.
However, architecture is much more than just that. It
follows the unwritten rules of society and it conforms to the
needs and culture of each and every country and its
people. Architecture in its raw form is a expression of
peoples needs, and people in different settings have fairly
different needs.
Throughout the centuries, it has been influenced by
religion, social movements and political changes, by
changes in peoples mentality and new preferences in
aesthetics.
To illustrate these differences I plan a journey through
Europes best-known architectural master-pieces, from
Moscow to London, so as to underline the importance of
up-bringing in each scenario.

Moscow
Not only Moscow, but the entire present-day Russia is filled
with historical buildings and monuments of unique
architectural style and technique. Every one of them carries
its own stories and legends, reminding the viewer of
various glorious eras. Emphasizing the characteristics of all
periods that Russia has been through, from Tsardom Empire
and the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union and the todays
Russian Federation, each of the following buildings and
monuments is an important part of Moscow history.

St. Basil's was built to commemorate the capture of the

Tatar stronghold of Kazan in 1552, which occured on the
Feast of the Intercession of the Virgin. The cathedral
was thus officially named Cathedral of the
Intercession of the Virgin by the Moat (the moat
being one that originally ran beside the Kremlin).
But the cathedral was popularly known as St. Basil's
Cathedral, after St. Basil the Blessed (a.k.a. St. Basil
Fool for Christ; 1468-1552), almost from the beginning.

Basil impressed Ivan in 1547 when he foretold a fire

that swept through Moscow that year. Upon his death,
Basil was buried in the Trinity Cathedral that stood on
this site at the time.
The Cathedral of the Intercession a.k.a. St. Basil's
Cathedral was constructed from 1555 to 1560. Legend
has it that after it was completed, Ivan had the architect
blinded in order to prevent him from building a more
magnificent building for anyone else. (In fact, he went
on to build another cathedral in Vladimir.)
In 1588, Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich added a ninth chapel
added on the eastern side to house the grave of St.
Basil.
In modern times, St. Basil's came very close to falling
victim to Stalin, who resented that it prevented his
soldiers from leaving Red Square en masse. But the
architect Baranovsky stood on the cathedral's steps and
threatened to cut his own throat if the masterpiece was
destroyed and Stalin relented (but punished Baranovsky
with five years in prison).
More recently, St. Basil's Cathedral has suffered
significant damage from weather and neglect. It was
not until the Millennium that funds were allocated to
restore its foundations and flaking surfaces.

Triumph Palace was inaugurated in 2007 as the tallest

apartment building not only in Moscow, but in the whole
European continent. The stunning residential skyscraper
has no less than 264 meters and includes more than one
thousand modern and luxurious apartments. The
architectural style of this massive building is similar, to
some extent, to that of Stalin's Seven Sisters the 1950
Moscow skyscrapers.

Istanbul
The Architecture of Istanbul describes a large mixture of structures
which reflect the many influences that have made an indelible mark in all
districts of the city. The ancient part of the city (the historic peninsula) is
still partially surrounded by the Walls of Constantinople, erected in 5th
century by the Emperor Theodosius II to protect the city from invasion.
The architecture inside the city proper contains buildings, statues, and
functional constructions which came from Byzantine, Genoese, Ottoman,
and modern Turkish sources. The city has many architecturally significant
entities. Throughout its long history, Istanbul has acquired a reputation
for being a cultural and ethnic melting pot. As a result, there are many
historical mosques, churches, synagogues, palaces, castles and towers
to visit in the city.

