In Russia, all church art is extremely conservative, and the architecture of churches is no exception. Experiments are unacceptable, everything is done according to classical canons, and any deviation is met with hostility. The Catholic Church is much more progressive in this regard. Remember, for example, according to the project of postmodernist Mario Botta, or. There are many such examples; churches often become architectural landmarks, or even new symbols of the city in which they are built.
Recently I came across interesting project: they want to make a church out of an abandoned TV tower in Yekaterinburg. Quite bold. What do you think?
The church project was proposed by the architectural studio "PTARH and Partners". According to its employees, the Church of St. Catherine would best be located in an abandoned television tower.
Anatoly Ptashnik, workshop director:
“We developed these sketches on our own initiative, because something needs to be done with the TV tower. We have two concepts. Either it will be a temple, or a religious and cultural center, that is, in addition to the temple, there will be a concert hall, a forum, and exhibition space. Work this was done to continue and unite discussions about the fate of the TV tower and the Church of St. Catherine in order to come to some kind of consensus about these significant objects.
The architect believes that the temple located in the TV tower will become an excellent high-rise dominant feature. At the same time, he states that he is ready for discussions on this topic.
According to another project, it was proposed to build the temple in the water area of the City Pond. But this location caused a lot of controversy among local residents. And the idea of building a temple in the TV tower, according to Ptashnik, on the contrary, should unite everyone. 
This is the first version of the project. 
And this is the second one. 
Qalat Seman, Syria, 5th century
The base of the column of Simeon the Stylite. Syria, 2005 Wikimedia Commons
Monastery of St. Simeon the Stylite - Kalat-Seman. Syria, 2010
Southern facade of the Church of St. Simeon the Stylite. Syria, 2010 Bernard Gagnon / CC BY-SA 3.0
Capitals of the columns of the Church of St. Simeon the Stylite. Syria, 2005 James Gordon / CC BY 2.0
Plan of the Church of St. Simeon the StyliteFrom the book “Civil and religious architecture of Central Syria in the 1st–7th centuries” by Charles Jean Melchior Vogüet. 1865–1877
Today Kalat Seman (Arabic for “Simeon’s fortress”) is the ruins of an ancient monastery near Aleppo in Syria. According to legend, it was in this monastery that Saint Simeon the Stylite performed his ascetic feat. He built a column, and on it a tiny hut, where he lived, praying incessantly, for many years, until his death in 459. At the end of the 5th century, a special building was built above the column, the base of which has survived to this day. More precisely, it is a complex composition of a central (octagonal) and four basilicas extending from it Basilica- a rectangular structure made of an odd number (1, 3, 5) of naves - parts separated by columns..
The idea to perpetuate the memory of Saint Simeon in this way was born under the Byzantine emperor Leo I (457-474) and was implemented already during the reign of Emperor Zeno (474-491). This is a stone structure with wooden ceilings, impeccably made in accordance with late antique traditions, decorated with columns supporting arches with exquisitely profiled arches. The basilicas themselves fully correspond to the type that laid the foundation for all Western Christian architecture.
In principle, until 1054 (that is, before the split of the Church into Orthodox and Catholic), almost all Christian architecture can be considered Orthodox. However, in Kalat-Seman it is already possible to note a feature that would later be more characteristic of Eastern Christian construction practice. This is the desire for centricity of the composition, for the geometric equality of the axes. Catholics subsequently preferred an extended form, a Latin cross with an extension in the opposite direction from the altar - a solution that implied a solemn procession, and not a stay or appearance before the throne. Here the basilicas become the arms of an almost regular equal-pointed (Greek) cross, as if predicting the appearance in the future of a popular cross in Orthodoxy.
Constantinople, 6th century
Saint Sophie Cathedral. Istanbul, 2009 David Spender / CC BY 2.0
Central nave of the cathedral Jorge Láscar / CC BY 2.0
Main dome Craig Stanfill / CC BY-SA 2.0
Emperors Constantine and Justinian before the Virgin Mary. Mosaic in the tympanum of the southwestern entrance. 10th century Wikimedia Commons
Cathedral in section. Illustration from the book “Grundriss der Kunstgeschichte” by Wilhelm Lubke and Max Semrau. 1908 Wikimedia Commons
Plan of the cathedral. Illustration from the book “Grundriss der Kunstgeschichte” by Wilhelm Lubke and Max Semrau. 1908 Wikimedia Commons
This cathedral was built long before the paths of Western and Eastern Christianity fundamentally diverged in 1054. It was erected on the site of a burnt basilica as a symbol of the political and spiritual greatness of the newly united Roman Empire. The very consecration in the name of Sophia, the Wisdom of God, indicated that Constantinople was becoming not only the Second Rome, but also the spiritual center of Christians, the Second Jerusalem. After all, it was on the Holy Land that the Temple of Solomon, whom the Lord himself endowed with wisdom, should have risen. To work on the building, Emperor Justinian invited two architects and at the same time outstanding mathematicians (and this is important, considering how complex design they conceived and carried out) - Isidora from Miletus and Anthemia from Thrall. They started work in 532 and finished it in 537.
