THE ORIGIN OF OLD RUSSIAN HIPPED ROOF ARCHITECTURE: THE RETURN TO THE PROBLEM
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2018-2-32-61
In 2007, the author of this article published the studies on the origin of Old Russian hipped-roof architecture. Since then the author has received many letters on this theme from colleagues, this issue was widely discussed at scientific conferences and in Internet. In 2012 the author’s book “Typological forming and basic classification of Old Russian Church architecture” was published, and some additional considerations about the origin of hipped-roof architecture were issued there. In general, the author’s position on this theme did not change, but some problems required clarification and expansion of argumentation. On the basis of analysis of new architectural and archaeological data and chronicle information, the issues of the origin of Old Russian hippedroof architecture are systematically considered. The low probability of direct origin of Russian hipped-roof architecture from Western European Gothic is shown, since tower-like, hipped-ceiling and relatively small area of the main volume of temples are not typical for Gothic architecture. The inconsistency of theories of the origin of Old Russian hipped-roof architecture from the Romanesque and Eastern architecture are also shown. In previous studies on stone hipped-roof architecture, the author of this article cited a number of provisions showing its origin from Old Russian wooden architecture. In this work they are expanded and structured. The wide spread of the hipped-roof churches in Old Russian wooden architecture before the first stone hipped-roof temple is shown. The hypothesis about the origin of not only stone, but also wooden hipped-roof architecture of Old Russia is put forward: the wooden hipped-roof was a “simplified form” of the dome, which was canonically conditioned and obligatory in the stone Orthodox Church architecture during the whole history of the Old Russian architecture, since the 10th century. Having shown the widespread, canonical and constructive conditionality of hippedroofs in wooden architecture earlier than the beginning of the 16th century, the author proves that the first hipped-roof stone church came from wooden hipped-roof architecture, not from any Gothic, Romanesque, Eastern and any other foreign sources, and reconstructs the specific circumstances of its appearance in the early 16th century. In previous studies on the origin of Russian stone hipped-roof architecture, the author’s position was that it came only from wooden architecture. But in this article the author shows influence of Old Russian pillarless stone dome churches, which, though few in number, were built during the entire previous history of Russian architecture. The main conclusion of this article is the following: Old Russian stone hipped-roof architecture became the organic continuation of the previous national architectural tradition. That tradition included hipped-roof wooden architecture, stone domed churches and the wide range of connections with world architecture. The article also proposes general principles for the determination of the origin of architectural forms. It is shown that such issues should be solved only in comprehensive manner, as these forms could be generated by talent of architects, artistic taste of customers, the progress of construction equipment, changes in aesthetic preferences of society, ideology, influence of other countries, cultures and styles, and many other factors, up to purely utilitarian ones. A certain role here could be played by financial, human and constructive limitations which led to non-standard solutions.
Keywords: Old Russian architecture, hipped-roof architecture, wooden architecture, Gothic, Renaissance, architectural forms, construction
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Issue: 2, 2018
Series of issue: Issue 2
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 32 — 61
Downloads: 1651