Romanesque Architecture

Romanesque = Roman like

 INFLUENCES:
Geographical:
Romanesque style originated in Western Europe (Italy,
Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal and the British Isles)
and in Northern Europe, the Scandinavian Kingdoms.
The combination of Roman and Byzantine Architecture. It is
the basically Roman style.
Grew in the countries under the Roman rule.
Geological:
The most common materials used for constructions were
stone, brick, marble or terra cotta, as well as ready-made
columns and features from the old Roman buildings.
Climatic:
Northern portion – dull climate contributed to the use of:
1. Large windows to admit light
2. High pitch roof to throw off rain and snow
Southern portion:
1. Small windows to minimize sun shading
2. Flat roof
Religious:
• Christianity - resulted into erection of a church.
• Papacy had great power and influence.
• Christianity was the chief source of education and culture.
• Enthusiasm found their material expression in the
magnificent cathedral churches and monastic buildings.
• Architecture was regarded as sacred science
• under monastic rule, survival of Roman law
• science, letters, art and culture were the monopoly of
orders
• gave impulse to architecture; fostered art and learning
 INFLUENCES:
3 Orders: civilization restored over Europe
Religious orders new religious enthusiasm:
Orders of Canons Regular • The crusades against Muslims
Military order • Papacy rose to great power
Historical: • Great monastic foundations
900 AD to 1200AD • Christianity was source of education, culture, and
economy
Decline of the Roman empire led to the rise of
independent states and nations of Europe religious fervor expressed in:
Constantine halved the empire into Western and • art
Eastern parts
• cathedrals and monastic buildings
The old Roman political system ended in 476 AD
Holy Roman Empire lasted until 1806
Gaul, Central Europe, etc. most estates still had
ecclesiastical and political ties to Rome Social and Political:
800 AD: Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned The establishment of feudal system.
emperor by the pope Landlords build castles to separate and protect them
stablished the Holy Roman Empire from the peasants. These castles were made with
man-made canals
 CHARACTERISTICS
• Describes the European style of building
design which flourished during the late
Medieval era (c.800-1200).
• Reached its zenith in the eleventh century
hinging on the year 1095 when Urban II
proclaimed the Crusade
• Influenced mainly by classical Roman
architecture, as well as elements
of Byzantine art, and Islamic art.
• Characterized by the desire to articulate, to
stress or underline every structural division in
order to produce unified compositions.
• Characterized by a new massiveness of
scale, expressing the increasing stability of
the age and the re-emergence of European
culture after four centuries of the Dark Ages
(476AD-1456).
• Traditionally divided into three periods:
(1) Pre-Romanesque: Carolingian & Ottonian
architecture (c.800-1000). (2) Early
Romanesque (11th century). (3) Mature
Romanesque (c.1070-1170).
• concentrated on beauty and delicacy of
ornamental detail
• sober and dignified
• Governed by classical traditions
Construction System:
• tentative use of new construction principle
• deliberate articulation of structure, each
constructive part playing a role in establishing
equilibrium
Pre-Romanesque
• The areas of Europe where buildings were constructed during
this period have little in common other than their sources of
inspiration.
• Most significant Regions - Carolingan homelands in Northern
France and the Rhineland, Asturias in Northern Spain, Northern
Italy and Anglo-Saxon England.
Early Romanesque
• Re-used the rounded arches, wall masses and barrel-vaults of the
Romans, but they also introduced changes.
• saw the overcoming of Byzantine models and the abandonment of the
formal language of classical antiquity.
• column was replaced by the pillar; spaces previously left empty were filled
with thick walls, forming compact masses
• the elevation of walls was divided into three or even four levels (arcade,
gallery, triforium, and clerestory).
• The major structural change, a result of advances in construction
techniques, was the progressive ability to cover churches with vaulted
ceilings.
• creation of an articulated structure on the exterior, with varying
combinations of volumes decorated with stylistic elements from antiquity,
such as pilaster strips, hanging arches, and blind arcades.
Mature Romanesque
• late 1060s
• total adoption of the vault covering - progress made in construction techniques
• Articulation of walls - still divided in bays with an elevation on several levels. -
transepts, presbytery, apses, even the exterior
• precise figural purposes: to welcome, shelter, and embrace the faithful in a
setting both stately and dignified, designed along perspective lines to give a
sense of depth, all culminating in the ambulatory apse.
• adoption of the system of bays taken as spatial units; they were no longer
divisions, marked off by transverse arches, of a unitary space, but were rather
spatial bodies that were added one to the next, an addition of cells in a rigidly
symmetrical order.
• The walls was now structured as a plastic mass that could be disassembled and
into which space could enter by way of openings in its surface, sometimes
creating internal galleries along which people could move.
Romanesque Architecture Characteristics
• Semi-circular Arches
Most arches were semi-circular although a few have pointed arches. Narrow
windows/doors might be topped by a stone lintel. Larger openings were nearly always
arched.
• Thick Walls
These massive supporting walls had few and comparatively small openings and almost
eliminated the need for buttresses.
• Arcades
These were a particularly popular feature. Note: an arcade consists of a row of arches,
supported on either columns or piers. Columns were either drum columns (if small) or
hollow core (if large). Piers were typically built out of masonry and were either square or
rectangular. Capitals on columns were usually of the foliate Corinthian style.
• Roofs
These were made from wood, then stone. Vaulted roofs generally featured barrel-vaults
and groin vaults made of stone or brick. Eventually, these evolved into the pointed ribbed
arch used in Gothic architecture.
• Towers
These were a regular feature of Romanesque churches. Types included: square, circular
and octagonal towers.
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: North Italy

