HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE II

(13AR1303)
Module 1

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

Hudha Abdul Salam

Assistant Professor
Department of Architecture
TKMCE, Kollam

Romanesque Architecture: Design evolution, Planning principles and Characteristics (Example; Pisa Cathedral)
 What is Romanesque Architecture?

Inspired by Roman architecture.

Similarities between Roman and
Romanesque include round arches, stone
materials, and the basilica-style plan
Romanesque architecture also shows
influences from gothic, Carolingian, Byzantine
and Islamic architecture.
The Romanesque period cannot be
precisely defined – but Romanesque
architecture generally dates from 1000 to
1150
Romanesque was at its height between
about 1075 and 1125.
In some conservative regions, Romanesque-style churches continued to be
built well into the1200s, and there was considerable overlap between the
styles. Features that lie somewhere between Romanesque and Gothic are
called "Transitional”.

The term "Romanesque" was coined in 1818 by Charles-Alexis-Adrien de

Gerville to describe the form of art and architecture that preceded Gothic.
Introduction to Romanesque Art
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.
Characteristics of Romanesque Architecture
 Harmonious proportions
 Barrel / groin vault (with stone)
 Thick and heavy walls
 Thick and heavy pillars
 Small windows
 Round arches supporting the roof
 Blind arches used extensively for decoration
 Nave with side aisles
 Later examples even without aisles
 Galleries above the side aisles
Characteristics of Romanesque Architecture

a transept (section crossing the nave at a right angle, giving the church
a cross shape)
an apse (semicircular niche, usually in the east end)
an ambulatory (often with radiating chapels) around the apse
multiple towers, usually at the west end and over the transept crossing
sculptured decoration on portals, capitals and other surfaces
painted decoration throughout the interior
 ROMANESQUE – SUM UP

Use of the Roman round arch, adoption of the major forms of antique
Roman vaulting (contained, strong, weighty and sober style)
Most Romanesque churches retained the basic plan of the Early Christian
basilica: a long, three-aisled nave intercepted by a transept and terminating
in a semicircular apse crowned by a conch, or half-dome
European movement in architecture (10-12th centuries), especially in Italy,
France, England and Germany
Typologies
There are three main architectonical typologies:
Churches Monasteries Castles
MONASTERIES
CHURCH
It was the main building
It symbolized God’s kingdom
The holiest part was the apse
Had cross shape
Symbolism was important:
Circular parts reflect perfection so they were linked to God
Squared parts are related to the human.

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
Basilica
Church Elevation:
The church is covered by stoned
vaults
Wall are thick
They need strong buttresses
Foundations are strong
Few windows

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.
TYPES OF COVERS
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.
BUILDING MATERIALS

Italy, Poland, much of Germany and parts of the Netherland – brick

limestone, granite -- other areas
building stone --small and irregular pieces, bedded in thick mortar
Romanesque buildings - made of stone
(often had wooden roofs as they were not very good at building stone
roofs)
For 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
to support arches ; at the intersection of two large
arches ; cruciform in shape masonry and square or
rectangular in section
horizontal moulding
vertical shafts, horizontal mouldings at the level of base
highly complex form --half-segments of large hollow-
core column --a clustered group of smaller shafts

COLUMNS
Salvaged columns
Drum columns
Hollow core columns
Capitals
Alternation
SALVAGED 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 a variety of colours.
They may have retained their original Roman capitals,
generally of the Corinthian or Roman Composite style
Salvaged columns were also used to a lesser extent in France.
DRUM COLUMNS

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.

Santiago de Compostela has large

columns constructed of drums, with
attached shafts
HOLLOW CORE COLUMNS
they were constructed of ashlar masonry
the hollow core was filled with rubble
These huge untapered columns are sometimes ornamented with incised
decorations.

Durham Cathedral, England, has

decorated masonry columns and the
earliest pointed high ribs.
 CAPITALS

round at the bottom

it sits on a circular column and square at the top
it supports the wall or arch
cutting a rectangular cube
taking the four lower corners off at an angle so
that the block was square at the top
Octagonal at the bottom
manuscripts illustrations of Biblical scenes and
depictions of beasts and monsters, others are lively
scenes of the legends of local saints.
Festive Corinthian capitals on the richly-
appointed General Post Office, New York
(McKim, Mead, and White, 1913)

The Corinthian order as used for the portico

of the Pantheon, Rome provided a
prominent model for Renaissance and later
architects, through the medium of
engravings.

Paired columns like those at Duratón, near

Sepúlveda, Spain, are a feature of
Romanesque cloisters in Spain, Italy and
southern France.
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

St. Michaels, Hildesheim has

alternating piers and columns
VAULTS

Barrel vault

Groin vault

Ribbed vault

Pointed arched vault

BARREL VAULT
a tunnel vault or a wagon vault
The simplest type of vaulted roof is the barrel vault in which a single arched
surface extends from wall to wall, the length of the space to be vaulted
the barrel vault generally required the support of solid walls, or walls in which
the windows were very small.

