Romanesque Architecture: Churches, Cathedrals, and Monasteries

Church of La Vera Cruz, Segovia (12th Century)

• Centralized scheme floorplan
• Based on Dome of the Rock & Holy Sepulchre
• Central edicule
• Three apses head
• Quadrilateral bell tower
• Twelve-sided plan
• Two floors
• Buttresses
• Ribbed vault & Caliphal dome

Holy Sepulchre, Torres del Rio, Navarra (12th Century)

• C Templarios
• Octagonal plan
• Tower to get to the lantern
• Mudejar precedents
• Arabic star-shaped dome
• Apse in East
• Archivolts
• Parallel ribs
• Stone dome
• Pointed/midpoint arches

Templarios de Eunate Church, Navarra (12th Century)

• External cloister enclosing the Church
• East apse
• Tower with spiral stairs
• Ribs in dome pass through center
• Octagonal plan
• Dome starts in columns
• Midpoint arch

Cathedrals of St. James (11th Century)

• Central nave with barrel vaults
• Arches and transversal arc
• Four side naves with barrel vaults
• Two floors
• Projecting transept
• Semicircular elongated apse with five absidioles
• Semicircular ambulatory

St. Sernin, Toulouse

• Upper galleries in the side naves for equilibrating forces
• Illuminated indirectly by the side aisles
• Addition of side buttresses with windows

St. Foy de Conques

• Octagonal dome
• Three absidioles in head
• Tower
• Triforium divided in three floors
• Semicolumns attached to pillars
• Vertical monumentality
• Indirect light

Santiago de Compostela (900-1400)

Romanesque Period (11th-12th Centuries)

• Construction built from east to west
• Was a Roman necropolis
• Follows a modular genesis repetition
• Crypt underground
• Eleven repetitions of modules on longitudinal nave
• Five repetitions in each side of transept
• Side naves groin vault
• Central barrel vault
• Two absidioles in each side of transept
• Based on St. Sernin plans
• Mostly made in granite
• Addition of westwerk Baroque facade
• Two side towers in entrance & four towers in transept

Puertas de Platerias

• Double portal with double height
• Jambs highly decorated
• Archivolts smoothly decorated
• Tympanum most significant religious iconography
• Only exterior point where the Romanesque arch can be seen
• Portico of Glory (Narthex)

Monasteries

Abbey of Saint Gall (9th Century)

• Multifunctional building with the fundamental idea that they had to be separated to the world to get closer to God
• They were cultural and economical centers, political purposes and agricultural powerhouses
• Composed by a Church (3 naves, 2 towers in west and transept), communal dormitories, refectory, cellar, cloister, bath rooms, dining rooms, school, house of Abad, stables, infirmary, cemetery, gardens

Clunny II, France (10th Century)

• Cloister heart of the building
• Second cloister for newcomers
• No agriculture nor livestock
• Chapter house
• Pavilion for convers

Clunny III (12th Century)

• Immense monumental complex
• Overlapping with church of Clunny II
• Benedictine scheme monumental scale
• Clerestory in central nave
• Destroyed in French Revolution
• Five naves
• Twisted columns

Cistercian Monasteries (12th Century)

• Abbey of Fontenay
• Clareaux
• Royaumont