Churches
Plan: basilican plan
Façade:
• arcades all over façade
• wheel window
• central projecting porch, with columns on crouching beasts
Structural: rib and panel vaulting - framework of ribs support thin stone panels
Ornament:
• character was less refined due to use of stone and brick, instead of marble
• roughly-carved grotesque figures of men and beasts (shows northern European
influence)
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: North Italy
Baptisteries - used 3 times a year:
Easter, Pentecost, Epiphany - large,
separate buildings - connected to
cathedral by atrium
• octagonal in plan
• with projecting porch
• pilaster strips
• corbel
• arcading at façade and apse
• octagonal lantern on top
• Campaniles - straight towers shafts,
generally standing alone - served as
civic monuments, symbols of
power, watch towers
• square-planned, no buttresses
• facade of simple pilaster strips
• loggia on top, displaying bells
• pyramidal roof
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: South Italy
Cathedrals: basilican plan, richer in design and color
• elaborate wheel windows – made of sheets of pierced marble
• greater variety in columns and capitals
• elaborate bronze doors and bronze pilasters
Byzantine influence: mosaic decorations, no vaults, used domes
Muslim influence: use of striped marbles, stilted pointed arches,
colorful, geometric designs as predominant interior decoration
 ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: Central
Italy
Cathedrals: concentrated on
ornamental details, rather than
new construction systems
Plan: resembled basilican
churches
Façade:
• ornamental arcades
• doors and windows are small
and unimportant (even wheel
window) Pisa Cathedral
Inside: use of antique columns to
separate nave from aisle • forms one of most famous building groups in the world
Ornament: classical precedent - Cathedral, Baptistery, Campanile, and Campo Santo
was used only to suit the • resembles other early basilican churches in plan
fragments of old ornaments used
in new buildings • exterior of red and white marble bands
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: Central
Italy
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: North France
Remains of old buildings were less
abundant – they had greater freedom of
developing new style
Cathedrals
Plans:
• basilican type
• rib-vaults and semi-circular or pointed
arches over the nave and aisles
• timber-framed roofs of slate finish and
steep slope to throw off snow
• façade:
• 2 flanking square towers with pyramidal or
conical roofs
• imposing doorways with sculptured
tympana
• facade divided into wall arcades by string
courses or horizontal mouldings
• filled with ornaments of foliage, men and
animal figures
sides:
• massive walls with flat buttresses
• windows with semi-circular heads,
sometimes grouped together and
enclosed in larger arch
ornament:
• capitals and bases are rough Corinthian
imitations
 Examples

Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris

S. Madeleine, Vezelay
• among the first instances of using the pointed arch
• has nave and aisles with earliest pointed • ribbed vault, pointed arch and flying buttresses
cross-vault in France successfully combined
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: South France

Remarkable for richly decorated church façade and graceful cloisters, and
for the use of old Roman architectural features which seems to have
acquired a fresh significance.
Cathedrals
Plans:
• cruciform plan
• semi-circular east end, as an ambulatory with radiating chapels
• nave and 2-storeyed aisles
Example:
St. Sernin, Toulouse
• cruciform, with nave double aisles and transepts
• round arch barrel vault on nave
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: Germany
Also known as Central Europe
Exhibits continuous combination of Carolingan tradition and Lombard influence
Cathedrals
Examples:
Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) Cathedral
• built by emperor Charlemagne as his tomb house
• polygon of sixteen sides, 32 m in diameter
• dome on top, 14.5 m in diameter
Church of the Apostles, Cologne
• trefoil apses
Worms Cathedral
• eastern and western apses and octagons
• 2 circular towers flank each
• octagon at crossing, with pointed roof
 ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE
Spain, Portugal and Holy Land
Spain and Portugal The Holy Land
Features: 1. Religious
Buildings
• use of both basilican
and Greek-cross forms 2. Military
Buildings
• use of horseshoe arch
a. Pilgrim Forts
Structures:
b. Coastal
1. Religious Buildings Fortifications
2. Military Buildings c. Strategic
a. castles Inland Castles
b. city walls Santiago de Compostela

• finest achievement of Romanesque in

Spain
 ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: England
Architectural Characters
a. Roman Period – mosaic flooring, pottery and sculpture on dwelling houses and public
buildings
b. Anglo-Saxon Period – domestic buildings was dependent largely upon the use of
timber, pilaster strips from the Liesenen of Carolingan Rhineland and blind arcading,
use of triangular headed openings, and turned balusters and mid-wall shafts.
c. Norman Period – features imported directly from Normandy – typical Benedictine plan
having three eastern apses such as those in Durham and Peterborough
- Stained glass are used, though sparingly, in small pieces, leaded together in mosaic-like patterns.
- Timber roofs were colored, sometimes with lozenge-shaped panels
Examples:
1. Cathedral Churches
a. the old foundation - served by secular clergy
b. Monastic foundation - served by regular clergy or monks, later by secular canons
c. New foundation - to which bishops had been appointed
2. Monastic Buildings
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: England
2. Castles
a. Anglo-Saxon Period – no castles, as the Forts or burhs built at this time were
community use; privately speaking castles were private strongholds for kind of lord,
and were an outcome of the feudal system, which did not apply in England until the
conquest.
b. Norman Period
• there were 1,500 castles in England and 1,200 were founded in the 11th and 12th
centuries
• began as motte and bailey earthworks
• later became citadels with stone curtain walls
• developed donjons or keeps
4. Manor houses – the most important house in a country or village neighborhood
- the main residential building in a manor or estate in feudal medieval
Britain.
- a similar edifice for the Presbyterian Church in Scotland
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: Scandinavia
Earliest domestic building customs were
based upon timber techniques allied to
forms.
Romanesque characteristic appear
upon both British and Continental
European influences upon church
building in stone became effective
toward the middle of the eleventh
century
Characteristics:
• Inner timber colonnade which
contributes to basilican plan section
with a (blind)clear-storey, and steep
scissors-trussed roof.
• Uses Ramloftstuga
Examples:
1. Religious Buildings – stave church
– wooden church with vertical
planks forming the walls
2. Secular Buildings – minor domestic
architecture generally conformed to
the strong tradition of timber
construction and little original work
survives
- stone-built dwellings followed
the continental custom, and common
with the Norman manor house in
England.