61–70 of 114 posts
In the Chester, Saint John photo (4th one) you can clearly see a non-grouted horizontal line across the stone walls. I’ve seen this in many cathedrals and was wondering 1) what it’s for and 2) if that’s part of the original construction. My guess is that it’s some sort of contemporary mitigation to avoid cracks?
The electricity cable, running across the three identical half-cylinder pillars?
It's interesting how much "ceremonial" buildings are important to architectural advancement. Pyramids, towers, temples, churches, cathedrals, palaces. It's a historical oddity, when factories, shipyards, skyscrapers and other utilitarian structures surpass them.
I think its political more than ceremonial. And you can now find the same effect in skyscrapers.
Skyscrapers are precisely the OP's point: they're not religious. In previous centuries, the tallest buildings were religious. They were at the center of town. Or of course you can interpret skyscrapers as cathedrals of the new religion.
I can't help thinking that the people who built this thought "bigger church means god with bigger dick".
I'm no longer a believer but I absolutely love history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>churches now looks more like Muslim Spanish Moors' Mezquita I've never seen any church that looks like that. The only Eastern architectural plan I can think of as having been exported West is the round style of the Dome of the Rock after it became a Templar headquarter. >obviously they had learnt a lot from the Islamic architecture that they brought and implemented the concepts to Britain and other parts of Europe T…
The elephant in the Mediterranean room is Rome, all the monumental architecture, including Islamic buildings, builds on Roman architectural knowledge a lot, adding its own decorations and elements. We tend to forget that the entire North Africa and huge regions of the Near East, including today's Syria and Jordan, were Roman provincies for long centuries. This cultural bedrock did not go away during later conquests,…
One thing that always amazes me was how these cathedrals were build. The techniques were amazing, even more so for the time. And then there is the way those specialized workers and architects were treated and paid. Some of that resembled modern workers rights, e.g. free weekends, limited working hours, safety. I guess it always helps to be part of very skilled, very limited group of workers that is very high demand.
I grew up in this village[1] and went to this church when I was young. The church is though to date to early 12th century but there have always been a church there since Anglo Saxon times. I'm no longer a believer but I absolutely love history. [1] https://rogatevillage.net/church-history/
The new village I’ve moved to has a practically new church, only the 1600s. My own house however is more impressive - I have the original deeds going back to 1831, which is quite humbling looking through them.
These historical artifacts are a beautiful testimony to this profound question that we can only contemplate for a small amount of time before we turn back into stardust.