Free Example of Church Architectural Terms Essay

Church Architectural Terms. Romanesque Church Doors are of three different types:

• Round-arched entrance
•  Recessed or stepped portal
•  Recessed portal with columns

The Features   includes tympana, capitals and archivolts

 The Romanesque Church Windows are of four types:

• Simple curved headed window
•  fixed semicircular headed   lights with middle colonette
• Trefoil-headed window (William, 1989).

The Romanesque Church Ceilings are four types

• Flat ceiling version of early Christian basilica
•  Gradually replaced by the simple barrel vault
•  meeting point of transept vaults as well as the nave mausoleum result in a groin vault

Romanesque style: In General (6th-12th centuries)

Romanesque frequently refers to all works of this era, encompassing later Norman variations characterized by:  profound articulated masonry construction amid minute openings,    the round arch and barrel vault,   buttress,  vaulting rib and shaft , Cylindrical apse and chapels  ,   central and western square,  polygonal towers,   Ornamentation   stylistically rendered in animal and plants forms.  (William, 1989)

Definitions

Just to have a clear understanding of what we are talking about here the following definitions were considered necessary

• Vault - a masonry roof or top limit constructed on the arch principle.
• Barrel   vault – this is a semi cylindrical in cross-section which is in effect a deep arch or an uninterrupted series of arches, one at the back the other, above an oblong space
• Groin   vault – this is formed at the point at which two barrel (tunnel) vaults interconnect at right angles.
• Ribbed vault - outline of ribs or arches under the intersections of the vaulting sections.

A more complex and efficient type of vaulting was constantly needed because of the system failure the, lighting examples here included: Baptistery, Florence, Italy, Santa Maria Novella Church, Florence, Italy, Façade, Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence, Italy (William, 1989).