CHURCH ARCHITECTURE

What is a church?
CHURCH
● is a designed structure used for Christian activities— for public worship, for prayer, and
for the reception of the sacraments.
● is called the “Body of Christ” as they are joined to Christ in salvation and faith.
● The building itself where Christians gather is a sacred place where they can freely
worship God.

Etymological Definition
The word used for ‘church’ in Greek is ‘ekklesia’. ‘ek’ =out of; ‘kaleo’=to call. That means ‘out
calling’

Biblical Definition
I. Church is the assembly of believers who trust Christ. Acts 5:14.
ii. Church is the company of disciples who follow & learn from Christ. Acts 20:7
iii. Church is the gathering of Christians who are Christ’s ones. Acts 11:20
iv. Church is the assembly of saints. 1 Corinthians 1:2
v. Church is the assembly of the brethren. 1 Thessalonians 1:4; Hebrews 3:1

The first mention of ‘church’ is found in Matthew 16: 18b. “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on
this rock I will build My church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”

What is Church Architecture?

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE
● is a specialized area of building design that incorporates religious, spiritual and symbolic
elements into the architectural style.
● Over the years, it has evolved by innovation and by imitating other architectural styles.
● Interestingly, if we look carefully at these structures, we can also see how they reflect
Christianity’s changing beliefs, local traditions, and practices.
● Some popular church architectures have come from different eras in the expanse of
2,000 years, partly by innovation and partly by imitating other architectural styles as well
as responding to changing beliefs, practices, and local traditions.
● Many prestigious churches have become prominent symbols of Christian and world
history.
● The evolution of old churches can be estimated from the style of arches, doorways and
windows, as these features were most commonly changed.
● It is important to note that many churches, even if built in the early centuries, are a
“mixture” containing elements of more than one architectural style. For example, the
Santiago de Compostela Cathedral is at its heart a Romanesque church with rounded
arches, three towers and a large apse built mostly in the 11th and 12th centuries – until a
Baroque exterior was grafted on the western side in the 18th century.
HOW SHOULD A CHURCH BE BUILT?
Mandated in the 10th century, the church would be built so that the nave pointed east so that the
rising sun would shine on the altar, the faithful would “greet” the risen Christ, and the church
would face Jerusalem. Interestingly, since construction of a church typically began on the east
side, the west side would have a “newer” architectural style than the east side.

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHURCH BUILDING

● A simple church architecture comprises a single meeting space.
● Throughout history, people have built church architecture with locally available materials.
They used the same skills of construction as local buildings.
● Some materials used to construct a church were mud bricks, wattle, and daub, split logs,
or rubble. It may be roofed with thatch, shingles, corrugated iron or banana leaves.
● Starting from the 4th century onwards, the church congregation constructed permanent
and aesthetically pleasing buildings as the house of the Lord which led to a tradition of
congregations and local leaders investing time and money for building and decorating
the churches.
● Within any parish, the local church is often the oldest building, and is larger than any
pre-19th-century structure except perhaps a barn.
● The church is often built of the most durable material available, often dressed stone or
brick.
● The requirements of liturgy have generally demanded that the church should extend
beyond a single meeting room to two main spaces, one for the congregation and one in
which the priest performs the rituals of the Mass. To the two-room structure is often
added aisles, a tower, chapels, and vestries and sometimes transepts and mortuary
chapels. The additional chambers may be part of the original plan, but in the case of a
great many old churches, the building has been extended piecemeal, its various parts
testifying to its long architectural history.

