College of Environmental Design
Department of Architecture, UC Berkeley
Architecture Slide Library
Architecture 170 - Fall 1996 - Dell Upton - October 3
I. NEW ROME. The separation of the eastern and western halves of the Roman empire, 395. Constantine's new capital at "New Rome", or Constantinople [Istanbul], Turkey, begun 324, dedicated 330. Byzantine concepts of church and state: emperor and patriarch as "the two halves of God."
II. THE CENTRALIZED CHURCH AND THE BYZANTINE TRADITION. Byzantine architecture as a development of early Christian traditions.
1. The Centralized Church: Santa Costanza, Rome, ca. 350. San Lorenzo, Milan, Italy, ca. 355-74. Note: double-shell, tetraconch construction, corner and central towers, attached mausolea (now called San Ippolito and San Aquilino).
Ravenna, Italy, the western Byzantine capital. The reign of Justinian [527-65] and Theodora. San Vitale, Ravenna, ca. 540-48. A centralized plan with an axis. Note: mosaics mixing imperial and religious imagery; dome on octagon with squinches; dematerialization of the structure. Byzantine denial of the worldly.
(Domes: Princliple of pendentives; Domed cross with vaulting variations).
2. The Problem of Axiality and Centrality. The dome abutted by vaults: "Mausoleum of Galla Placidia"/Shrine of St. Lawrence, Ravenna, ca. 425. Note: sail vault (dome with pendentives), barrel vaults. The domed cross as a Byzantine solution. Exs.: Justinian's Church of the Apostles, Constantinople, ca. 536-50: five-domed structure of uncertain plan. The domed cross embedded in aisles: Saint Sophia, Kiev, USSR, ca. 1018-37, ca. 1100, rebuilt 17C. Note: plan and pyramidal domed mass. The Katholikon [ca. 1020] at Hosios Lukas in Phocis, Greece. Note: dome on octagon plan, iconostasis, complex mosaic program. The use of the church.
3. The Spectacular Solution. Stretching the dome. Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, 532-37; architects Anthemios of Tralles, Isidorus of Miletus; patrons Justinian and Theodora. Note: dome system, buttress system; clerical space and galleries; ideological intention. (Hagia Sophia, contempory interior).