Pendentif
A Pendant [ pɑdɑtif ] ( French pendre : hanging , also: Suspension gore , Eckzwickel or part vault ) is a spherical triangle to reconcile square ground plan of a substructure for the root circle of a dome . The pendentive is bounded by three quarter arches, of which the upper, horizontal part forms the fourth part of the base of the dome.
description
The dome base is usually the crossing of a church or a central building with a square floor plan; in rare cases the floor plan of the base can be octagonal. The dome was only in four (or eight) points on the square substructure, which would inevitably have led to its collapse. Therefore the enlargement of their contact area was necessary in terms of statics and construction.
A cylindrical element, a drum , is often inserted between the pendants and the dome . A gusset shape that is structurally simpler than the pendentif is the trompe . There are mixed forms between pendentif and trompe.
history
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It is unclear whether pendentives were already known in Roman thermal bath architecture - they are considered characteristic of Byzantine architecture. The model for many later buildings was Hagia Sophia, built between 532 and 537. In the middle of the 6th century the pendentive dome was first used in Syria in the church of the palace Qasr ibn Vardan . The first pendent dome in Georgia on the Church of Our Lady of the All Saints Monastery of Watschnadsiani dates from the 9th century .
decor
The triangular vaulted surfaces of the four pendentives are usually only visible from the inside and are mostly decorated with mosaics and paintings (such as the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul) or simple reliefs ( Panteón de Hombres Ilustres in Madrid). The shape of the medallion is most common, for example in the Cappella dei Pazzi in Florence. In many medieval and modern church buildings there are depictions of the four evangelists and / or their symbols - more rarely also portraits of the four church fathers of the West.
literature
- Wilfried Koch : Architectural style. The great standard work on European architecture from antiquity to the present. Orbis, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-572-00689-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Binding, Günther, Alfred-Kröner-Verlag: Pictorial dictionary of architecture With English, French, Italian and Spanish technical glossaries . 5th edition. Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-520-19405-3 .