FROM HOUSE CHURCH TO CHURCH

● In the first three centuries of the Early livia Christian Church, the practice of Christianity
was illegal and few churches were constructed. In the beginning Christians worshipped
along with Jews in synagogues and in private houses.
● After the separation of Jews and Christians the latter continued to worship in people’s
houses, known as house churches. These were often the homes of the wealthier
members of the faith. Saint Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians writes: “The
churches of Asia send greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their
house, greet you warmly in the Lord.”
● Some domestic buildings were adapted to function as churches. One of the earliest of
adapted residences is at Dura Europos church, built shortly after 200 AD, where two
 rooms were made into one, by removing a wall, and a dais was set up. To the right of the
entrance a small room was made into a baptistry.
● Some Roman churches, such as the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome, are built directly
over the houses where early Christians worshiped. Other early Roman churches are built
on the sites of Christian martyrdom or at the entrance to catacombs where Christians
were buried.
● With the victory of the Roman emperor Constantine at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312
AD, Christianity became a lawful and then the privileged religion of the Roman Empire.
The faith, already spread around the Mediterranean, now expressed itself in buildings.
Christian architecture was made to correspond to civic and imperial forms, and so the
Basilica, a large rectangular meeting hall became general in east and west, as the model
for churches, with a nave and aisles and sometimes galleries and clerestories.
● While civic basilicas had apses at either end, the Christian basilica usually had a single
apse where the bishop and presbyters sat in a dais behind the altar. While pagan
basilicas had as their focus a statue of the emperor, Christian basilicas focused on the
Eucharist as the symbol of the eternal, loving and forgiving God.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE ARCHITECTURE OF A CHURCH

1. Nature of the local community
2. The location in city, town, or village
3. Whether the church had the patronage of a bishop
4. Whether the church had the ongoing patronage of a wealthy family
5. Whether the church contained relics of a saint or other holy objects that were likely to
draw pilgrimage

PARTS OF THE CHURCH

CHURCH LAYOUTS
- One room Format
- Two Room Format
- Basilica Style
- Cruciform Style

