Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Romanesque art and Architecture

Romanesque architecture is commonly seen a very thick and heavy, because that is basically what it was. So why not refer to it as big and heavy. Reason for that of cores being you are dealing with a form of construction that if employing heavy materials. Now it is a common them in architecture once someone does something someone else has to outdo them. Romans invented concrete which lead to the creation of the arch and the barrel vault in construction. So the next step would be to go bigger and better. There is a problem with that, problem being the bigger you go be it vertical or horizontal or both you are going to have to use more of it. Which means using thicker and thicker walls to support the structure, and if you want to put an opening for a window that means maker the walls thicker still to compensate for the part you took out. Same thing if you want to go higher, because the higher you go the more wind resentence you get from the exterior as well as the vaulted ceiling wanting to push down. If you want to incorporate a peer of some kind you still have to make it relatively fat depending on how high you want to make it. Which let’s face it ok if you are going to the trouble of making a peer in the first place you are not going to make it small. Boy am I glad we know have steel to reinforce concert, that means we can make is thinner, because the steal is helping to hold it up. Of coerce now we just have to deal with the fact that concrete it pores so water will get in and eventually cause the steal to fail. Oh well what can you do, guess everything is a give and take.

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