macro to micro

composition
The Basilica di Santa Maria della Fiore (Duomo Cathedral) located in Florence, Italy is a excellent example of a successful composition. The cathedral is built in the form of a Roman cross and is most distinguished by its enormity. The Duomo boasts features such as large bronze doors, stained glass windows, and internal buttresses. Yet, the most notable feature of the Duomo is the dome itself. “On the basis of traditional medieval building practices, the proposed dome vault seemed impossible to build.” (Roth 357). Yet it wasn’t: this enormous stone dome has an octagonal, double walled design. It is mounted on a drum, which allows the entire dome to be built without the need for scaffolding. It was the first large dome to be constructed without centering.


porch : court : hearth
“When the Renaissance began about 1400, there was no single Italy, but rather a series of duchies, republics, and kingdoms along the Italian peninsula.”(Roth 354). Over time, Italy began to use more private money to fund public projects, giving merchants and guilds higher power. Public and private spaces that had once been undefined began to converge into a unified center. This is most evident in the design of Italian towns. For example, in Italian towns such as Florence, surrounding homes served as a porch, markets functioned as the court and the cathedral acted as a hearth.



diagram
In Suzanne’s drawing class we learned about the use of diagrams to convey the importance of spaces within a building. A good example of such a diagram could be a floor plan, which shows the parts of the structure. In the floor plan of t he cathedral in Amiens, France, we can see that “The plan shows the increasing size of the choir in High Gothic cathedrals[…]” (Roth 335). This was also important to our history lesson because we were able to use our knowledge of diagrams to study and learn our assigned cathedrals.



impression
This week in history we studied the cathedral Amiens, France. Amiens is a breathtaking structure that serves the most pure vision of Gothic style. It is an extremely massive cross-shaped building that towers over the surrounding city. The cathedral in Amiens, France makes a huge impression on the viewer with its size. It is also the first cathedral to use flying butresses (Roth 333). It features an exposed exterior structure, which reveals the “story” of the building. Also, large iron doors, columnettes, flying buttresses, and a labyrinth characterize breadth, length, height, and repetition to intensify the magnitude of the space.



details



In both our drawing and history class we learned how details make a building special, and the fact that we should be able to recognize a building just based on a small detail. In drawing, I found details of the Ferguson building to draw. I focused on zooming in and capturing what makes the detail important.
In history, we learned about details in gothic cathedrals and the use of ornamentation. For example, the “great vaulted naves of Saint-Sernin[…]” (Roth 323) used the power of mass and size that blocked light, yet emitted a sense of power.