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH BUILDING

1. Atrium
a. When Early Christian communities began to build churches they drew on one
particular feature of the houses that preceded them, the atrium, or courtyard with
a colonnade surrounding it.
b. Most of these atriums have disappeared.
 c. A fine example remains at the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome and another
was built in the Romanesque period at Sant’Ambrogio, Milan. The descendants
of these atria may be seen in the large square cloisters that can be found beside
many cathedrals, and in the huge colonnaded squares or piazze at the Basilicas
of St Peter’s in Rome and St Mark’s in Venice and the Camposanto (Holy Field)
at the Cathedral of Pisa.
2. The Basilica
a. Early church architecture did not draw its form from Roman temples, as the latter
did not have large internal spaces where worshipping congregations could meet.
It was the Roman basilica, used for meetings, markets and courts of law that
provided a model for the large Christian church and that gave its name to the
Christian basilica.
b. Both Roman basilicas and Roman bath houses had at their core a large vaulted
building with a high roof, braced on either side by a series of lower chambers or a
wide arcaded passage. An important feature of the Roman basilica was that at
either end it had a projecting exedra, or apse, a semicircular space roofed with a
half-dome. This was where the magistrates sat to hold court. It passed into the
church architecture of the Roman world and was adapted in different ways as a
feature of cathedral architecture.[full citation needed]
c. The earliest large churches, such as the Cathedral of San Giovanni in Laterano
in Rome, consisted of a single-ended basilica with one apsidal end and a
courtyard, or atrium, at the other end. As Christian liturgy developed, processions
became part of the proceedings. The processional door was that which led from
the furthest end of the building, while the door most used by the public might be
that central to one side of the building, as in a basilica of law. This is the case in
many cathedrals and churches.[full citation needed]
3. The Bema
a. As numbers of clergy increased, the small apse which contained the altar, or
table upon which the sacramental bread and wine were offered in the rite of Holy
Communion, was not sufficient to accommodate them. A raised dais called a
bema formed part of many large basilican churches.
b. In the case of St. Peter’s Basilica and San Paolo fuori le Mura (St Paul’s outside
the Walls) in Rome, this bema extended laterally beyond the main meeting hall,
forming two arms so that the building took on the shape of a T with a projecting
apse. From this beginning, the plan of the church developed into the so-called
Latin Cross which is the shape of most Western Cathedrals and large churches.
4. The Mausoleum: centrally-planned Building
a. One of the influences on church architecture was the mausoleum.
b. The mausoleum of a noble Roman was a square or circular domed structure
which housed a sarcophagus.
c. The Emperor Constantine built for his daughter Costanza a mausoleum which
has a circular central space surrounded by a lower ambulatory or passageway
separated by a colonnade. Santa Costanza’s burial place became a place of
worship as well as a tomb. It is one of the earliest church buildings that was
 centrally, rather than longitudinally planned. Constantine was also responsible for
the building of the circular, mausoleum-like Church of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem, which in turn influenced the plan of a number of buildings, including
that constructed in Rome to house the remains of the proto-martyr Stephen, San
Stefano Rotondo and the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna.
d. Ancient circular or polygonal churches are comparatively rare. A small number,
such as the Temple Church, London were built during the Crusades in imitation of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as isolated examples in England, France and
Spain. In Denmark such churches in the Romanesque style are much more
numerous. In parts of Eastern Europe there are also round tower-like churches of
the Romanesque period but they are generally vernacular architecture and of
small scale. Others, like St Martin’s Rotunda at Vishegrad, in the Czech
Republic, are finely detailed.
e. The circular or polygonal form lent itself to those buildings within church
complexes that perform a function in which it is desirable for people to stand, or
sit around, with a centralised focus, rather than an axial one. In Italy the circular
or polygonal form was used throughout the medieval period for baptisteries, while
in England it was adapted for chapter houses. In France the aisled polygonal
plan was adapted as the eastern terminal and in Spain the same form is often
used as a chapel.
f. Other than Santa Costanza and San Stefano, there was another significant place
of worship in Rome that was also circular, the vast Ancient Roman Pantheon,
with its numerous statue-filled niches. This too was to become a Christian church
and lend its style to the development of Cathedral architecture.
5. The Cruciform Ground Plan: Latin or Greek Cross
a. Most cathedrals and great churches have a cruciform ground plan. In churches of
Western European tradition, the plan is usually longitudinal, in the form of the
so-called Latin Cross with a long nave crossed by a transept. The transept may
be as strongly projecting as at York Minster or not project beyond the aisles as at
Amiens Cathedral.
b. Many of the earliest churches of Byzantium have a longitudinal plan.
c. At Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, there is a central dome, framed on one axis by two
high semi-domes and on the other by low rectangular transept arms, the overall
plan being square. This large church was to influence the building of many later
churches, even into the 21st century.
d. A square plan in which the nave, chancel and transept arms are of equal length
forming a Greek cross, the crossing generally surmounted by a dome became
the common form in the Eastern Orthodox Church, with many churches
throughout Eastern Europe and Russia being built in this way.
e. Churches of the Greek Cross form often have a narthex or vestibule which
stretches across the front of the church. This type of plan was also to later play a
part in the development of church architecture in Western Europe, most notably
in Bramante’s plan for St. Peter’s Basilica.
 f. Latin Cross and Steeple (Basilica Plan Church) - Roman style and basilica plan
in the shape of a Latin cross
g. Greek Cross and Dome (Central Plan Church) - Central plan church in the
shape of a Greek Cross with a dome (heaven on earth) Use of mosaics Found
mainly in the Eastern Churches

DIVERGENCE OF EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCH ARCHITECTURE

The division of the Roman Empire in the fourth century AD, resulted in Christian ritual evolving
in distinctly different ways in the eastern and western parts of the empire. The final break was
the Great Schism of 1054.