Nave of Lisbon
Cathedral with a barrel
vaulted soffit.
Note the absence of
clerestory windows, all
of the light being
provided by the Rose
window at end of the
vault.

The Cloisters,one New York City

GROIN VAULTS
A groin vault or groined vault (also sometimes known as a double barrel vault
or cross vault) is produced by the intersection at right angles 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 with a barrel vault, a groin vault provides good economies of
material and labour.
The thrust is concentrated along the groins or arrises (the four diagonal edges
formed along the points where the barrel vaults intersect), so the vault need only
be abutted at its four corners.
for the less visible and smaller vaults square in plan and is
constructed of two barrel vaults intersecting at right angles
Groin vaults are frequently separated by transverse arched ribs of
low profile

Bayeux Cathedral, the crypt has

groin vaults and simplified Corinthian
capitals.
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.
One was to have the centre 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.

San Michele Maggiore, Pavia, Italy.

View of the interior.

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
Another solution was to stilt the transverse ribs, or depress the diagonal
ribs so that the centre line of the vault was horizontal

At Saint-Etienne, Caen, both the

nave and the tower are covered
by ribbed vaults. c.1080. Cathedral of Reims, France
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

Pointed barrel vault

showing direction of Interior of Durham Cathedral
lateral forces.
Romanesque in Italy
Italian provinces developed a great diversity of architectural styles
Lombardy with groined vaults of heavy proportions
Central Italy classical decorative elements: Corinthian capitals,
colored marble, open arches, colonnades and galleries and façades with
sculptures
South with Byzantine and Arabic influences, using mosaics, interlaced
pointed-arches.

Three separate buildings: church, baptistery and bell tower.

Pisa Cathedral, in Tuscany, presents

three separate buildings.
PISA CATHEDRAL
PISA CATHEDRAL
o Resembles early basilican church in
plan
o Nave, double aisles o Long rows of
columns connected by arches
o Usual timber roof
o Exterior – bands of red and white
marble
o Ground storey faced with wall arcading
o Transepts end in aspses
o Elliptical dome over the crossing is a
later addition
o Good proportions
o Delicacy of its ornamentation
BAPTISTERY

Designed by Dioti Salvi – circular plan with central space/ nave

18.3 m in diameter separated by four piers and eight columns from the
surrounding two storied aisle, which makes the building nearly 39.3 m in
diameter
LEANING TOWER OF PISA

The Tower of Pisa is the bell tower of the

Cathedral.
Its construction began in the august of 1173 and
continued for about two hundred years
In the past it was widely believed that the
inclination of the Tower was 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.
During its construction efforts were made to
halt the incipient inclination through the use
of special construction devices;
later columns and other damaged parts
were substituted in more than one occasion;
today, interventions are being carried out in
order to significantly reduce the inclination
and to make sure that Tower will have along
life.

The building is formed by a cylindrical body of

masonry encircled by arcades with arches
and columns resting upon the base
The Tower occupies a site to one side of the Cathedral, between the
apsidal area and the south-eastern portion of the transept of the later.
Though not an isolated case ,this is an unusual location: normally, bell
towers were built near to the façade or along one side of churches.
The central body of the structure is
composed of a hollow cylinder,
formed by an external wall in white
and grey limestone, and inner wall
facing also of limestone .
Within this masonry area is a spiral stair,
which, with 293 steps, climbs up to the
sixth arcade.
The basic architectural elements of the
Tower :
 the wall facing in marble or limestone
in two colored bands
 the inscribed portals in the arcades
 the adoption of certain decorative
details
 the wall facing above the arcades
with its strong play of light and shadow
- disguises the load bearing effect of
the internal cylinder.
CAMPO SANTO
 The Camposanto ("Holy Field") or Monumental Cemetery in Pisa
 Constructed in 1278 around sacred dirt brought back from Golgotha during
the Crusades.
 Later decorated with extensive frescoes, it was the burial place of the Pisan
upper class for centuries.
 The history of the Monumental Cemetery began in the 12th century, when
Archbishop Ubaldo Lanfranchi (1108-78) brought back shiploads of holy dirt
from Golgotha (where Christ was crucified) during the Crusades.
 In 1278, Giovanni di Simone (architect of the Leaning Tower) designed a
marble cloister to enclose the holy ground, which became the primary
cemetery for Pisas upper class until 1779. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the
walls of the Camposanto were decorated with frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi,
Spinello Aretino, Benozzo Gozzoli, Andrea Bonaiuti, Antonio Veneziano, and
Piero di Puccio.
CAMPO SANTO

Tragically, the extensive frescoes of the Camposanto were almost

completely destroyed by a bombing raid during World War II.
On July 27, 1944, American warplanes launched a major air attack against
Pisa, which was still held by the Nazis.
The wooden roof caught fire, its lead panels melted and the hot metal ran
all over the frescoes.
Many were completely destroyed and the few that remained were badly
damaged.
The Camposanto has since been fully restored and most of the surviving
frescoes, along with preparatory sketches (sinopie) found underneath, have
been moved to the Museo delle Sinopie in Pisa.