6/3 Baroque Churches

Today we visited the church of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, the one with the spiral tower. By now I should be expecting such a unique structure from Borromini, and he does not disappoint here. The twisting, corkscrew-like spire is completely different from the towers or domes we have seen previously, and it is no surprise that it can be categorized in the Baroque style. He employed many curvilinear features in his buildings, curved facades and of course this one-of-a-kind tower. I wonder what the ancient Romans would have thought of this structure. They concerned themselves primary with inventing structures based around the arch and its spatial implications. I do not think that they could have imagined that the elements they started to use would have been morphed into these configurations. The ancient Romans made great strides to revolutionize construction processes. I suppose, therefore, that they would have been pleased with the notion of innovation, if not this exact structure. The building is now used as the state archives.

Another aspect to the building that was heavily lectured on today was the ground plane in front of the church. While it is comprised of two squares which each receive an equal amount of rain water drainage, the main focus was on the figure/ground relationship to the building. (Note: this subject has been covered before at the Campidoglio, but bears repeating) Often times in Modern architecture, the building was treated as an object on a plane with no relation to its siting. Why should this be? The foundation and substrate touch the ground and should therefore receive an equal amount of design consideration. When this building was designed in the 17^th century, the architects DID consider the ground plane just as much as the building. The courtyard which fronts Sant’Ivo is sunken 5” below the surrounding loggia, which gives it importance by raising it up slightly on a plinth. Careful consideration was given to the design of the drainage system. I shall reiterate: when is it appropriate to either attach or disengage the ground plane from the building? If you’re designing the building to be an object in a field, maybe you do want the ground plane to remain relatively obscure and not detach from the importance of the building. However because we live in a world of green architecture at the beginning of the 21^st century, ground plane design is essential for a building to be considered sustainable (and garner those all-important LEED points). I would think that we should move in the direction toward this kind of total design of a building, instead of letting someone else worry about drainage. Yes, the architect is not completely responsible for considering the ground plane – today this is left up to the civil engineer and landscape architect. Nevertheless it is incumbent on the architect, I think, to be at least competent in this area so that a basic knowledge can be applied, perhaps making the design process that much easier.

Location: Sant’Andrea al Quirinale

Commissioned in 1658 and built by Bernini, this church is yet another exquisite example of Baroque architecture with its odd curvilinear portico announcing to the world its intentions not to be just your average church. No, Bernini designed this particular structure with an oval floor plan with chapels placed around the perimeter of the interior. It has none of the typical elements found in Classical or even Renaissance churches, as its floor plan is neither a Greek nor Latin cross.

This fact leads to an important discussion: where is the focal point of this church? When you enter the church, where do you go? What is the processional nature of the building and how does it function like a church without those axes to guide its pilgrims and congregation members? I suspect that upon entering the church during Sunday services, one would simply sit in the only space allotted to church-goers: the entire middle of the floor plane. It sort of democratizes the process and makes everyone feel as though they’re on the same playing field when there is no separation between members of the congregation. If everyone is seated in the same area AND the priest is level with them as well, it reinforces the idea that the Christians have of everyone being God’s children and able to receive the same message.

Location: San Carlo alle Quatro Fontane

Squeezed into a rather tiny intersection halfway between Santa Maria Maggiore and the Spanish Steps, sits the Church of the 4 Fountains, designed by Borromini in 1634. Given the compact footprint with which he had to work, Borromini again succeeds in capturing the essence of Baroque architecture: a dramatic, undulating, curvilinear façade that defies the imagination as to how he went about designing the face of this church which completely breaks from all Classical conventions. None of the Corinthian columns are facing the same way; they all seem to radiate outwards from an internal central point. The upper part of the façade is simply unrecognizable from anything I have seen to date on this trip: the cornice is broken by a large oval-shaped projection (assumedly in its cleaner days held representatives of either the patron of the church or its martyred saint), there is no semblance of a pediment as the façade appears to stop before one could have been created, and the overall composition is both divided and held together by the sensual cornice in the middle.

The interior is no less exciting or genre-defying as the exterior. The line of the projecting cornice on the outside continues on the inside, as it snakes along a rather peculiar floor plan. It is more or less oval in shape, but to accommodate for various chapels that intersect the overall geometry, the floor plan and subsequent cornice are bulged out to receive these protrusions, further allowing the complex geometry to express itself in ways I have never seen before. To further accompany the geometries of the floor plan and chapels is another unique feature: its geometrical pattern ceiling. Crosses are mixed with hexagons are mixed with octagons that are fully integrated into one another, whereby the pattern doesn’t seem forced at all.

Rather, it feels as though these 3 shapes were somehow meant to coincide with each other at this particular church. Also, nearly the entire interior of the church is one color: columns, ceiling, cornices, etc. have all been given a whitewash that, coming from the darker tones of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale and Sant’Ivo, seem at first blinding to the eye. Perhaps, though, the architect wanted the room to fill with as much light as possible given the cramped spatial conditions. When the sun shines in this particular church, it seems brighter because of the reflectance of the materials. This feature could also have spiritual implications as well, because the different ways in which churches utilize light all seem to refer to Biblical narratives of Jesus being the light, way, and truth. A different story is woven here, therefore, one in which the architect invented new spatial configurations in combination with a specific color palette in order to express a certain feeling about the religion which was different from those which had previously been attempted.