Byzantine Period

The Byzantine Empire was the longest political entity in European history (324-1453).  This period was influenced by the Greeks and was associated with eastern culture.

One of the things that was most important about this design period was the use of pendentive construction.  Pendentive construction is a domed structure with a square base, instead of a circular one. The best example of this is the Hagia Sophia (church of holy wisdom).  This church was absolutely beautifully built and had a lot details with elaborate materials and ornamentations.

The pictures below are pictures of the Hagia Sophia, showing this pendentive construction...

 

The Byzantine architecture characteristics included a lot of arches and domes, which were built using the pendentive construction. The materials they used were brick and stone, but was predominantly bricks. The Byzantine architecture also used a lot of mosaic tile for flooring/ceilings/walls and art work. The mosaic tiling usually had a gold background and gave a luxurious appearance to the buildings and architecture.

In the picture you can see the use of these characteristics in the Byzantine architectures...


The Byzantine period was really important because it was very influential to other design periods. The Romanesque, Islamic, and Gothic design periods were all based off of the Byzantine Era.





In the pictures below, you will see current examples of the Byzantine design period...

(The West Virginia Capitol Building, which I used because it has a domed top but it has a square building under it which relates to this pendentive construction that was used during the Byzantine period, and also because the dome is gold and it looks luxurious and important which was also used in this design period.)






(This picture is a picture of a modern bathroom that used one wall of mosaic tile to create a focal point and adds an unique feature to the room. I used this picture because the Byzantine period had walls of artwork made from mosaic tile similar to this. )



One of the blogs that I reviewed for the Byzantine period was Katrina's. From her blog, I learned that the Early Christian Basilica church concepts changed into a more centralized space for worshiping. The other blog that I reviewed for this period was Kristina's. From her blog, I learned that they used alabaster (a texture made from gypsum) and that it was an important design texture of the eastern cultures and was used because it was so easy to work with.