The Hagia Sophia, whose name means holy wisdom, is a

domed monument originally built as a cathedral in
Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in the sixth century

A.D.
It contains two floors centered on a giant nave that has a
great dome ceiling, along with smaller domes, towering
above.
Hagia Sophias dimensions are formidable for any structure
not built of steel, writes Helen Gardner and Fred Kleiner in
their book "Gardners Art Through the Ages: A Global
History." In plan it is about 270 feet [82 meters] long and
240 feet [73 meters] wide. The dome is 108 feet [33 meters]
in diameter and its crown rises some 180 feet [55 meters]
above the pavement.
In its 1,400 year life-span it has served as a cathedral,
mosque and now a museum. When it was first constructed,
Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This
state, officially Christian, originally formed the eastern half of
the Roman Empire and carried on after the fall of Rome.
Born out of riots
The story of the construction of the Hagia Sophia began in
A.D. 532 when the Nika Riots, a great revolt, hit
Constantinople. At the time Emperor Justinian I had been
ruler of the empire for five years and had become
unpopular. It started in the hippodrome among two chariot
racing factions called the blue and green with the riot
spreading throughout the city the rioters chanting Nika,
which means victory, and attempting to throw out Justinian
by besieging him in his palace.
People were resentful of the high taxes that Justinian had
imposed and they wanted him out of office, said University
of London historian Caroline Goodson in a National
Geographic documentary. After moving loyal troops into the
city Justinian managed to put down the rebellion with brute
force.

In the wake of the uprising, and on the site of a torched

church that had been called the Hagia Sophia, a new Hagia
Sophia would be built. To the ancient writer Paul the
Silentiary, who lived when the cathedral was completed, the
building represented a triumph for both Justinian and
Christianity.
I say, renowned Roman Capitol, give way! My Emperor has
so far overtopped that wonder as great God is superior to an
idol! (Translation by Peter Bell, from the book "Three
Political Voices from the Age of Justinian," Liverpool
University Press, 2009)
To build his cathedral, Justinian turned to two men named
Anthemius and Isidore the Elder.
Contemporary writers do not refer to Anthemius and Isidore as
architects, though the term was common in the sixth century,
but as mechanikoi or mechanopoioi, writes Indiana University
professor W. Eugene Kleinbauer in a section of the book "Hagia
Sophia" (Scala Publishers, 2004). These terms denote a very
small number of practitioners of the arts of design, whether of
buildings or of machines or other works ...
They built the Hagia Sophia in great haste, finishing it in less
than six years. To put this in comparison it took nearly a century
for medieval builders to construct the Notre Dame cathedral in
Paris.
This short construction period appears to have led to problems.
Ancient sources, such as the writer Procopios, write that the
builders had problems with the dome roof, the structure almost
collapsing during construction. The dome used a system of
piers to channel its weight.

The piers on top of which the structure was being built, unable
to bear the mass that was pressing down on them, somehow or
other suddenly started to break away and seemed to be on the
point of collapsing... writes Procopios (translation republished
on Columbia Universitys website).
Eventually Anthemius and Isidore did get the domed roof to
stand and it was a magnificent sight indeed. It seems not to be
founded on solid masonry, but to be suspended from heaven by
that golden chain and so cover the space, wrote Procopios.
Unfortunately this roof did not stand. It collapsed about two
decades later and it fell to a man named Isidore the Younger to
build a new domed roof. It has lasted, with some repairs, nearly
1,400 years, down to the present day.
The dome rests not on a drum but on pendentives, spherical
triangles that arise from four huge piers that carry the weight of
the cupola. The pendentives made it possible to place the dome
over a square compartment, writes researcher Victoria
Hammond, who describes the structure of the surviving Hagia
Sophia dome, in a chapter of the book "Visions of Heaven: The
Dome in European Architecture" (Springer, 2005).
Beneath the dome are 40 windows with sunlight coming
through. The sunlight emanating from the windows surrounding
its lofty cupola, suffusing the interior and irradiating its gold
mosaics, seemed to dissolve the solidity of the walls and
created an ambience of ineffable mystery, she writes. On the
completion of Hagia Sophia, Justinian is said to have remarked,
Solomon, I have outdone thee.
Imperial seating
Modern-day visitors will note that the Hagia Sophia has two
levels, the ground floor and a gallery above. The presence of

