The Basilica

In creating these churches, Constantine and his architects confronted a major challenge: what should be
the physical form of the church? Clearly the traditional form of the Roman temple would be inappropriate
both from associations with pagan cults but also from the difference in function. Temples served as
treasuries and dwellings for the cult; sacrifices occurred on outdoor altars with the temple as a backdrop.
This meant that Roman temple architecture was largely an architecture of the exterior. Since Christianity
was a mystery religion that demanded initiation to participate in religious practices, Christian architecture
put greater emphasis on the interior. The Christian churches needed large interior spaces to house the
growing congregations and to mark the clear separation of the faithful from the unfaithful. At the same
time, the new Christian churches needed to be visually meaningful. The buildings needed to convey the
new authority of Christianity. These factors were instrumental in the formulation during the
Constantinian period of an architectural form that would become the core of Christian architecture to our
own time: the Christian Basilica.

The basilica was not a new architectural form. The Romans had been building basilicas in their cities and
as part of palace complexes for centuries. A particularly lavish one was the so-called Basilica Ulpia
constructed as part of the Forum of the Emperor Trajan in the early second century. Basilicas had diverse
functions but essentially they served as formal public meeting places. One of the major functions of the
basilicas was as a site for law courts. These were housed in an architectural form known as the apse. In the
Basilica Ulpia, these semi-circular forms project from either end of the building, but in some cases, the
apses would project off of the length of the building. The magistrate who served as the representative of
the authority of the Emperor would sit in a formal throne in the apse and issue his judgments. This
function gave an aura of political authority to the basilicas.
While Western Europe diverged radically from the architectural style of classical antiquity, the
Byzantines remained relatively conservative. Byzantine architecture retains a sense of balanced
classical proportions and favours plain, unadorned exterior surfaces. Nonetheless, the Byzantines
developed a unique architectural style, distinguished from that of the Romans primarily by
complex layouts and an exceptional affinity for domes.D136-38,1
The interior of a Byzantine building was coated in lavish mosaics and murals. Byzantine column
capitals, loosely derived from the capitals of ancient Greece and Rome, were often embellished with
intricate reliefs (typically of abstract or floral design). The overall Byzantine style of architecture changed
little in the duration of the Empire.
A typical Byzantine church is constructed from brick and features a great central dome, which may be
encircled with smaller domes and half-domes.7 The Byzantines invented the pendentive, an elegant
method of mounting a dome over a square or rectangular chamber (see Pendentives and Squinches).
The foremost work of Byzantine architecture is the Hagia Sophia, constructed during the reign
of Justinian. (Note that much of the Hagia Sophia's interior decoration, as well as the four towering
minarets outside, are not part of the original structure; they were added much later, by the Ottomans.)
The Hagia Sophia demonstrates one possible version of the central-plan layout. Another version is
the cross-in-square plan, which takes the form of a Greek cross with the spaces between the arms "filled
in"; the roof over these spaces is set at a lower level than over the cross. No particular cross-in-square
church stands out as exceptionally famous.

Islamic Architecture
The principal Islamic architectural types are: the Mosque, the Tomb, the Palace and the Fort.
From these four types, the vocabulary of Islamic architecture is derived and used for buildings of
less importance such as public baths, fountains and domestic architecture

