St Paul's Cathedral

1. Construction time: 1675 - 1711
2. Location: London, England

Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral, Britain's largest Baroque building never existed without the disaster of the London fire in 1666, destroying the medieval church and turning most of the city into city ​​into ashes. However, the story related to Wren, and especially the trait that governs his mind from the beginning - is a bowl of bowls - it must be the same as Fire.

The final diagram of St Paul's Cathedral has a space between the church and the holy sanctuary, developed through many trials and changes.Wren initially wanted a central diagram of the Greek cross, with a much more prominent roof. In 1663 the old church, which has long been aroused by many people, has alarming signs of instability under the tower at the intersection. Wren's proposal is to demolish towers, build new crossroads on a larger scale, and cover the tower with an upright bowl with a pineapple-like peak, this proposal is accepted.

Upside down is a problem that all architects want to build, but opportunities are still limited. Brunelleschi built the roof of the cathedral of Florence in 1420. Michelangelo's bowed bowl at St Peter's Cathedral in late 16th century. In Paris, Val-de-Grâce of Francois Mansart and the Sorbonne church of Jacques Lemercier arrested first started in 1665, then during his only overseas trip Wren saw the building under construction.

Design development:

After the fire, all previous diagrams were irrelevant, Wren had to start over. From that time until completion in 1711, Wren's office was always filled with extremely rich diagrams and drawings that would make the design process more obvious but in fact contrary.

Development periods are about this time.In 1670 Wren offered an inexplicably modest design that included a lobby with a cupola roof and a small rectangular church . When it was judged that the design was not impressive enough, he designed a number based on the Latin cross for a cupon roof above the junction and some with a Greek cross (branches of equal length ) there is also a roof like Bramante's initial scheme for St. Peter's Basilica.

This Greek cross is loved by Wren, and in 1763 he modeled, the so-called "big model" enlisted approval . Finally, like the case of St Peter's Basilica, church dignitaries insist on a traditional scheme with a long middle (they say; "not the cathedral" ). But the big model is still a vivid testimony to Wren's imagination. As an architecture it was supposed to be more interesting than building a church: 4 branches of equal length plus an airy lobby column at the western end with a bowl in the middle of a giant. Affiliate branches do not use straight lines but by curves, an extremely wonderful, unique idea in the UK and around the world. The openness of the curve - the lower concave wall meets the convex curve of the sloping bowl which is the epitome of the outstanding Baroque style expression.

The most troubling next stage, a design in which the large-scale professional ability of the large model is replaced by what seems to be oddly amateurish . Here, Wren had to return to the diagram in length, but at the intersection, it was combined with a double-sided roof and a 4-storey tower: an onion-shaped background with a round wall under cupon roof by a pair of columns, followed by a roof The bowl was small and finally a tower like the last one, he suggested building St Bride in Fleet Street. It was this design that received the Royal License in May 1675, but Wren always retained the right to change his mind when construction was progressing.

The western façade of St. Paul's Cathedral is the final design element.
The walled landscape of St Paul's Cathedral was Francis Bird (1706).
reformed in the direction of Damascus, a very good job but underestimated
immortal Baroque sculpture in England.

He did not do this immediately, and from now on the construction was completed quite easily. The construction of a licensed design replaced with a bowl roof up and raised the details very carefully. The only remaining element unresolved is the west tower and facade, not shaped until after 1700.

Building St. Paul's Cathedral

Three of Wren's bowls face: the bowl on the outside is not loaded, the curved shape does not see the support of the bowl upside down, the bowl of the bowl is inside seen from the inside. In order to fulfill his dream, Wren faced many problems, and he resolved brilliantly but was accused of publicity by the nineteenth-century writers with the principles of AWNPugin and John Ruskin, publicly declared that he " dishonest". The diagram consists of conventional elements: a space between the church with aisle, the side of the wing and the sanctuary. The roof of the bowl is not leaning against the four main pillars where the middle, horizontal and sacred bow meet, by removing the tip of the aisles in the four corners and leaning on the eight pillars. As originally intended and demonstrated in the large model, the arches between the eight wall posts must be the same, but the result of Wren must reinforce them to a degree that the arches become narrower than the arches in the main directions. . To overcome this inconsistency optically, he introduced small semicircular windows or balconies in diagonal bars that fit into the main apertures, continuing to extend the boundary above the surface of the pillars. adjoining walls. The result is an effect of the same 8 arches for the eyes. In fact, they are not concentric with arch arches when viewed from below, this is a definite defect.

