byzantine architecture
DESCRIPTION
History of Architecture - ByzantineTRANSCRIPT
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE
MEGARA
THE EARLY GREEK SETTLERS FROM MEGARA WERE LED BY BYZAS,FROM WHOM THE NAME BYZANTINE WAS DERIVED.
CITY IS SITUATED BETWEEN BLACK SEA AND MEDITERRANEAN SEA.
IT HAS NATURAL HARBOUR OF “GOLDEN HORN” .
GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS
• Use of lime concrete continued.• Use of bricks for dome construction• Marble for ornamental work.
CLIMATIC CONDITIONS• Flat roofs with small openings in hot weathers and sheltered arcades
surrounded the open courtyards. Oriental dome is the chief feature of the byzantine.
RELIGION• Painted figures . statues were absent.
ARCHITECTURAL FEATURESDOMES
• Church within a square, with a dome over its centre, usually four cross- like arms either square ended or apsidal ended.
• Emphasis on its vertical axis• Non- figural motifs covered all the vault surfaces.• Large windows flooded the interior with light that
caused the marble and mosaic to glow with radiance
TYPES OF DOMES
• Simple• Compound• Melon shaped • Onion shaped.
PLANNING & CONSTRUCTION
• Centralized type of plan.• Independence of component parts.• Domes made by means of spherical pendentives.• Constructed by bricks or of light porous stone
(pumice) or pottery.• Constructed without temporary supports
(centering).• Windows in lower portion.• Grouping of domes.• Great height.• Exterior design pattern in brick work.
• Interior covering with marble mosaics and fresco.• Concrete made from lime sand with crushed tiles and
bricks.• Use of columns for decoration and structurally to support
the galleries and semi- circular arches.• Mouldings were rare.
PENDENTIVES• It is a curved support
shaped like an inverted triangle.
• It is used to hold a dome.• Using pendentives,
Byzantine architects could build a higher and wider dome.SQUINCH
• It is used to provide a transition from square to polygon.
CHURCHES S. S. SERGIUS,
ISTANBUL(527A.D.) • Built by Justinian.• Plan 33m x 28m.•4 colonnaded exedrae and dome supported on spherical pendentives 15.8 mt. dia. 22 mt. high
S. SOPHIA, ISTANBUL(HAGIA SOPHIA)However, the building's
present external aspects are much changed from the original appearance; the first dome collapsed in 558 and was replaced by the present one, greater in height and stability. Huge buttresses were added to the Justinianic design, and four Turkish minarets were constructed after the Ottoman conquest of 1453, when Hagia Sophia became an Islamic mosque.
ELEVATIONHAGIA SOPHIA
• Built for Justinian by the architects authemius & isodorus.
• Atrium triple portal-outer narthex double storey main narthex (200 feet x 30 feet).
• Centre space 32.6 mts. Square.
• 4 semi circular arches which rest the dome 32.6 mt. dia and 54.8 mts. above ground.
• 4 massive stone piers 7.6mt x 18.3 mts.
PLAN
• E & w of central space hemi cycles, covered with semi-domes.Thus enclosed great oval nave 68.6 mt. x 32.6 mt.
• Hemi-cycles are flanked by exedrae covered with semi domes that act as buttresses to the central dome.
• Lead is used as cement to bind the stones together.
• The forty windows create the illusion that the dome is resting on the light that comes through them--like a "floating dome of heaven."
