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TEXT I. THE FIRST DOMES

Architects discovered thousands of years ago that they could enclose spaces not only with a flat ceiling, but also by using a semi-circular vault. This curved ceiling was suitable above all for centrally planned buildings, that is buildings which were planned on a round or square footprint. Domes were frequently used in Antiquity, and in Byzantine architecture they were part of a permanent formal vocabulary, being used primarily in mosques. At the end of the Middle Ages the vaulted form of the dome also experienced a renaissance, as demonstrated by the brilliant achievement of the dome of Florence Cathedral. However dome building had already reached its first peak 1,300 years earlier, in the Pantheon in Rome.

This temple dedicated to all the gods (in Latin pantheum means "to every god") is among the best preserved monuments of ancient Rome. The circular structure was built between 118 and 125 A.D. and remained in use as a Christian church even after the Roman period. A wide portico stands in front of the circular temple building and leads to the domed interior. The dome is as high as it is wide, and as the section shows, it was designed in the shape of a perfect sphere. The diameter of the rotunda is 43 meters, and this is the same as the height of the walls from the floor to the vertex of the dome. Light enters the interior through a round, nine-meter-wide opening in the center of the vault: this topmost oculus is the only source of light in the Pantheon. The dome is decorated on the inside with coffering: the five rows of sunken square panels reduce in size towards the oculus and intensify the effect of great height. The material of which the dome is made is a kind of lightweight concrete, to which a mortar of volcanic stones was added in order to reduce the net weight. The Pantheon in Rome is not only the largest dome in the ancient world but is also the largest dome to be created by being molded as a single unit.

Domes were of great importance in Byzantine architecture, as demonstrated by the Hagia Sophia, which was built in Constantinople ( now Istanbul) between 532 and 537. The capital of the Byzantine Empire was an important cultural and trade center in the early Middle Ages and the new Church of Holy Wisdom lived up to this status: for centuries the Hagia Sophia was by far the greatest church in Christendom. The ground-plan of the building is a unique invention, as in the Hagia Sophia it unites the longitudinally planned basilica with the centrally planned building. As such the church has an imposing vaulted roof, and an unsupported dome dominates the main space. The dome is almost 56 meters high and has a diameter of 31 meters. Further smaller domes complete the west and east sides of the building.

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The architects Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus created a technical masterpiece in the construction of this dome. The main dome is sup­ported by pendentives, whereby an imaginary circle slices horizontally across the arches of the church and then a hemisphere is placed on this surface. The triangles which arise from the transition from square ground-plan to the circular form of the dome are known as pendentives. The ingenious dome con­struction of the Hagia Sophia collapsed, albeit only in part, as a result of an earthquake just a year after its inauguration. The impact on the dome had appar­ently shifted the pillars and load-bearing arches outwards. Reconstruction began immediately, and the new dome, now six meters higher, was already finished by 562. After the conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmet II the Hagia Sophia, which had been both cathedral and the church of court and state, was converted into the most important mosque of the Ottoman Empire. This function is indicated by the four minarets, which still characterize the external appearance of the building. It is now used as a museum.

In the Middle Ages longitudinally planned buildings became more important than centrally planned ones, and so domes lagged behind by comparison with the groin-vaulted choirs, naves, and aisles of the great churches. During the Renaissance, however, cen­trally planned buildings were considered the epitome of symmetry and harmony and so monumental domes once again attracted the interest of architects. In this respect, the city of Florence and architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) opened up a rich line of development. Building work on the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in the center of Florence had been in progress since 1296, but the vaulting of the dome still had to be completed.

The gigantic extent of the plan had already been sketched out: an eight-sided, fenestrated drum; the wall supporting the dome was over 41 meters in diameter and no less than 50 meters high. This cathedral dome was intended to outstrip that brilliant achievement of the ancient world, the dome of the Pantheon. Filippo Brunelleschi, who had won the competition to finish the dome, took on the task, beginning his spectacular feat of engineering in 1420. His solution for the future symbol of Florence was a double-shelled dome by means of which he achieved a new dimension in the art of vaulting . Together the inner shell, which is over two meters thick, and the thinner outer shell, along with the ribs which link them together, absorb the forces created by the dome. To let in light, the unsupported dome, like its Roman predecessor, is open at its vertex. Brunelleschi added a finishing touch to this oculus in the dome, the lantern. Constructing a vault over a building of this size presented the architect with a technical problem as well. It was not possible to erect supporting scaf­folding from the floor of the church because of the building's great height; and working with a cradle was too unsafe because of the huge diameter of the space. Brunelleschi also ventured into uncharted territory technically, designing a system by which the dome could be vaulted while supporting itself at the same time. The dome of Florence Cathedral heralded the beginning of a long analysis of the buildings of the ancient world, above all the Pantheon. The building of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, for example, was another attempt to outdo the Pantheon and thus can be seen as emulating the dome of the cathedral in Florence.

Michelangelo began building the immense dome in the middle of the sixteenth century. In the event, he was unable to surpass the Pantheon dome in terms of its span, but succeeded in outdoing the ancient model by achieving a height of 136 meters. Michelangelo's dome for St. Peter's was a point of reference until well into the Baroque period, in particular in its impact from a distance: the dome which is visible from the outside is considerably higher than the dome built over the interior space. Domes appear in the most varied types of vault construction, and not only in Renaissance and Baroque churches. They also featured in residential buildings: Andrea Palladio (1508-80), the most sought-after villa architect of the Renaissance, also drew on the ancient temple form and introduced the dome into his designs for villas in the Veneto. Numerous palaces were adorned with domed rooms; and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries even government buildings acquired domes, for example the United States Capitol in Washington.

In the twentieth century, the invention of reinforced concrete introduced completely new possibilities for domed architecture as well. The range of concrete forms that were now available to architects was illustrated by Max Berg (1870-1947), for example, in his spectacular design for The Centennial Hall in Wroclaw, Poland (formerly known in German as Breslau), which the architect topped with a dome.

The large interior space of the Hall, which was completed in 1913 and was built to commemorate the uprising against Napoleon, consists of a vault 65 meters wide formed of reinforced concrete ribs. The 35 ribs come together like a star to form a ring, which is in turn surmounted by a small cupola. Around the four rings, which are stacked one on top of the other to create the dome, are continuous windows. Thus the construction of the dome remains visible, as broad, round arches form a continuation of the ribs and direct the structural forces into the foundations of the building.

Notes:

Anthemius of Tralles -Анфи́мий из Тралл (474(0474)- 558) - византийский математик и архитектор, вместе с Исидором Милетским построивший Софийский собор в Константинополе

Filippo Brunelleschi- Филиппо Брунеллески (1377- 1446) был одним из главных архитекторов и инженеров из итальянского Возрождения.

Andrea Palladio -Андреа Палладио, настоящее имя - Андреа ди Пьетро ( 1508(15081130)-1580) - великий итальянский архитектор позднего Возрождения. Основоположник палладианства и классицизма.

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