Architectural Geographies Flashcards
Economic and Social contributions: Cathedrals
Town Formation
Economic Transition
Heresy
Economy
New Forms of Music
Heresy
Incorrect Belief. (opposite of orthodoxy)
Usury
Interest. (Actually used to be a sin: when you loan someone money, you could ask for interest.)
King Law
Only businesses run by jewish people could be bankers. They offloaded the sin of usury onto the jewish.
Design of cathedrals to make you feel:
- like the designers were of God.
- That you are small
- Feelings of opulence
Value of cathedrals of religious:
The architecture brought validity to the people who built them and their ideas. The idea was that only people empowered by God could design and build something like that.
Cathedrals are physical representations of orthodoxy.
Cathedrals are a physical representation of
orthodoxy
Cathedrals as an economic activity
- People made pilgrimages to these locations (still to this day)
- People were drawn to reliquaries in these cathedrals
-
Reliquary
a container in which you put a relic in.
The cathedral can be read as if
it were a text. It’s features tell us a story.
Light in cathedrals
Architecture allowed light to flood in
Symbolic of God (god is light).
Symbolic of Heaven streaming into the cathedral
Light is immaterial
“In a cathedral, the living can get a glimpse of heaven”
Geometric Uniformity in cathedrals
(often the shape of the cross)
- nature of mathetics and geometrics and the belief that anything geometric would stand
Features of cathedrals
Light
Geometric Uniformity
Interior Focused
Large
Interior focus in cathedral design
Outsides were often bland
Symbolic that the inside of a person is more important than the outside
Idea that outdoors = profane, not sacred
Cathedrals were large because…
they needed to ‘contain god’
- seen as literally the house of god
- today this is metaphorical
Music in cathedrals
The architecture of cathedral interiors birth entirely new forms of music.
Presbytery
- more sacred ground
- women were not allowed to enter here
- this is where the choir sits.
Windows in cathedrals…
often depicted stories from the bible to those who could not read.
Gargoyls on cathedrals
were drainage systems to move water away from the building.
imagery was used to stimulate memory.
Relic
The actual body parts of people who have been beatified.
In the 1900’s, there was ___ cathedral for every ___
In the 1900’s, there was a cathedral for every 200 people
Saint Denis (paris) took
250-300 years to be built.
Fasted built cathedral
Gastonbury Abby - built in 17 years.
Laborers:
Not full time, seasonal
Huge investment of time, money and physical resources.
Biblical notion of cathedrals
There was no biblical notion of a need to build cathedrals in the bible.
Kings role before cathedrals became popular
- Ruler
2. Spiritual Figureheads
