Renaissance Architectural Genius Essay
Arren Quigley
Architectural Genius in the Renaissance At the beginning of the Renaissance a problem was apparent in Florence. The city was trying to distinguish themselves from Milan, their rival, and had built a great cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, with this in mind. The problem was that for 122 years the church had been left open to the elements. No roof had been built. In 1418, the town fathers of Florence decided that the time had come to build a roof. The roof had to be grand and tall. It had to be the tallest dome roof constructed. It had to start 180 feet off the ground and span nearly 150 feet. (Mueller) The dimensions thwarted many notable architects who came to compete for a chance to build the dome roof.
Some of the questions that came up included “Could a dome weighing tens of thousands of tons stay up without [flying buttresses or pointed arches]? Was there enough timber in Tuscany for the scaffolding and templates that would be needed to shape the dome’s masonry? And could a dome be built at all on the octagonal floor plan dictated …show more content…
by the existing walls—eight pie-shaped wedges—without collapsing inward as the masonry arced toward the apex?”
A genius goldsmith, Filippo Brunelleschi, had an ingenious solution to these questions.
He entered the contest and won the commission to build the dome roof. Rather than build a dome from a scaffold he built the roof in concentric rings. Using heavy stone for the lower rings and lighter stone for the higher rings, he was able to balance compression strength and tension strength through the dome. (Foraboschi) Another innovative solution to getting the right balance between strength and tension was to build two concentric domes. One dome is seen from inside the cathedral and the other is seen from the outside. The space between the two acts like a honeycomb connecting the two, adding strength without the weight of solid stone. Brunelleschi also employed herringbone brick laying patterns that allowed the bricks to be laid without temporary falsework and decreased the chance of the dome splitting up the side.
(Foraboschi)
Brunelleschi learned a variety of topics before he applied for the Santa Maria del Fiore’s Il Cupolone (the Big Dome) contest. National Geographic author, Tom Mueller says: “As a boy, during his goldsmith’s apprenticeship, he had mastered drawing and painting, wood carving, sculpture in silver and bronze, stone setting, niello, and enamel work. Later he studied optics and tinkered endlessly with wheels, gears, weights, and motion, building a number of ingenious clocks, including what may have been one of the first alarm clocks in history. Applying his theoretical and mechanical knowledge to observation of the natural world, he single-handedly worked out the rules of linear perspective. He’d just spent several years in Rome measuring and sketching the ancient monuments and noting, in cipher, their architectural secrets. Indeed, Brunelleschi’s life seemed to have been one long apprenticeship for building the dome of unequaled beauty, usefulness, honor, and power that Florence yearned for.
Rather than relying on the conventional wisdom of architecture, Brunelleschi used his understanding of mechanics and modeling to design revolutionary solutions and describe or show them to the craftsmen who worked for him. This independent thinking was the groundwork for an extraordinary example of renaissance thinking and beautiful construction that has stood the test of time. This is significant to me because it gives me hope that learning a vast array of topics will help me to be more creative and innovative when I turn my studies to architecture.
Architectural Genius in the Renaissance At the beginning of the Renaissance a problem was apparent in Florence. The city was trying to distinguish themselves from Milan, their rival, and had built a great cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, with this in mind. The problem was that for 122 years the church had been left open to the elements. No roof had been built. In 1418, the town fathers of Florence decided that the time had come to build a roof. The roof had to be grand and tall. It had to be the tallest dome roof constructed. It had to start 180 feet off the ground and span nearly 150 feet. (Mueller) The dimensions thwarted many notable architects who came to compete for a chance to build the dome roof.
Some of the questions that came up included “Could a dome weighing tens of thousands of tons stay up without [flying buttresses or pointed arches]? Was there enough timber in Tuscany for the scaffolding and templates that would be needed to shape the dome’s masonry? And could a dome be built at all on the octagonal floor plan dictated …show more content…
by the existing walls—eight pie-shaped wedges—without collapsing inward as the masonry arced toward the apex?”
A genius goldsmith, Filippo Brunelleschi, had an ingenious solution to these questions.
He entered the contest and won the commission to build the dome roof. Rather than build a dome from a scaffold he built the roof in concentric rings. Using heavy stone for the lower rings and lighter stone for the higher rings, he was able to balance compression strength and tension strength through the dome. (Foraboschi) Another innovative solution to getting the right balance between strength and tension was to build two concentric domes. One dome is seen from inside the cathedral and the other is seen from the outside. The space between the two acts like a honeycomb connecting the two, adding strength without the weight of solid stone. Brunelleschi also employed herringbone brick laying patterns that allowed the bricks to be laid without temporary falsework and decreased the chance of the dome splitting up the side.
(Foraboschi)
Brunelleschi learned a variety of topics before he applied for the Santa Maria del Fiore’s Il Cupolone (the Big Dome) contest. National Geographic author, Tom Mueller says: “As a boy, during his goldsmith’s apprenticeship, he had mastered drawing and painting, wood carving, sculpture in silver and bronze, stone setting, niello, and enamel work. Later he studied optics and tinkered endlessly with wheels, gears, weights, and motion, building a number of ingenious clocks, including what may have been one of the first alarm clocks in history. Applying his theoretical and mechanical knowledge to observation of the natural world, he single-handedly worked out the rules of linear perspective. He’d just spent several years in Rome measuring and sketching the ancient monuments and noting, in cipher, their architectural secrets. Indeed, Brunelleschi’s life seemed to have been one long apprenticeship for building the dome of unequaled beauty, usefulness, honor, and power that Florence yearned for.
Rather than relying on the conventional wisdom of architecture, Brunelleschi used his understanding of mechanics and modeling to design revolutionary solutions and describe or show them to the craftsmen who worked for him. This independent thinking was the groundwork for an extraordinary example of renaissance thinking and beautiful construction that has stood the test of time. This is significant to me because it gives me hope that learning a vast array of topics will help me to be more creative and innovative when I turn my studies to architecture.