precedent online forum san carlo alle quattro fontane

7/1/2015 Yeoh Xiang An

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Yeoh Xiang AnSAN CARLO ALLE QUATTRO FONTANE, ROME (1638 - 41)

( Italian : "Saint Charles At The Four Fountains )

Design By Francesco Borromini, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane is an iconic masterpiece of Baroque architecture, built in 17th century as part of a complex of monastic buildings on theQuirinal Hill, at the southwest corner of the intersection of Via XX Septembre and Via delle Quattro Fontane.

i) What is the function or purpose of the building?

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, also called San Carlino, Influential Baroque church in Rome as part of a small monastery for a community of Spanish Monks.(Quattro Fontane =



Four Fountain)The church was commissioned by the Spanish Trinitarian order of monks ("discaleced" or shoeless), an order which raised money to ransom Christian captives.Borromini designed the adjacent monastery four years before he started work on the church. Because the church is small it is sometimes referred to in the diminutive : San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane.It was commissioned in 1634 and was built during 1638-46, except for the tall facade, which was added about 1677. Built to fit in a cramped and difficult site, the church has an unusual and somewhat irregular floor plan in the shape of Greek cross defined by convex curves.The church takes its name from the fact that at the intersection where it stands there are four fountains, one at each corner.The pre-existing fountain, incorporated in the corner of the church, is a depiction of the recumbent Neptune, also defined as a personification of the Amo River, another fountaindepicts the Tiber.Purpose - teaching biblical doctrine, providing a place of fellowship for believers, observing the Lord’s supper, and praying.

Read more:http://www.gotquestions.org/purpose-church.html#ixzz3Y0Rd5m5d

An Oval Plan

The site was quite small so Borromoni could not design a normal Greek cross with four equal arms. Instead the plan is a combination oval and Greek cross with walls undulating andniches suggesting deeper space.The coffering above the niches is optically varied to fool the eye into thinking the niches are deeper.

View toward the entrance

The main altar with perspectively altered coffering

Architectural/Sculptural details adjacent to the main altar

http://www.gotquestions.org/purpose-church.html#ixzz3Y0Rd5m5d



Side chapel with perspectively adjusted coffering

The coffered oval dome

Window, barely visible at the base of the dome, add to the ethereal effect. The unusual coffering is comprised of circles with octagonal molding, unequal hexagons, and Greekcrosses.

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane Axonometric Section



Borromini Plan



Sketch Studies ( Plan, Section, Interior)



San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane corner perspective



Composite Drawing (Plan and Section study of proportions and geometries)



The site for the new church and its monastery was at the south-west corner of the "Quattro Fontane" which refers to the four corner fountains set on the oblique at the intersection of tworoads, the Strada Pia and the Strada Felice, Bernini's oval church of Sant' Andrea al Quirinale would later be built further along the Strada Pia.

Section of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1730)



Elevation of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (48x18 cm)



Ground Plan, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane



Floor Plan



3D Spatial Usage



Light Penetration



Pure white light of the real sunlight through the lantern.The ceiling made of inter-connected square shapes, crosses, hexagons and octagonsDerived by Borromini from the early Christian church of Santa Costanza outside the walls of Rome in 4th century of inter-connected geometrical shapes

ii) How the function or purpose of the building makes the building historically significant and meaningful?

Four relief medallions

The first medallion probably shows the meeting of John of Matha and Felix of Valois, the two "founders" of the Order.The second shows the celebration of the Eucharist.The third portrays the approval of the Order by Pope Innocent III in 1988The fourth shows a ransoming of Christian captives from either North Africa or Spain.

With the used of the oval, the shallow curves of the bays; and the squashed short pediments, Borromini denies us what the architects of the Early and High Renaissance sought above all intheir studies of Vitruvius; the logical expression of the structure of a building in its decoration in which the proportions of the smallest element can lead us to the proportions of the wholestructure.

When ovals are introduced, or when pediments are squashed and do not reach the top of the arch we are denied this understanding of the space we occupy. It is this deliberate manipulationof the familiar to create the unfamiliar which is behind the unsettling architecture which Borromini creates, and which is so expressive of the state of flux of the Roman Church, and hence thecity, in the seventeenth century.

The art of the Baroque tell us that the transition from the earthly to the divine is altogether more uncertain. It is beyond the realm of the knowable, disobedient to the laws of matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm-akMcsHEc



Reference-

Books :

1. Andrew Ballantyne. 2012. Key Buildings from Prehistory to the Present.

2. Christian Norberg-Schulz. History of World Architecture Baroque Architecture.

3. Clark, R.H., Pause, M. 1996. Precedents in Architecture (2nd Edition).

4. Fletcher, Sir Banister and Winsgrove, J. (Ed). 1987 (19th Ed). Sir Banister Fletcher's a History of Architecture.

5. Francisco Martinez Mindeguia, Insignium Romae Templorum Prospectus .

Websites:

1. http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/520997/San-Carlo-alle-Quattro-Fontane

2. https://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/italy/rome/carlofontane/carlino.html

3. http://romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/San_Carlo_alle_Quattro_Fontane

4. http://eventseeker.com/venue/8391-san-carlo-alle-quattro-fontane-rome

5. https://ouiarome.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/day-13-baroque-s-andrea-al-quirinale-s-carlo-alle-quattro-fontane-porta-pia/

https://ouiarome.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/day-13-baroque-s-andrea-al-quirinale-s-carlo-alle-quattro-fontane-porta-pia/

http://romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/San_Carlo_alle_Quattro_Fontane

https://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/italy/rome/carlofontane/carlino.html

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/520997/San-Carlo-alle-Quattro-Fontane

http://eventseeker.com/venue/8391-san-carlo-alle-quattro-fontane-rome

precedent online forum san carlo alle quattro fontane

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