The Carolingian Architecture
Medieval architecture truly emerged under the Carolingian Empire (ca. 750-900), which produced
many basilica churches and Latin cross churches (see Church Anatomy). Once again, however, few
works survive, and these have often been subject to major restoration or modification.
Under the Carolingians, church architecture received its first major injection of Germanicism, in the form
of boosted verticality. Up until the Carolingian period, churches featured balanced proportions, like the
original Roman basilica they evolved from. The Carolingians broke with classical proportions, increasing
the height of their churches relative to their horizontal dimensions, and establishing towers as a standard
element of church design.H368-70,9
A monumental church facade is known as a westwork. (Traditionally, churches were built with the
entrance facing west; hence the name "westwork".) By introducingtowers to church design, the
Carolingians pioneered the standard facade of the Western cathedral.10
The typical westwork may be roughly generalized according to a three-by-three grid. The bottom level
comprises the main entrance (aligned with the nave), flanked by twosub-entrances (aligned with the
aisles); the aisles are one level high, while the nave is two levels high. This differential is masked by
the towers, however, which rise up above the aisles to the third level of the grid.
The finest extant Carolingian building is not a church, but a chapel: Palatine Chapel, a sixteen-sided
building commissioned by Charlemagne for his palace at Aachen. Much of the building's materials were
salvaged from classical ruins in Italy.9 ("Palatine" is an adjective meaning "relating to a palace"; thus,
"palatine chapel" is synonymous with "palace chapel".)
Much of the chapel interior remains firmly classical, including round arches and Corinthian capitals.
The verticality of the dome and the overall structure, however, is strikingly Germanic: classical
proportions are never so tall and thin. Later additions to the original chapel have resulted in the much
larger structure of Aachen Cathedral.

The Carolingian Empire was succeeded by the Holy Roman Empire, which assumed cultural leadership
of the West during its first century (ca. 950-1050), known as the Ottonian age. The Ottonians absorbed
and developed upon Carolingian culture; consequently, Ottonian churches also feature basilica and
Latin cross layouts, boosted vertical proportions, and towers.H370,12
Round towers are the most distinctive feature of Ottonian churches. Four such towers grace St
Michael's at Hildesheim, likely the finest surviving Ottonian church.12,35

Romanesque Architecture
Romanesque and Gothic architecture flourished across Western Europe, especially in the north. The
heart of both ages, in terms of production and innovation, was France.
As noted earlier, the collapse of the Roman Empire resulted in a cultural fracturing of Western Europe.
So long as the Empire lived, Western Europe was culturally unified, and art was similar throughout the
region; with the fall of Rome and the rise of Germanic kingdoms, cultural unity was lost. Unity was
finally restored in the Romanesque age, as the Romanesque style of art and architecture permeated the
West.
The Romanesque style emerged as architects developed upon Carolingian and Ottonian models. One
key development was decoration: Romanesque buildings generally feature a richer abundance
of architectural sculpture than Carolingian or Ottonian churches (whose walls are mostly
blank).C61,H370 An especially suitable canvas for Romanesque sculpture was the tympanum: the semi-
circular area above an arch-framed door or window.
The Romanesque period also marks the rise of stone vaulting as the standard church construction
method. This replaced wooden beams, which had supported the roofs of most churches since the Early
Christian period (when churches first appeared). With vaulted construction, Romanesque architects
extended the sheer height of churches farther than ever before.15
Romanesque architecture thus featured significantly more verticality and intricacy than its Carolingian
and Ottonian predecessors. Yet the subsequent Gothic style took these developments even further;
relative to Gothic works, Romanesque buildings are only moderately tall and rather plain.17 Another
obvious difference is arch shape: Romanesque arches are round or slightly pointed, whereas Gothic
arches are sharply pointed.
Gothic Age
ca. 1200-1500
Gothic architecture flourished principally in Western Europe, particularly in the north. Gothic churches
are readily distinguished from the Romanesque style in their pointed arches, large windows, and
generally lighter, taller, more intricate appearance. Compared with earlier styles, sculpture (including
ornaments, figures, and narrative scenes) is far more plentiful on the surface of a Gothic church, inside
and out. Another common form of Gothic embellishment is the crocket, a stone nub carved into stylized
foliage (e.g. a bud, flower, or leaf cluster).
Many Gothic buildings feature tracery, a network of stone bands that fill the space within a frame
(see Gothic Tracery). This frame may be provided by a window, railing, orblind arch. Especially rich
tracery is often lavished on the rose window, a large circular window found above the main entrance of
many cathedrals.32
Gothic architecture is divided into three phases: Early, High, and Late. Early Gothic (ca. 1150-1200) was
the formative period of the style, in terms of both engineering and aesthetics. The mature style flourished
during the High Gothic period (ca. 1200-1400), while buildings of the Late Gothic (ca. 1400-1500)
tended to push Germanic complexity and verticality to incredible extremes.28,32