The mind of architecture: 2021

Gothic and Medieval // Castle (Architecture Style)

Gothic and Medieval // Castle (Architecture Style)

Region: Europe
Period: Twelfth to ﬁfteenth century
Characteristics:

Battlements
Gatehouse
Towers
Bastions
Keep or donjon
Concentric curtain walls

A castle is the fortiﬁed residence of a lord or noble. The earliest examples were usually built of wood on top of large earthworks.

This construction method had its origins long in the past; the earliest forts appeared once civilizations had accumulated enough wealth to make it worth protecting.

However, the medieval castle, a residence as well as a fort, was quite different to the much earlier building type, and became inextricably linked to the feudal system.

As monarchs devolved power at a local level to lords and knights, secure and impressive buildings were required from which such authority could be administered.

The ﬁrst feudal castles were of the motte-and-bailey variety. A square keep, or donjon, atop a large mound of earth – the motte – was the administrative heart of the castle, containing the great hall, the chapel and the lord’s residence.

For that reason it was the most heavily fortiﬁed part. Below the motte was the bailey, a larger enclosed area fortiﬁed by a surrounding stake fence or palisade (later a stone wall) above a ditch. The bailey contained stables, barracks, workshops kitchens and other service buildings required for the castle to sustain itself.

From the end of the twelfth century the Crusades fundamentally altered the course of castle design. Inspired by Saracen examples, European castles – Château Gaillard, France, begun in 1196 by Richard I, King of England (r. 1189–99) and Duke of Aquitaine, was arguably the ﬁrst – began to adopt series of concentric curtain walls, reducing the reliance on the keep for defence, which eventually disappeared from castle design.

Symmetry also became an important consideration; castles were laid out on a regular plan, with their concentric walls punctuated by evenly spaced towers and bastions. The Castel del Monte, one of a number of castles built in southern Italy in the mid thirteenth century by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–50), remains the most complete example of this period.

Its octagonal plan perhaps derives from ancient Roman precedent, but was also inspired by contemporary Gothic architecture. The concentric castle type evolved features such as round towers, which were less vulnerable to attack.

However, the advent of gunpowder, and especially of heavy cannon in the mid ﬁfteenth century, marked the end of the castle as fort-residence. A new generation of permanent forts better able to withstand cannon ﬁ re became the primary means of defence, yet castles have retained their symbolic signiﬁ cance up to the present day.

Battlements


Sirmione Castle, Brescia, Italy, thirteenth century

Battlements Castles were equipped with various forms of battlement. Crenellations, regularly spaced teeth-like projections on a wall, were the most characteristic. They were often combined with machicolations: holes in the ﬂ oor between corbels that allowed defenders to drop objects and liquids on attackers below.

Gatehouse

Kidwelly Castle, Carmarthenshire, Wales,
begun 1200

Gatehouse Entry into and out of the castle was regulated through the gatehouse. As an obvious point of weakness in the castle’s defences, a gatehouse was usually heavily fortiﬁ ed with battlements as well as one or more portcullises and often a drawbridge. Some castles also included a barbican, a secondary gatehouse in which attackers could be trapped.

Towers

Castel del Monte, Apulia, Italy, 1240s

Towers While the keep was essentially a squat tower, towers became signiﬁ cant in concentric castles, as they strengthened potential defensive weak spots. They afforded castle occupants wide views of the surrounding area and oncoming attackers – who would soon be faced by hails of arrows and other missiles.

Bastions

Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes, Camargue,
France, begun 1289

Bastions Long curtain walls could be potentially vulnerable to attack or undermining from close range because an attacker knew that he could only be repelled from front on. Curtain walls were therefore often punctuated by bastions, tower-like structures projecting from the wall plane that allowed defenders to repel attackers from the side too.

Keep /donjon

Keep, Norwich Castle, Norfolk, begun 1095

Keep /donjon In motte-and-bailey castles and early concentric castles, the keep or donjon was most heavily fortiﬁ ed part of the castle. The keep contained the lord’s residence and was the administrative centre of the building and its surrounding area.

Concentric curtain walls

Krak des Chevaliers, Syria, begun 1140s

Concentric curtain walls Originating in Crusader castles such as the famous Krak des Chevaliers, Syria, concentric castles removed the focus on the keep and allowed a more tactical form of defence. Defensive troops could move around the castle far more easily, while attackers who breached the outer ring would have to counter a second, higher ring before being able to overrun the castle.