Actual data:

1. Total length: 156m
2. Horizontal wing length: 76m
3. Width of the middle space (church): 37m
4. The width of the west facade has chapels: 55m
5. Height to handrail: 33m
6. Height to golden balcony: 86m
7. Height to the intersection on the top of the roof of the bowl: 110m
8. Western tower height: 68m
9. Area: 5480m ²

As expected, the roof structure supports make it more difficult for Wren than any other structure in the cathedral . He built 8 basement stone pillars (salvaged materials from the old St Paul's church) with the Portland stone cladding. To maintain the impression of 8 equal arches underneath the overhanging roof, Wren camouflaged 4 cross bars to appear to have the same width as the cross bars in the main directions. But he soon found out that the stone was not strong enough and had to carry out a process of replacing the core by the solid, solid masonry layer. To increase the safety of the "big iron grip or chain" made by the ironsmith Jean Tijou, who is very famous for the beautiful iron screen panels on the sides of the sanctuary, placed around the foot of the bowl. Turn 1706 to prevent spreading and adding metal chains the following year.

At the same bowl, you also use a different trick. The front-facing bowls like in Florence and St Peter's churches have two layers - the bowl on the inside is visible from the outside and the other bowl is visible from the inside. Wren wanted to cover the roof of the bowl with an unusually heavy cup of roof, adding a curved brick shape, visible from inside and outside, enhanced from the balcony elevation and supporting the cupola roof. The roof of the bowl is inside the building block, the outer roof is made of wood and lead.

Finally, Wren built a protective wall on the top of the side walls, creating a two-story vertical section rather than a floor representing the true height of the lateral space . This shows the fact that the main details (middle, horizontal, holy) receive light from the upper windows as well as in the medieval cathedral and (in the same tradition) the curved roof The dome is supported by a bucket-bearing structure of the dome. From the inside did not notice this, few visitors noticed this from the outside, but it was clear from the top. This effect, like Wren's estimation, seems to appear on the surface to create a solid leg for the bowl to be soaring, in terms of structure to create additional structure to support the buckets of the bowl.

All three of these ingenious solutions are carried out and St Paul's cathedral will be more pathetic without them. But they also gave Pugin an excuse to defend the mockery "half of the building was built to cover the other half."

Seen from above (landscape Wren did not think it was possible to do so), the wall covering the wall against the wall could be embarrassing. The last part to be completed is the western façade. There is some evidence that Wren would prefer a giant Ion architecture for gate roofs but could not find any stone of sufficient length to cross the distance between two adjacent columns . Two towers that reflect the influence of the Italian Baroque style, also carry other traits of St Paul's later church, such as: the last horizontal section shows reference to the cathedral of S.Maria della Pace by Pietro da Cortona in Rome. This may be a development of Wren's own interests or may be the contribution of younger people in his office. This department is represented by many of his designers, some of whom are architects with their own interests.

Wren is a designer and not a mason, he brings together a large team of highly specialized people to undertake construction. For nearly 40 years of construction of St Paul's cathedral, the skilled use of 14 contractors. They monitored every step of the operation, from the Portland quarry to the final stage of the site. In the most busy year (1694), there were 64 masons at the construction site, in addition to carpenters, lead welders, stone carvers and plasterers. Among the most famous sculptors is the Grinling Gibbons, with Edward Pearce responsible for carving stone carvings in the exterior, where many angels with lovely wings protrude from the brick pillars and window frames as well as carving wood at the choir.

When Wren was old, he was treated badly, dismissed as General Manager. One of the final decisions made by the board member of the cathedral management board contrary to his wishes was to place a guardrail around the top of the wall. Wren said bitterly: "Ladies think there's nothing worth seeing without an edge . "

"If you want a memorial building, look around yourself." - Wren's son inserts inside St. Paul's cathedral, 1723