The interior of the Hagia Sophia, decorated with the shimmer of gold-colored mosaics, became a model for many Orthodox churches, where if not the forms, then at least the character of the space was repeated - not rushing upward or from west to east, but smoothly circling (you can say, swirling), solemnly ascending to the sky towards the streams of light pouring from the dome windows.
The cathedral became a model not only of how main temple of all Eastern Christian churches, but also as a building in which a new constructive principle worked effectively (it has, however, been known since ancient Roman times, but its full application in large buildings began precisely in Byzantium). The round dome does not rest on a solid ring wall, as, for example, in the Roman Pantheon, but on concave triangular elements -. Thanks to this technique, only four supports are sufficient to support the circular arch, the passage between which is open. This design - a dome on sails - was later widely used in both the East and the West, but it became iconic for Orthodox architecture: large cathedrals, as a rule, were built using this technology. It even received a symbolic interpretation: evangelists are almost always depicted on the sails - a reliable support for the Christian faith.
Chios Island, Greece, 1st half of the 11th century
Bell tower of the Nea Moni monasteryMariza Georgalou / CC BY-SA 4.0
General view of the monasteryBruno Sarlandie / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Mosaic “Baptism of the Lord” of the catholicon - Church of the Assumption Holy Mother of God. 11th century
Katholikon is the cathedral church of the monastery.
Wikimedia CommonsSectional plan of the catholicon. From the book "An Illustrated Guide to Architecture" by James Fergusson. 1855 Wikimedia Commons
Plan of the Catholicon bisanzioit.blogspot.com
In Orthodoxy there is an important concept - the prayer of an icon or place, when the holiness of a sacred object is, as it were, multiplied by the prayers of many generations of believers. In this sense, a small monastery on a distant island is rightfully one of the most revered monasteries in Greece. It was founded in the middle of the 11th century by Constantine IX Monomakh Constantine IX Monomakh(1000-1055) - Byzantine emperor from the Macedonian dynasty. in fulfillment of a vow. Constantine promised to build a church in the name of the Most Holy Theotokos if the prophecy came true and he took the throne of the Byzantine emperor. Stauro-pygian status The highest status of a monastery, monastery, cathedral, making them independent of the local diocese and subordinate directly to the patriarch or Synod. The Patriarchate of Constantinople allowed the monastery to exist in relative prosperity for several centuries even after the fall of Byzantium.
The catholicon, that is, the cathedral church of the monastery, is the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. First of all, it is famous for its outstanding mosaics, but also architectural solutions deserve close attention.
Although the outside of the temple is similar to the usual single-domed buildings in Russia, inside it is arranged differently. In the Mediterranean lands of that era, it was better felt that one of the ancestors of the domed Orthodox church (including the Church of Hagia Irene and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople) was an ancient Roman basilica. The cross is almost not expressed in plan; it is rather implied than existing in the material. The plan itself is stretched from west to east, three parts are clearly distinguishable. Firstly, the narthex, that is, the preliminary room. According to the Mediterranean tradition, there can be several narthexes (here they were also used as tombs), one of them opens into a semicircular plan attached to the sides. Secondly, the main space is . And finally, the altar part. Here it is developed, the semicircles do not immediately adjoin the under-dome space, an additional zone is located between them - . The most interesting thing can be seen in the naos. Into the square formed external walls, a centric structure is inscribed - . The wide dome rests on a system of hemispherical vaults, which gives the entire room a resemblance to the outstanding monuments of the times of the power of the Eastern Roman Empire - the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople and the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna.
Mtskheta, Georgia, XI century
Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. Mtskheta, Georgia Viktor K. / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Eastern façade of the cathedral Diego Delso / CC BY-SA 4.0
Interior view of the cathedral Viktor K. / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Wikimedia Commons
Fragment of a fresco with a scene Last Judgment Diego Delso / CC BY-SA 4.0
Sectional plan of the cathedral Wikimedia Commons
Cathedral plan Wikimedia Commons
The cathedral is beautiful in itself, but we must remember that it is also part of a cultural, historical and religious complex that has been formed over several centuries. The Mtkvari (Kura) and Aragvi rivers, the Jvari monastery towering above the city (built at the turn of the 6th-7th centuries), Mount Tabor with the Temple of the Transfiguration and other objects that had the same names as their Palestinian prototypes were in Georgia, the image of the Holy Land, transferred to Iveria the sacred content of the place where the action of New Testament history once unfolded.