the two levels may mean that people were organized according
to gender and class when services were held at the cathedral.
In Byzantine churches galleries seem to have been used as a
means of segregation of genders and of social classes, writes
Vasileios Marinis in a chapter of the book "The Byzantine
World" (Routledge, 2010). In Hagia Sophia a part of the gallery
was used as an imperial lodge, from which the empress and
occasionally the emperor attended the services.
This lodge wasnt the only benefit the emperor got. Antony
White writes in another chapter of the 2004 "Hagia Sophia"
book that to enter the cathedrals nave from the narthex there
are nine doorways. The central or Imperial Door was reserved
for the use of the emperor and his attendants, and provides the
most perfect approach to the interior of the church.
Decorations and iconoclasm
The decorations within the Hagia Sophia at the time of
construction were probably very simple, images of crosses for
instances. Over time this changed to include a variety of ornate
mosaics.
There are a number of mosaics that have been added over the
centuries, imperial portraits, images of the imperial family,
images of Christ and different emperors, those have been
added since Justinians day, said Goodson in the documentary.
During the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., there was a period
of iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire that resulted in some of
the mosaics being destroyed.
The controversy spanned roughly a century, during the years
72687 and 81543. In these decades, imperial legislation
barred the production and use of figural images; simultaneously,
the cross was promoted as the most acceptable decorative form

for Byzantine churches, writes Sarah Brooks, of James

Madison University, in a Metropolitan Museum of Art article.
Fear that the viewer misdirected his/her veneration toward the
image rather than to the holy person represented in the image
lay at the heart of this controversy.
At the end of this period decoration of the interior of Hagia
Sophia resumed, each emperor adding their own images. One
of the most well-known mosaics is located on the apse of the
church showing a 13-foot-tall (4 meters) Virgin Mary with Jesus
as a child. Dedicated on March 29, 867, it is located 30 meters
(almost 100 feet) above the church floor, notes University of
Sussex professor Liz James in a 2004 article published in the
journal Art History.
Conversion to mosque
Another chapter in the Hagia Sophias life began in 1453. In that
year the Byzantine Empire ended, with Constantinople falling to
the armies of Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
The Byzantine Empire had been in decline for centuries and by
1453 the Hagia Sophia had fallen into disrepair, notes
researcher Elisabeth Piltz in a 2005 British Archaeological
Reports series book. Nevertheless, the Christian cathedral
made a strong impression on the new Ottoman rulers and they
decided to convert it into a mosque.
What a dome, that vies in rank with the nine spheres of
heaven! In this work a perfect master has displayed the whole of
the architectural science, wrote Ottoman historian Tursun Beg
during the 15th century (translation from Piltzs book).
Outside the church, four minarets would eventually be added,
Kleiner writes (in a 2010 edition of his book) that these four
slender pencil-shaped minarets are more than 200 feet (60

meters) tall and are among the tallest ever constructed.

Changes occurred on the inside as well. Piltz writes that after
the Ottoman conquest the mosaics were hidden under yellow
paint with the exception of the Theotokos [Virgin Mary with
child] in the apse. In addition Monograms of the four caliphs
were put on the pillars flanking the apse and the entrance of the
nave.
The style of the Hagia Sophia, in particular its dome, would go
on to influence Ottoman architecture, most notably in the
development of the Blue Mosque, built in Istanbul during the
17th century. [Related Video: Enormous Roman Mosaic
Unearthed in Turkey]
Present-day museum
In 1934, the government of Turkey secularized the Hagia
Sophia and turned it into a museum. The Turkish Council of
Ministers stated that due to its historical significance, the
conversion of the (Hagia Sophia) mosque, a unique
architectural monument of art located in Istanbul, into a
museum will please the entire Eastern world and its conversion
to a museum will cause humanity to gain a new institution of
knowledge. [From Robert Nelson, "Hagia Sophia: 1850-1950:
Holy Wisdom Modern Monument," University of Chicago Press,
2004)
Research, repair and restoration work continues to this day and
the Hagia Sophia is now an important site for tourism in
Istanbul. It is a place that has been part of the cultural fabric of
the city in both ancient and modern times.