rotunda

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Martin's Rotunda , Prague
Körnerpark Berlin , water stairs and orangery

A rotunda ( Latin rotundus , Italian rotonda ) is a building with a circular floor plan . It can be simple or take on monumental proportions, serve sacred or profane functions and can be found in architecture in all epochs. Inside, it is often, but not necessary, structured by conches or niches and vaulted with a dome.

Antiquity

The Monopteros and the Tholos have been known as simple rotundas since ancient Greece and Rome . The treasure house of Atreus in Mycenae with its cantilever vault can be cited as an early example of this. The best-known example of a monumental central building in the form of a rotunda is the Pantheon , which was renewed under Emperor Hadrian .

Early Christianity

The Constantinian Church of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem (begun in 326) turned out to be trend-setting for the history of church construction ; Here the rotunda above the grave of Jesus, with a two-storey gallery and a three-storey, domed central building, is part of an original overall complex, which also included a courtyard with a columned gallery and a five-aisled basilica.

Church of the Holy Sepulcher, today's floor plan

Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome , consecrated in 470, is a first example in the West of early Christian church buildings based on the model of the Jerusalem Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This is also the last monumental building of the Western Roman Empire.

In Syria , simple rotundas can be made out within early Christian excavation sites (Cathedral of Bosra , 512/513).

middle Ages

Chambon-sur-Lac cemetery chapel , F, 10th and 12th century

Dalmatia

Around 800 the Holy Cross Church was built as a rotunda in Nin in Dalmatia .

Central Europe

Numerous rotundas as the earliest church buildings were built in the Moravian Empire ( Moravia , Bohemia and neighboring areas) since the 9th century . examples are

Hungary

The Romanesque round churches in Hungary and Transylvania served as parish churches and partly as fortified churches.

Bornholm

There are four Romanesque round churches on the island of Bornholm .

Burgundy

As a single element within an overall concept, the choir apex rotunda is remarkable; this tradition comes from Burgundy (St. Bénigne in Dijon , 11th century) and spread from here to Germany and the Mediterranean countries.

England

The central rotunda of English Templar churches ( Temple Church , London) are larger constructions with inner support wreaths, which in turn are linked to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

Castle towers

Medieval towers of castle complexes also have a circle as a floor plan. These structures in the function of a defensive tower ( keep or donjon) or residential tower generally no longer fall under the definition of rotunda , but the castle chapels do (well-preserved examples, for example in Bohemia and Moravia ). Exceptions to medieval city fortifications are the round kennel towers of city ​​gates , such as the Mündener Rotunda .

The extent to which the trulli of Alberobello can still be seen as rotunda on a circular floor plan has not been described (but also not definitely excluded).

Renaissance

Andrea Palladio's La Rotonda , 1571

In this epoch the monumental buildings of antiquity are linked again. The starting point is Italian architecture (Venice, Florence, Rome). The central rotunda is understood as the completion of a self-contained architectural harmony in which the horizontal and vertical forces are equivalent. Well-known domed rotundas can be found in many central buildings by Andrea Palladio (for example in the Villa La Rotonda ), Filippo Brunelleschi and Donato Bramante . Both Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci dealt with architectural theory and also made numerous designs that were not carried out.

For the most important and best-known rotunda with the world's largest cantilever dome, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, some top artists (including Bramante and Michelangelo ) had provided groundbreaking designs; In the end, a model by Giacomo della Porta was made .

Baroque

The art of monumental buildings with a central rotunda finds elaborate forms in Italy, but is also widespread north of the Alps.

Well-known examples are Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, the Frauenkirche in Dresden, the Karlskirche in Vienna, the Invalides in Paris. In Germany and Austria, this type of central building with rotunda is often used as a pilgrimage church (example: Maria Birnbaum in Bavaria).

In the garden art that was emerging in this era , the ancient type of the Monopteros rotunda was revitalized in the form of a small pavilion (Gloriette). Fountains and water features in baroque palace complexes are also often circular; In general and tourist language usage, the term fountain rotunda has manifested itself for this, but this is unspecific and not defined in architectural lexicons.

Baroque cemetery chapels also constitute or often contain a rotunda.

Newer and newest architecture

The neoclassical rotunda of the University of Virginia
The Racławice Panorama exhibition building in Wrocław , built in 1985
The market hall in Delmenhorst designed by Heinz Stoffregen in 1919
The protected Sparkasse rotunda in Warsaw , built in 1960

In classicism, monumental rotundas take up the tradition of the pantheon ( San Francesco di Paola in Naples; Gran Madre di Dio in Turin ). Dome buildings with a central rotunda are common in France ( Panthéon of Paris), Germany ( Paulskirche in Frankfurt ) and Denmark ( Frederiks Kirke , Copenhagen ). In the USA, the Rotunda of the University of Virginia used the round shape for a representative library building and inspired several successor buildings, for example at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Monopteros is a very popular object in park and garden design in classicism.

The largest building ever called the “Rotunda” was the Vienna Rotunda , built in 1873 , the central exhibition building of the 1873 World Exhibition ; it was the largest dome in the world until it was destroyed by fire in 1937 .

Sacré-Cœur , the classic example of Parisian historicism, has several side rotundas in addition to the central one.

More buildings

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Rotunda  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Rotunda  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rotunda pw św. Mikołaja - Cieszyn.pl - serwis informacyjny. Retrieved September 22, 2017 (Polish).
  2. ↑ http://www.vasoldsberg.at/index.php/uebergemeinde/klingensteinerachteckstadl Klingensteiner Achteckstadl, website of the Vasoldsberg community, from 2007, accessed October 26, 2015.