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In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross, with arms of equal length or, later, a cross-in-square plan. In the Western churches, a cruciform architecture usually, though not exclusively, means a church built with the layout developed in Gothic ...
Adding transepts improved the stability of the log technique and is one reason why the cruciform floor plan was widely used during 1600 and 1700s. For instance the Old Olden Church (1759) replaced a building damaged by hurricane, the 1759 church was then constructed in cruciform shape to make it withstand the strongest winds. [10]
Such cruciform churches were very common in the West during the Romanesque period. [2] The ideal church plan tended to be symmetrical around a central point during the Renaissance. [10] The longer arm of the Latin cross plan is the nave, which runs on an east–west axis and traditionally contains aisles or chapels.
The cruciform church often includes side-aisles similar to the Western basilica, but they are often very short and cut open in the middle, leaving a large cross shape through the middle of the church. The open square/circle is the newer of the two forms.
Cathedral floor plan (crossing is shaded) A crossing, in ecclesiastical architecture, is the junction of the four arms of a cruciform (cross-shaped) church. [1]In a typically oriented church (especially of Romanesque and Gothic styles), the crossing gives access to the nave on the west, the transept arms on the north and south, and the choir, as the first part of the chancel, on the east.
As described above, the majority of cathedrals and great churches are cruciform in shape with the church having a defined axis. The axis is generally east/west with external emphasis upon the west front, normally the main entrance, and internal emphasis upon the eastern end so that the congregation faces the direction of the coming of Christ .
The cross-in-square church may be said to constitute a unique artistic development of the middle Byzantine period. Early Byzantine churches were predominantly basilical or centrally planned (e.g. cruciform tetraconch churches, octagons). The question of the origins of the cross-in-square form has therefore engaged art historians since the ...
This cross existed in a slightly different form (with the bottom crossbeam pointing upwards) in Byzantium, and it was changed and adopted by the Russian Orthodox Church and especially popularized in the East Slavic countries. Russian cross: Six-pointed variant of Russian Orthodox cross proposed at the 1654 Moscow church council.