Svetitskhoveli Cathedral is an outstanding monument of world architecture. However, it would be wrong to talk only about its material component, about vaults and walls. A full part of this image are traditions - church and secular.
First of all, it is believed that one of the main relics of Christianity is hidden under the temple - the tunic of the Savior. It was brought from the site of the Lord's crucifixion by Jews - Rabbi Elioz and his brother Longinoz. Elioz gave the shrine to his sister Sidonia, a sincere follower Christian faith. The pious virgin died holding it in her hands, and even after death no force could tear the fabric from her clenched palms, so Jesus’ robe also had to be lowered into the grave. A mighty cedar tree grew over the burial site, endowing all living things around with miraculous healing properties.
When Saint Nino came to Iberia at the very beginning of the 4th century, she converted first King Miriam and then all the Georgians to the Christian faith and convinced them to build a church on the burial site of Sidonia. Seven pillars were made from cedar for the first temple; one of them, exuding myrrh, turned out to be miraculous, hence the name Svetitskhoveli - “Life-giving pillar”.
The existing building was built in 1010-1029. Thanks to the inscription on the facade, the name of the architect is known - Arsakidze, and the bas-relief image of a hand gave rise to another legend - however, a typical one. One version says that the delighted king ordered the master’s hand to be cut off so that he could not repeat his masterpiece.
At the beginning of the second millennium, the world was quite a small place, and in the architecture of the temple it is easy to notice features of the Romanesque style that was spreading throughout Europe. Externally, the composition is a cross of two three-nave basilicas under high pitched roofs with a drum under a cone in the center. However, the interior demonstrates that the structure of the temple was designed in the Byzantine tradition - Arsakidze used the cross-dome system, which is well known in Rus'.
Mountain landscapes clearly influenced the aesthetic preferences of Georgians. Unlike most Eastern Christian churches, the drums of Caucasian churches (including Armenian ones) are crowned not with round, but with sharp conical heads, prototypes of which can be found in religious buildings of Iran. The filigree decoration on the surface of the walls is due to high level skills of Caucasian stonemasons. Svetitskhoveli, as well as other pre-Mongol temples in Georgia, is characterized by a clearly legible pyramidal composition. In it, volumes of different sizes form a holistic form (therefore, they are hidden in the general body of the temple, and only two vertical niches of the eastern facade hint at their existence).
Near Kraljevo, Serbia, 12th century
Eastern facade of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Studenica JSPhotomorgana / CC BY-SA 3.0
Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in StudenicaDe kleine rode kater / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The Virgin and Child. Relief of the tympanum of the western portal Wikimedia Commons
Fragment of carving on the facade ljubar / CC BY-NC 2.0
Frescoes inside the temple ljubar / CC BY-NC 2.0
Plan of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Studenica archifeed.blogspot.com
Studenica is a zaduzhbina (or zadushbina): in medieval Serbia this was the name for sacred buildings built for the salvation of the soul. The monastery near the city of Kraljevo is the home of Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the Serbian state. He retired here, having taken monastic vows and renounced the throne. Stefan Nemanja was canonized and his relics were buried on the territory of the monastery.
The exact time of construction of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Studenica is unknown - it is only clear that it was created between 1183 and 1196. But you can clearly see how the architecture of the building reflected all the subtleties of the political situation of that time. They even talk about a separate “Rash style” (Serbia in those days was often called Raska and Rasiya).
Stefan Nemanja was both at enmity with Byzantium and oriented toward it. If you look closely at the plan of the temple, you can see that when designing the central part, the architects clearly imitated internal structure Hagia Sophia of Constantinople. This is the so-called type of weak cross, when the space under the dome opens only along the axis from to the altar. But on the side walls, even from the outside, the outlines of wide-standing arches are emphasized, on which a drum of impressive diameter is installed, providing spaciousness under the dome. Following Byzantine tastes is also noticeable in the ornamental motifs - in the window decorating the central apse.
At the same time, while fighting with Byzantium, essentially, in order to become its own worthy partner (in the end, the matter ended in marriage with the Byzantine princess), Nemanja actively entered into alliances with European monarchs: the Hungarian king and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. These contacts also influenced the appearance of Studenica. The marble cladding of the temple clearly demonstrates that its builders were well acquainted with the main trends of Western European architectural fashion. And the completion of the eastern facade, and the belts under the cornices, and the characteristic window openings with columns instead of pillars certainly make this Serbian monument related to the Romanesque, that is, Roman style.
