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Romanesque Architecture
Romanesque = Roman like

• Describes the European style of building design which flourished during the
late Medieval era (c.800-1200).
• Reached its zenith in the eleventh century hinging on the year 1095 when
Urban II proclaimed the Crusade
• Influenced mainly by classical Roman architecture, as well as elements
of Byzantine art, and Islamic art.
• Characterized by the desire to articulate, to stress or underline every
structural division in order to produce unified compositions.
• Characterized by a new massiveness of scale, expressing the increasing
stability of the age and the re-emergence of European culture after four
centuries of the Dark Ages (476AD-1456).
• Traditionally divided into three periods: (1) Pre-Romanesque: Carolingian
& Ottonian architecture (c.800-1000). (2) Early Romanesque (11th
century). (3) Mature Romanesque (c.1070-1170).

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Pre-Romanesque
• The areas of Europe where buildings were constructed during this
period have little in common other than their sources of inspiration.
• Most significant Regions - Carolingan homelands in Northern France
and the Rhineland, Asturias in Northern Spain, Northern Italy and
Anglo-Saxon England.

Early Romanesque
• Re-used the rounded arches, wall masses and barrel-vaults of the Romans, but
they also introduced changes.
• saw the overcoming of Byzantine models and the abandonment of the formal
language of classical antiquity.
• column was replaced by the pillar; spaces previously left empty were filled with
thick walls, forming compact masses
• the elevation of walls was divided into three or even four levels (arcade, gallery,
triforium, and clerestory).
• The major structural change, a result of advances in construction techniques, was
the progressive ability to cover churches with vaulted ceilings.
• creation of an articulated structure on the exterior, with varying combinations of
volumes decorated with stylistic elements from antiquity, such as pilaster strips,
hanging arches, and blind arcades.

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Mature Romanesque
• late 1060s
• total adoption of the vault covering - progress made in construction techniques
• Articulation of walls - still divided in bays with an elevation on several levels. -
transepts, presbytery, apses, even the exterior
• precise figural purposes: to welcome, shelter, and embrace the faithful in a
setting both stately and dignified, designed along perspective lines to give a sense
of depth, all culminating in the ambulatory apse.
• adoption of the system of bays taken as spatial units; they were no longer
divisions, marked off by transverse arches, of a unitary space, but were rather
spatial bodies that were added one to the next, an addition of cells in a rigidly
symmetrical order.
• The walls was now structured as a plastic mass that could be disassembled and
into which space could enter by way of openings in its surface, sometimes
creating internal galleries along which people could move.

Romanesque Architecture Characteristics

• Semi-circular Arches
Most arches were semi-circular although a few have pointed arches. Narrow
windows/doors might be topped by a stone lintel. Larger openings were nearly always
arched.
• Thick Walls
These massive supporting walls had few and comparatively small openings and almost
eliminated the need for buttresses.
• Arcades
These were a particularly popular feature. Note: an arcade consists of a row of arches,
supported on either columns or piers. Columns were either drum columns (if small) or
hollow core (if large). Piers were typically built out of masonry and were either square or
rectangular. Capitals on columns were usually of the foliate Corinthian style.
• Roofs
These were made from wood, then stone. Vaulted roofs generally featured barrel-vaults
and groin vaults made of stone or brick. Eventually, these evolved into the pointed ribbed
arch used in Gothic architecture.
• Towers
These were a regular feature of Romanesque churches. Types included: square, circular
and octagonal towers.

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ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: North Italy

Churches
Plan: basilican plan
Façade:
• arcades all over façade
• wheel window
• central projecting porch, with columns on crouching beasts
Structural: rib and panel vaulting - framework of ribs support thin stone panels
Ornament:
• character was less refined due to use of stone and brick, instead of marble
• roughly-carved grotesque figures of men and beasts (shows northern European
influence)

Baptisteries - used 3 times a year: Easter, Pentecost, Epiphany - large, separate

buildings - connected to cathedral by atrium
• octagonal in plan
• with projecting porch
• pilaster strips
• corbel
• arcading at façade and apse
• octagonal lantern on top

• Campaniles - straight towers shafts, generally standing alone - served as civic

monuments, symbols of power, watch towers
• square-planned, no buttresses
• facade of simple pilaster strips
• loggia on top, displaying bells
• pyramidal roof

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ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: South Italy

Cathedrals: basilican plan, richer in design and color
• elaborate wheel windows – made of sheets of pierced marble
• greater variety in columns and capitals
• elaborate bronze doors and bronze pilasters
Byzantine influence: mosaic decorations, no vaults, used domes
Muslim influence: use of striped marbles, stilted pointed arches,
colorful, geometric designs as predominant interior decoration