Eastern Orthodoxy and Byzantine Architecture

● Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity began to diverge from each other from an
early date. Whereas the basilica was the most common form in the west, a more
compact centralised style became predominant in the east.
● These churches were in origin martyria, constructed as mausoleums housing the tombs
of the saints who had died during the persecutions which only fully ended with the
conversion of the Emperor Constantine.
● An important surviving example is the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, which
has retained its mosaic decorations. Dating from the 5th century, it may have been
briefly used as an oratory before it became a mausoleum.
● These buildings copied pagan tombs and were square, cruciform with shallow projecting
arms or polygonal. They were roofed by domes which came to symbolize heaven. The
projecting arms were sometimes roofed with domes or semi-domes that were lower and
abutted the central block of the building.
● Byzantine churches, although centrally planned around a domed space, generally
maintained a definite axis towards the apsidal chancel which generally extended further
than the other apses. This projection allowed for the erection of an iconostasis, a screen
on which icons are hung and which conceals the altar from the worshippers except at
those points in the liturgy when its doors are opened.
● The architecture of Constantinople (Istanbul) in the 6th century produced churches that
effectively combined centralized and basilica plans, having semi-domes forming the axis,
and arcaded galleries on either side.
● The church of Hagia Sophia (now a museum) was the most significant example and had
an enormous influence on both later Christian and Islamic architecture, such as the
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Umayyad Great Mosque in Damascus. Many
later Eastern Orthodox churches, particularly large ones, combine a centrally planned,
domed eastern end with an aisled nave at the west.
● A variant form of the centralized church was developed in Russia and came to
prominence in the sixteenth century. Here the dome was replaced by a much thinner and
taller hipped or conical roof which perhaps originated from the need to prevent snow
 from remaining on roofs. One of the finest examples of these tented churches is St.
Basil’s in Red Square in Moscow.

Medieval West
● Participation in worship, which gave rise to the porch church, began to decline as the
church became increasingly clericalized; with the rise of the monasteries church
buildings changed as well.
● The ‘two-room’ church’ became, in Europe, the norm. The first ‘room’, the nave, was
used by the congregation; the second ‘room’, the sanctuary, was the preserve of the
clergy and was where the Mass was celebrated. This could then only be seen from a
distance by the congregation through the arch between the rooms (from late mediaeval
times closed by a wooden partition, the Rood screen), and the elevation of the host, the
bread of the communion, became the focus of the celebration: it was not at that time
generally partaken of by the congregation.
● Given that the liturgy was said in Latin, the people contented themselves with their own
private devotions until this point. Because of the difficulty of sight lines, some churches
had holes, ‘squints’, cut strategically in walls and screens, through which the elevation
could be seen from the nave.
● Again, from the twin principles that every priest must say his mass every day and that an
altar could only be used once, in religious communities a number of altars were required
for which space had to be found, at least within monastic churches.
● Apart from changes in the liturgy, the other major influence on church architecture was in
the use of new materials and the development of new techniques. In northern Europe,
early churches were often built of wood, for which reason almost none survive. With the
wider use of stone by the Benedictine monks, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, larger
structures were erected.
● The two-room church, particularly if it were an abbey or a cathedral, might acquire
transepts. These were effectively arms of the cross which now made up the ground plan
of the building.
● The buildings became more clearly symbolic of what they were intended for.
● Sometimes this crossing, now the central focus of the church, would be surmounted by
its own tower, in addition to the west end towers, or instead of them. (Such precarious
structures were known to collapse – as at Ely – and had to be rebuilt).
● Sanctuaries, now providing for the singing of the offices by monks or canons, grew
longer and became chancels, separated from the nave by a screen.
● Practical function and symbolism were both at work in the process of development.

Evolution of Church Architecture

Different Architectural Style
The history of church architecture divides itself into periods, and into countries or regions and by
religious affiliation. These are known as the eras of Byzantine, Gothic, Romanesque, and
Renaissance. The matter is complicated by the fact that buildings put up for one purpose may
have been re-used for another, that new building techniques may permit changes in style and
size, that changes in liturgical practice may result in the alteration of existing buildings and that
a building built by one religious group may be used by a successor group with different
purposes.

1.) Early Christian

2.) Byzantine
3.) Romanesque
4.) Gothic
5.) Renaissance
6.) Baroque
7.) Rococo
8.)European States
• Neo-classical
9.) Colonial and Post-Colonial America
• Georgian
• Greek Revival
10.)Industrial Revolution
• Gothic Revival
• Second Empire
11.)Twentieth Century
• Art nouveau
• Expressionism
• Functionalism
• Bauhaus
12.) International Style
13.) Modernism
14.)Contemporary