Kyiv, XI century
Hagia Sophia, Kyiv© DIOMEDIA
Hagia Sophia, Kyiv© DIOMEDIA
Domes of Hagia Sophia, Kyiv
Hagia Sophia, Kyiv
Mosaic depicting the Fathers of the Church in Hagia Sophia. 11th century
Our Lady of Oranta. Mosaic in the altar of the cathedral. 11th century Wikipedia Commons
Cathedral plan artyx.ru
The cathedral, built at the beginning of the 11th century (scientists argue about the exact dates, but there is no doubt that it was completed and consecrated under Yaroslav the Wise), cannot be called the first stone church in Rus'. Back in 996, the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, better known as the Tithe Church, appeared on the banks of the Dnieper. In 1240 it was destroyed by Batu Khan. The remains of the foundations, studied by archaeologists, indicate that it was she who formed, in modern terms, the typology of the Russian Orthodox church.
But, of course, the building that truly influenced the appearance of Orthodox architecture in the vastness of Rus' was St. Sophia of Kiev. Constantino-Polish masters created a huge temple in the capital city - one that had not been built for a long time in Byzantium itself.
The dedication to the Wisdom of God, of course, referred to the building of the same name on the banks of the Bosphorus, the center of the Eastern Christian world. Of course, the idea that the Second Rome could be replaced by the Third could not yet have been born. But each city, having acquired its own Sophia, to some extent began to lay claim to the title of the Second Constantinople. St. Sophia Cathedrals were built in Novgorod and Polotsk. But a century later, Andrei Bogolyubsky, building a majestic temple in Vladimir, which he saw as an alternative to Kyiv, dedicated it to the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary: obviously, this was a symbolic gesture, a manifesto of independence, including spiritual.
Unlike the dedication of the throne, the forms of this temple were never completely repeated. But many decisions have become practically mandatory. For example, drums on which domes are raised, and semicircular ones. For cathedrals, multi-domes became desirable (in St. Sophia of Kyiv, thirteen chapters were initially built, keeping in mind the Savior and the Apostles; then more were added). The basis of the design is the cross-dome system, when the weight of the dome is transferred through the pillars, and the adjacent spaces are covered either with vaults or smaller domes, which has also become the main one in domestic temple construction. And of course, continuous fresco painting of interiors began to be considered the norm. Here, however, some of the walls are covered with magnificent mosaics, and the flickering of gold foil sealed in smalt makes the light of the divine ether visible, inspiring sacred awe and setting believers in a prayerful mood.
Saint Sophia of Kiev demonstrates well the differences between the liturgical features of Western and Eastern Christians, for example, how the problem of accommodating the monarch and his entourage was solved differently. If in imperial cathedrals somewhere on the Rhine, a semblance of an altar (westwerk) was attached to the west, which symbolized the consent of secular and church authorities, then here the prince rose to the (polati), towering above his subjects.
But the main thing is the Catholic basilica, elongated along the axis, with a nave, transept and choir, as if implying a solemn procession. A Orthodox church, not being, as a rule, a centric structure in the strict sense (that is, fitting into a circle), nevertheless it always has a center, a space under the main dome, where, being in front of the altar barrier, the believer is in prayer. We can say that the Western temple is symbolically an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem promised to the righteous, the goal of the path. The eastern one rather demonstrates the spiritual structure of Creation, the creator and ruler of which is usually depicted at the zenith of the dome in the image of Pantocrator (Almighty).
Bogolyubovo, Vladimir region, XII century
Church of the Intercession on the Nerl C K Leung / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Church of the Intercession on the Nerl C K Leung / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
King David. Facade relief C K Leung / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Fragment of carving on the facade C K Leung / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Fragment of carving on the facade C K Leung / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Plan of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl kannelura.info
In the 12th century, many wonderful churches were built on the territory of the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality. However, it was this relatively small church that became almost the universal symbol of Russian Orthodoxy.
From the point of view of the architect of the Middle Ages, there was nothing special about it structurally; it was an ordinary four-pillar temple with a cross-domed roof. Except that the choice of construction site - on water meadows, where the Klyazma and Nerl merged - forced the use of an unusually large volume engineering work, fill up the hill and lay the foundations deep.
