Architects shape the human world, creating spaces suitable to our purposes. So to do his work purposefully, an architect must have some idea of the proper end of human beings. A building embodies the architect’s beliefs, often implicit beliefs, about the nature of man, his activity, and his relationships God and the world.
Churches create spaces for worship, in part by establishing appropriate relationships between what’s inside the church (the worshipers, the altar), what’s outside the church (the natural and political world), and what the church is ordered to (God, heaven). While we talked about some of the technical innovations that changed the appearance and affect of churches over the centuries, what I’m most interested in are those relationships as expressed in the building. We often talk about our experience of those relationships by saying that one church “feels” different from another. One church may make a visitor feel more solemn; another may make a visitor feel joyous. If we parsed our typical way of talking about our experiences of buildings, I think we’d come to see that the architect has quite purposely made us feel that way–that’s his art. He’s done it by establishing different relationships using the tools he has at hand: light, volume, weight, proportion, etc.
I’ll some up what we discussed in class by making two comparisons. In short, though, I think the three examples we started with–Saint Vitale, Saint Sernin, and Notre-Dame de Reims–embody different beliefs about our relationship to each other, to the world, and to God.
1. Saint Vitale (an octagonal church) v. Saint Sernin (on the basilica plan)
Plan of S. Vitale
Plan of Saint-Sernin
We talked about the different relationships these two churches establish between the worshipers and between the worshiper and the altar. In Saint Sernin, worshipers are placed in a longitudinal space that directs their attention to the altar; in Saint Vitale, worshipers gather under a central dome with an altar tucked into a mini-nave. How does that change the way a worshiper is related to his fellow worshipers and to the sacrament performed on the altar?
Here we can also talk about the affect of size (volume). We read Petrarch rebuking himself for looking outside of himself for God. For Augustine, it’s a question: do I look for God in the world? beyond the world? in my own heart? Where do these churches direct a worshiper to look for God?
2. Saint Sernin (Romanesque) v. Notre-Dame de Reims (Gothic)
Saint-Sernin
Saint Sernin looks (“feels”) heavier, more solid, more firmly grounded. It’s less ornamented and darker. It looks Roman (hence “Romanesque”), official, public. It can blend in with other public buildings–it’s a part of the city. As Pope Benedict says, Romanesque cathedrals “were very solid churches with thick walls, stone vaults and simple, spare lines.” Romanesque is a style of strength, often a very worldly strength, that invites God into the world.
Notre-Dame de Reims
Notre-Dame de Reims, by contrast, is ornate and characterized, like other Gothic cathedrals, by “a soaring upward movement and luminosity.” “The Gothic cathedral intended to express in its architectural lines,” Pope Benedict writes, “the souls’ longing for God.” If a Romanesque cathedral is God’s stronghold, his “footstool” in this world, a Gothic cathedral aches to pick itself up off the earth and reach heaven. This affect (this “feeling”) is accomplished by greater height in proportion to the width, by pointed arches and spires (every part of the building stretches upward), by thinner walls and more light (bigger windows) which make the building feel ethereal. While there are plenty of secular buildings in the Gothic style (Westminster Abbey, for example), it’s less likely that anyone will confuse a Gothic cathedral for some other important building–a Gothic cathedral, unlike a Romanesque cathedral, announces its dissatisfaction with this world and its aspirations for another world.
Some resources:
- Pope Benedict’s brief address on Romanesque and Gothic architecture.
- ARTstor image gallery: Early Christian, Romanesque and Gothic Architecture (or enter ARTstor.org and navigate to Folders & Image Groups>HUM 124 – Kruckenberg>Architecture: Romanesque and Gothic.
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