Book Reference:

Architectural Styles A Visual Guide by Owen Hopkins
https://amzn.to/3GpINsx

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, by Dana Krystle

In Architecture styles,

Gothic and Medieval // High Gothic (Architecture Style)

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, by Dana Krystle

In Architecture styles,

Gothic and Medieval // Early Gothic (Architecture Style)

Gothic and Medieval // Early Gothic (Architecture Style)

Region: France and England

Period: Twelfth to mid thirteenth century
Characteristics:

Plate tracery
Pointed arch
Rib vault
Flying buttress
Four-storey bay
Sexpartite vault

The innovations of the choir at Saint Denis quickly spread, and were applied and developed in successive cathedrals across the Île-de-France and further aﬁ eld, notably in England.

The essentially Romanesque three-storey bay of Saint-Denis was soon superseded by the addition of a triforium level above the gallery at Noyon Cathedral. The inclusion of this arcade often resulted in alternating major and minor piers and supports, which gave a sense of increased height and verticality over the more static Romanesque arrangement.

The vaulting system that characterized Early Gothic was sexpartite, that is, a vault divided into six parts by two diagonal ribs and one transverse rib.

At Noyon and Laon, for example, each vault spans two arcade bays, as deﬁned by the arches of the lower arcade, with the transverse vault running between the two adjacent bays across the nave. The apparent movement eastwards from the nave through the crossing to the chancel, while enhanced by the narrower bays created by the pointed arch, was mediated by the wide, almost square vaults above.

While Early Gothic cathedrals in France achieved a spatial unity and harmony, those in England in the style dubbed ‘Early English’ (roughly dating to between 1180 and 1275) retained a more additive, ‘sum-of-their-parts’ quality.

The early choir at Canterbury was designed by a Frenchman (William of Sens) and for that reason can hardly be called English Gothic. Yet as the Gothic spread to Wells, Somerset, and to Lincoln in the 1190s, English masons adapted the style for their own ends.

The arcade bays at Wells and Lincoln are wider than their French counterparts, and their vaults sit on corbels above the piers of the lower gallery rather than extending through them from the arcade below. Begun in 1220 and ﬁnished (apart from its façade and spire) comparatively quickly in 1258, Salisbury in Wiltshire is the most consistent example of the ‘Early English’ style: a tall, wide arcade; a platetraceried gallery with a traditional lancetwindowed clerestory; and an elegantly light quadripartite vault soaring above.

Plate tracery

Plate tracery One of the earliest types of Gothic tracery,plate tracery seems to cut through a solid stone wall, creating a robust architectural effect that is usually loosely geometric rather than overtly decorative in appearance. It is far simpler than later forms of tracery, which are used to ﬁll in an already-existing open space.

Pointed arch

Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis,
Paris, begun ca. 1135

Pointed arch The central feature of Gothic architecture, the pointed arch is formed from two (or more) intersecting curves that meet in a central apex or point. Their main structural advantage over the round arch is to enable greater height and the creation of rectangular bays.

Rib vault

Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis,
Paris, begun ca. 1135

Rib vault A Romanesque groin vault (produced by the perpendicular intersection of two barrel vaults) is a structural whole; no part can be removed without its overall integrity being affected. The structural framework of a rib vault, in contrast, is produced by projecting strips of masonry – the ribs – which then support the ‘web’ or inﬁ ll.

Flying buttress

Notre Dame, Paris, begun 1163

Flying buttress Although they can be found in Romanesque architecture, the possibilities of ﬂ ying buttresses were fully realized only with the advent of the Gothic. They consist of ‘ﬂ ying’ (or open) half arches that help counter the thrust of a high vault, allowing higher buildings but without an increased wall thickness.

Four-storey bay

Four-storey bay The earliest type of Gothic bay elevation, as seen at Saint-Denis, had three storeys. However, this was essentially an adaptation of the Romanesque and it quickly gave way to the four-storey bay, for example at Noyon, which consisted of arcade, gallery, triforium and clerestory.

Sexpartite vault

Sexpartite vault Romanesque architecture made use of simple barrel and groin vaults. The sexpartite vault, in many ways a natural progression from these types of vault, spans a square space and is divided into six parts by two diagonal ribs and one transverse rib.

Book Reference:

Architectural Styles A Visual Guide by Owen Hopkins
https://amzn.to/3GpINsx

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, by Dana Krystle

In Architecture styles,

Classical Architecture // Early Christian // Romanesque (Architecture Style)

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, by Dana Krystle

In basics,

Architecture Language : What is (Avant-garde)?