However simple solutions led to the appearance of an absolutely miraculous image. The building turned out to be simple, but elegant, very slender and, accordingly, generating a whole complex of associations: Christian prayer flaming like a candle; the spirit ascending to the higher worlds; a soul communing with the Light. (In fact, the architects most likely did not strive for any accentuated harmony. Archaeological excavations have revealed the foundations of the gallery surrounding the temple. Historians are still arguing about what it looked like. The prevailing opinion is that it was an arched pylonade with a promenade now - a covered gallery - at the level of the second tier, where you can still see the door to the choir.)
The temple is white stone; in the Vladimir-Suzdal principality they preferred to abandon flat bricks () and build three-layer walls from smoothly hewn limestone slabs and poured lime mortar backfills between them. The buildings, especially the unpainted ones, were striking in their radiant whiteness (in the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir today you can see the remains of the fresco painting of the arcature-columnar belt; after perestroika late XII century, it ended up in the interior, but was intended as a colored decoration of the facade).
Perhaps the temple owes its beauty to the fact that it used the achievements of both Eastern Christian and Western European architectural schools. In terms of type, this is, of course, a building that continues the Byzantine traditions of temple construction: a holistic volume with semicircles of zakomaras and a bar on top. However, architectural historians have virtually no doubt that the construction was carried out by architects from the West (the 18th-century historian Vasily Tatishchev even claimed that they were sent at the disposal of Andrei Bogolyubsky by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa).
The participation of Europeans affected the appearance of the building. It turned out to be plastically elaborate; here they abandoned the simplified approach, when the facades are just planes, edges of an indivisible volume. Complex profiles create the effect of layer-by-layer immersion into the thickness of the wall - first to the expressive sculptural reliefs, and then further into the space of the temple, into the perspective slopes of narrow loophole windows. Such artistic techniques, when vertical rods protruding stepwise forward become the background for full-fledged three-quarter columns, quite worthy of their ancient prototypes, characteristic of works of the Romanesque style. The delightful masks, muzzles and chimeras that took on the weight of the arcature-columnar belt also would not have seemed alien somewhere on the banks of the Rhine.
Obviously, local craftsmen diligently adopted foreign experience. As stated in the chronicle “Chronicle of Vladimir” (XVI century), for the construction of the next, large and stylistically similar Church of the Intercession on the Nerli, the construction of the Demetrius Cathedral in Vladimir, “they no longer looked for German craftsmen.”
Moscow, XVI century
Ana Paula Hirama / CC BY-SA 2.0
St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow Bradjward / CC BY-NC 2.0
Painting on the walls of the cathedral Jack / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The Virgin and Child. Fragment of the cathedral painting Olga Pavlovsky / CC BY 2.0
Iconostasis of one of the altars Jack / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Fragment of the cathedral painting Olga Pavlovsky / CC BY 2.0
Cathedral plan Wikimedia Commons
Perhaps this is the most recognizable symbol of Russia. In any country, on any continent, his image can be used as a universal sign of everything Russian. And yet, in the history of Russian architecture there is no more mysterious building. It would seem that everything is known about him. And the fact that it was built by order of Ivan the Terrible in honor of the conquest of the Kazan Khanate. And the fact that construction took place in 1555-1561. And the fact that, according to the “Tale of the Holy Miracle-Working Velikoretsk Icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker about the Miracles from the Images of St. Jonah the Metropolitan and Reverend Father Alexander of Svir the Wonderworker” and the “Piskarevsky Chronicler”, it was built by Russian architects Postnik and Barma. And yet it is completely unclear why this building appeared, which was unlike anything built in Rus' before.
As you know, this is not a single temple, but nine separate churches and, accordingly, nine altars established on a common basis (later there were even more of them). Most of them are votive. Before the important battles of the Kazan campaign, the tsar turned to the saint whom the church honored on that day, and promised him, in case of victory, to build a temple where the helper saint would be venerated.
Although the temple is Orthodox, in some ways it is close to its Renaissance brethren from the Catholic world. First of all, in terms of plan, this is an ideal (with a small reservation) centric composition - such as was proposed by Antonio Filarete, Sebastiano Serlio and other outstanding theorists of Italian Renaissance architecture. True, the direction of the composition towards the sky and many decorative details - sharp “tongs”, for example - make it more closely related to South European Gothic.
However, the main thing is different. The building is decorated as never before in Moscow lands. It is also multi-colored: polychrome ceramic inserts have been added to the combination of red brick and white carving. And it is equipped with metal parts with gilding - forged spirals along the edges of the tent with freely suspended metal rings between them. And it was made up of many bizarre shapes, applied so often that there was almost no simple surface of the wall left. And all this beauty is primarily directed outward. It’s like a “church in reverse”; many people shouldn’t gather under its arches. But the space around it becomes a temple. As if at a minimum, Red Square acquired sacred status. