Byzantine Architecture

Byzantine Empire

Even though he Roman Empire fell in 476 AD the Middle Age began. On the other hand, just before its fall, the empire was divided into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. In 476, the "Western Roman Empire" fell, when the Eastern Roman Empire, whose capital became Constantinople, preserved Roman culture (and architecture) and became the Byzantine Empire.

The religious buildings and their styles are the 1st achievements of the Byzantine Empire. A different significant advancement was the improvement of bacilicas. Bacilicas have been early Christian or medieval churches. This style was prevalent in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

Byzantine and Islamic architecture share a widespread trend: that is, the use of the dome. One particular instance is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which was Islamic architecture, but illustrates the influence Byzantine bestowed as the dome style passed on to the Muslims. They normally made use of "Persian' dome. We modernly refer to this as the Onion Dome. The most celebrated instance is the Taj Mahal (A.D. 1630) at Agra, India. Byzantine's advancement in establishing the dome made a new style in worldwide architecture, for no other civilization had made buildings, in particular religious buildings, as did the Byzantines.

Structural evolution

As early as the building of Constantine's churches in Palestine there have been two chief forms of program in use: the basilican, or axial, form, represented by the basilica at the Holy Sepulchre, and the circular, or central, variety, represented by the terrific octagonal church after at Antioch. These of the latter form we will have to suppose have been practically normally vaulted, for a central dome would appear to furnish their extremely raison d'etre. The central space was occasionally surrounded by a extremely thick wall, in which deep recesses, to the interior, had been formed, as at the noble church of St George, Salonica (5th century), or by a vaulted aisle, as at Sta Costanza, Rome (4th century); or annexes have been thrown out from the central space in such a way as to form a cross, in which Those additions helped to counterpoise the central vault, as at the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna (5th century). The most well-known church of this form was that of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople. Vaults seem to had been early made use of to the basilican sort of program; for example, at Hagia Irene, Constantinople (6th century), the lengthy physique of the church is covered by two domes.

Hagia Sophia

The Golden Age of Byzantine Architecture was below the rule of Justian in 527-565. It was throughout this period that the most popular examples of all Byzantine Architecture was constructed, such as the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia was rebuilt from 532 to 537 as soon as the prior church was destroyed by riots and fires. This church has some distinctive attributes which became the patterns for Byzantine Architecture for years once.

The style of the Hagia Sophia or Church of Divine Wisdom, was to have a big dome in the middle of the structure. The dome has a special form in that it rest on 4 large pillars which are arranged in a square.