"The modern arts have a special obligation, an advanced or avant-garde duty, to go ahead of their own age and transform it."
—Ezra Pound

Zürich’s Galerie Gmurzynska presents ‘Abstracting The Landscape’, a new exhibition of Zaha Hadid Design works and drawings by the late architect. Pictured here is the ‘Mesa Table’

Read more about Zaha Hadid Design and the Russian avant garde:
https://www.wallpaper.com/design/zaha-hadid-design-russian-avant-garde

Avant-garde describes a group, as of writers and artists, considered ahead of their times, i.e. regarded as preeminent in the invention and application of new techniques in a given field.

The term was originally used by the French military to refer to a small reconnoitre group that scouted ahead of the main force.

It also became associated with left-wing French radicals in the nineteenth century who were agitating for political reform. At some point in the middle of that century the term was linked to art through the idea that art is an instrument for social change.

Only toward the end of the nineteenth century did l’art d’avant-garde begin to break away from its identification with Left-wing social causes to become more aligned with cultural and artistic issues.

This trend toward increased emphasis on aesthetic issues has continued to the present. Avant-garde today generally refers to groups of intellectuals, writers and artists, including architects, who voice ideas and experiment with artistic approaches that challenge current cultural values.

Avant-garde ideas, especially if they embrace social issues, often are gradually assimilated by the societies they confront. The radicals of yesterday become mainstream, creating the environment for a new generation of radicals to emerge.

Although the avant-garde has a strong tradition in the US in the areas of art and literature, in architecture the so-called avant-garde has recently tended to look to the past or to other cultures for validation and imagery.

In an editorial in Progressive Architecture (1993), Thomas Fisher also berates the lack of vitality of the current avant-garde in the US, reminding the architectural profession that, in spite of the influence of avant-garde Modernist architects escaping the fascism of Europe in the 1930s, the architects of the early Modern avant-garde had a very specific social, as well as artistic, agenda.

Thomas Fisher's Paper:
https://usmodernist.org/PA/PA-1994-01.pdf

In order that it be a positive, creative force for change, Fisher argues for broadening the focus of the avant-garde beyond the concerns of aesthetics and style to the original, and toward a more inclusive concept of the avant-garde.

Book Reference :

Archispeak An Illustrated Guide to Architectural Terms by Porter Tom.
Get the Book on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/3o8eCQo

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, by Dana Krystle

In basics,

Architecture Language : What is (Bespoke)?

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, by Dana Krystle

In basics,

Architecture Language : What is (Archetypal image)?

"If we trace the artistic forms of things made by man, to their origin, we find imitation of nature."

—W.R.Lethaby

Bronze I-beams for the Seagram’s Building tower in midtown New York, 1956. Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The term ‘archetype’ emanates from the psychological work of Carl Jung and his theories concerning the ‘collective unconscious’.

It describes an original notion or image from which other forms might be contrived. Therefore, an archetypal image is a deeply rooted, primitive symbol, motif or schema which becomes distilled as prototypes to constantly influence our world of imagination.

Although not scientifically confirmed, certain archetypal forms are thought to be inherited from humankind’s earliest ancestors and are presumed to be present in the collective subconscious.

One such image is the mandala (a square contained by, or enclosing, a circle). Described by Jung as holding a deeply emotional significance, the mandala provides a footprint upon which many buildings have been formed. Other basic archetypal images include the ‘arch cross’ (cruciform), the ‘arch clew’ (spiral), and their superimposed combination, the ‘cross-clew’.

The arch cross motivates those bent on right angles, i.e. the pragmatic and mathematically orientated. Those driven by the spiral arch clew favour circular forms; they are more romantic and emotional than their pragmatic arch cross counterparts. The cross-clew archetype compels those who work with a combination of the two archetypes.

If Mies van der Rohe’s work is representative of the arch cross, and that of Erich Mendelssohn’s the arch clew, then the architecture of Alvar Aalto presents a prime example of the cross-clew.

Alvar Aalto : Viipuri Library Lecture Hall

shocken-department-store-erich-mendelsohn

Julani Pallasmaa describes Aalto’s architecture as often exhibiting sensuous associations that appear to derive from the image of Primordial Female or Earth Mother.

Also, a particularly recurrent aspect of Aalto’s work is the repeated appearance of certain patterns, such as the wave-like flowing Line—drawn from the fox’s tale in Finnish folklore, the distorted grid and the tree-like radiating fan which denotes the dynamism of growth. Pallasmaa further suggests that the frequency with which these archetypal images occur in Aalto’s work invites psychoanalytic interpretation.

In Finnish, Northern lights are called “Lights of the Fox”. It comes from the old beliefs, that says the lights come from the fox tail hitting the snow.

by Linda Piekäinen