HIstory of Interior Design 1

Early Christian Architecture

Time Period: 330 - 800 A.D.

Christianity required impressive settings and ceremonies to reflect its new importance, that’s why it adapted such architectural supplies from Roman architecture as: basilica, the atrium of the house, baths, tombs and mausoleums, paintings and mosaics.
Roman building types such as basilicas (important public building),courtyard houses and baths are adapted and combined to create the first Christian basilicas or churches. Used typical architectural elements of the Roman empire, such as arches, clerestory windows, and colonnades with entablatures. Early Christian structures are made of stone and brick with increasingly less use of concrete. Interior walls are lavishly decorated with mosaics that depict religious scenes and iconography and images of the Roman emperor.
Early Christian buildings follow basilica or centralized plan. Adaptation of basilica with its nave, aisles, and apse allows for big interior spaces that could accommodate worshipers and rituals. To house the relics of saints and for more space they add the transept, creating a cross plan, which is practical and symbolic of faith.

Public Buildings:

Types: the newly developed forms are churches, baptisteries, mausoleums and memorial structures at sacred sites.

Orientation: the apse, which houses the altar, orients to east because Christ was crucified in Jerusalem. The entrance is opposite on the other side.

Floor Plans: Most churches follow the Roman basilica plan. They usually have a portal (main entrance) that opens into a large colonnaded forecourt, leading to narthex (porch) that gives access to larger nave. Longitudinal axis from forecourt entry forms a processional path. Triumphal arch frames the apse, which has seats for clergy and a throne in a center for bishop. Screen separates apse from altar, where are placed the remains of a martyr of saint.

Facades: walls of plain brick or stone with little articulation except doors and windows. Center of nave is high to accommodate clerestory windows (windows are rectangular or arched). Columns, masonry and roof tiles are pillaged from Roman buildings.

Doors: are either carved wood or bronze.

Roofs: are gabled on basilicas and doomed on central plans. Rust-colored clay tiles cover the surface.

Short video about history of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome - Very Interesting!

http://www.history.com/videos/history-of-saint-peters-basilica

Old St. Peter's Basilica - Rome

St. Peter's Basilica - Modern Day - Rome

Chapel of Saint Ananias, Damascus, Syria, an early example of a Christian house of worship; built in the 1st century AD

Modern Applications