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: Central

Italy
Cathedrals: concentrated on ornamental details, rather than new construction systems
Plan: resembled basilican churches
Façade:
• ornamental arcades
• doors and windows are small and unimportant (even wheel window)
Inside: use of antique columns to separate nave from aisle
Ornament: classical precedent was used only to suit the fragments of old ornaments used in new
buildings
Example: Pisa Cathedral
• forms one of most famous building groups in the world - Cathedral, Baptistery, Campanile, and
Campo Santo
• resembles other early basilican churches in plan
• exterior of red and white marble bands

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ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: North France

Remains of old buildings were less abundant – they had greater freedom of developing new style
Cathedrals
Plans:
• basilican type
• rib-vaults and semi-circular or pointed arches over the nave and aisles
• timber-framed roofs of slate finish and steep slope to throw off snow
• façade:
• 2 flanking square towers with pyramidal or conical roofs
• imposing doorways with sculptured tympana
• facade divided into wall arcades by string courses or horizontal mouldings
• filled with ornaments of foliage, men and animal figures
sides:
• massive walls with flat buttresses
• windows with semi-circular heads, sometimes grouped together and enclosed in larger arch
ornament:
• capitals and bases are rough Corinthian imitations

Examples

Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris

 among the first instances of

S. Madeleine, Vezelay using the pointed arch
 ribbed vault, pointed arch
 has nave and aisles with and flying buttresses
earliest pointed cross-vault in successfully combined
France

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ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: South France

Remarkable for richly decorated church façade and graceful cloisters, and for
the use of old Roman architectural features which seems to have acquired a
fresh significance.
Cathedrals
Plans:
• cruciform plan
• semi-circular east end, as an ambulatory with radiating chapels
• nave and 2-storeyed aisles
Example:
St. Sernin, Toulouse
• cruciform, with nave double aisles and transepts
• round arch barrel vault on nave

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: Germany

Also known as Central Europe
Exhibits continuous combination of Carolingan tradition and Lombard influence
Cathedrals
Examples:
Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) Cathedral
• built by emperor Charlemagne as his tomb house
• polygon of sixteen sides, 32 m in diameter
• dome on top, 14.5 m in diameter
Church of the Apostles, Cologne
• trefoil apses
Worms Cathedral
• eastern and western apses and octagons
• 2 circular towers flank each
• octagon at crossing, with pointed roof

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ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE
Spain, Portugal and Holy Land
Spain and Portugal
Features:
• use of both basilican and Greek-cross forms
• use of horseshoe arch
Structures:
1. Religious Buildings Santiago de Compostela
2. Military Buildings
• finest achievement of Romanesque in
a. castles Spain
b. city walls
The Holy Land
1. Religious Buildings
2. Military Buildings
a. Pilgrim Forts
b. Coastal Fortifications
c. Strategic Inland Castles

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: England

Architectural Characters
a. Roman Period – mosaic flooring, pottery and sculpture on dwelling houses and public
buildings
b. Anglo-Saxon Period – domestic buildings was dependent largely upon the use of
timber, pilaster strips from the Liesenen of Carolingan Rhineland and blind arcading,
use of triangular headed openings, and turned balusters and mid-wall shafts.
c. Norman Period – features imported directly from Normandy – typical Benedictine plan
having three eastern apses such as those in Durham and Peterborough
- Stained glass are used, though sparingly, in small pieces, leaded together in mosaic-like patterns.
- Timber roofs were colored, sometimes with lozenge-shaped panels
Examples:
1. Cathedral Churches
a. the old foundation - served by secular clergy
b. Monastic foundation - served by regular clergy or monks, later by secular canons
c. New foundation - to which bishops had been appointed
2. Monastic Buildings

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2. Castles
a. Anglo-Saxon Period – no castles, as the Forts or burhs built at this time were community
use; privately speaking castles were private strongholds for kind of lord, and were an
outcome of the feudal system, which did not apply in England until the conquest.
b. Norman Period
• there were 1,500 castles in England and 1,200 were founded in the 11th and 12th
centuries
• began as motte and bailey earthworks
• later became citadels with stone curtain walls
• developed donjons or keeps
4. Manor houses – the most important house in a country or village neighborhood
- the main residential building in a manor or estate in feudal medieval Britain.
- a similar edifice for the Presbyterian Church in Scotland

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE: Scandinavia

Earliest domestic building customs were based upon timber techniques allied to forms.
Romanesque characteristic appear upon both British and Continental European influences
upon church building in stone became effective toward the middle of the eleventh century
Characteristics:
• Inner timber colonnade which contributes to basilican plan section with a (blind)clear-
storey, and steep scissors-trussed roof.
• Uses Ramloftstuga
Examples:
1. Religious Buildings – stave church – wooden church with vertical planks forming the
walls
2. Secular Buildings – minor domestic architecture generally conformed to the strong
tradition of timber construction and little original work survives
- stone-built dwellings followed the continental custom, and common with the
Norman manor house in England.