(Carr). Very elaborate architecture was used in the making of cathedrals, and much time and effort was put into the construction of them. In medieval times, the extravagent architecture of cathedrals was meant to show the wealth, power, and influence of the church. A great deal of time and money was spent on cathedrals in the Middle Ages. In fact, almost no expense was spared.
The Romans influenced such a vast area of the world for an extended amount of time due to their superior engineering skills. Aqueducts are one of their many inventions and arguably the greatest of their time and many years after. Before aqueduct technology, humans were restricted to build cities around natural water sources such as springs and rivers. These restricted cities grew crowded—not to mention also feculent and odious due to lack of a sewer system. Aqueducts enabled the Romans to grow in many different aspects including the size of their empires and their army.
The Medieval Cathedral in its Cultural Setting 1. How was the medieval cathedral related to its: a.) political b.) economic c.) social, and d.) religious setting? The cathedrals built during the medieval era were related to many aspects of medieval life due to the fact that the construction of a single cathedral was such a large production, let alone the construction of dozens upon dozens in Europe’s towns and cities.
Nathan Higley Period 3 August 21, 2012 AP European Extra Credit Brunelleschi’s Dome The thesis of the book Brunelleschi’s Dome by Ross King is that the Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore built by Filippo Brunelleschi at the time was the biggest and most magnificent dome ever built and to this day no one has built a dome quite like it. The cathedral took over a century to build, Filippo worked on it for a quarter of that time all on the dome. He came up with all new machines and architectural ideas to help achieve this grand feat. One of his ideas was building the dome without wooden centering which was unheard of at the time. The dome was so massive that no one believed he could build it without centering.
It made the journeys around the Mediterranean safer. More people started houses, near what are now considered some of the great wonders of the world. Some natural and some by man. Examples are the Egyptian Pyramids and the Sphinx. This made an large boom in the population, visitation, and cultural diversification of Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and etc.
Building rooms such as the Abbey Church of Sainte-foy in France marked the Romanesque period shown here in figure 1.2. The round arches of the windows are continued on the inside of the church. It also has beautiful arches and high vaulted ceilings. Popular designs for the Romanesque period were massiveness, thick stone walls, round arches, and barrel-vaulted stone ceilings (Getlein 386). Figure 1.2 exterior Figure 1.2
We can also observe that their eyes are wide open which show s that they paid attention to their gods. With the development of religion and evolution of way life it was time to transform the architecture as well, from living in huts made out of straws and clay, it was time to start constructing architectural mysteries which to this day leave great minds puzzled on how these structure were created without the technological developments that we have today. In the picture on the right we see the famous Ziggurat, which used to be the temple of the ancient near eastern civilizations. On looking at this marvel it clearly shows the advance methods they had as the Ziggurat stands tall, with complex design. Not all developments were only physical, but many developments can also be seen at the mental level also, like the way thinking, the people started depicting the power and characteristics of other great people through comparing them to animals like lions, birds,
Great church built by Justinian, an achievement in architecture and engineering that nobody had been able to do before, one of the wonders of the Christian World. | 9. Istanbul | 9. The name of the city of Constantinople today. | 10.
This constant increase in the importance accorded to rituals demonstrated specifically with the introduction of temples and the long-lasting existence of the societies that accord more importance to religion is best understand via Roy Rappaport’s theoretical perspective. According to him, religion has to explain, unify and give mean to societies. It makes people busy and the society last longer so it has a homeostatic mechanism. Therefore, Mesopotamians used religion to have ordered and long-lasting societies with well-conducting citizens. The importance of religion increased according to the importance of the group: it became larger with the community it was for: pre-Sumerian groups did not have and did not need to have that much religious influence because of their sizes but when city-states appeared, a higher control and power was required to guarantee the stability and well-functioning of the society.
Ordered repetition, radiating structures, and rhythmic, metric patterns is key to Islamic motifs. This is now called fractal geometry. Other significant features used as motifs include columns, piers and arches, organized and interwoven with alternating sequences of niches and colonnettes. And after the Haghia Sophia the dome became a key point in the geometry of the buildings. The dome was deemed the ultimate curve and ode to grandeur and perfection.