Chapter 4 - Composition of Spatial Arrangements

Summary

DESIGNING A BUILDING involves working on its form and size as well as its interior. The shapes, forms, and style of buildings of the period were primarily influenced by architectural choices—for instance, the width and arrangement of windows and doors. Interior arrangements also impacted the spatial composition. All partitioning was the result of development and placement of nave supports, and walls. Other components that defined the interior style and form included columns, pilasters, and niches, and the width and distribution of doors and windows. All these factors influenced the basic rhythm and dynamic of the layout of the interior space. Elements such as an east or west choir elevated upon a crypt or a west-section gallery were more than architectural choices, though. Their primary purpose was to delineate liturgical areas. They included an episcopal throne (cathedra), altars, altar screens, a ciborium, semi-circular benches for the clergy in the main apse (synthronon, subsellia), a pulpit (ambo), a raised passage between the altar and pulpit (solea), and a baptismal font.Most were defined by the church's function: a bishop's cathedra would not be found in an abbey church; a baptismal font would be placed in a baptistery or an area of the church designated for baptism. Since church furnishings were used in the liturgy and during assorted ceremonies, their form and location having to correspond to the particular rites. In case of modification to any given rite, the form and location of particular church furnishings were adapted to new requirements.However, one trait never changed: each item of church furnishing drew the faithful to it, impacting the circulation of people.

There was one exceptional interior element whose emergence substantially influenced a given church's spatial arrangement and symbolism while adding to the manifestation of power—burials in the church interiors. Two alternatives existed: one not physically visible in the church (the tomb placed underground), and one where a tomb was accentuated with additional architectural structures, their potential forms diverse. The simplest one, its interference with sacred space kept to the bare minimum, involved marking the tomb's presence with a gravestone on the floor of the nave. Marking a burial with an elevated architectural structure (memoria or confessio) offered various options. The latter evolved significantly through to the ninth to eleventh centuries, developing precise forms, meanings, and connections to the liturgy.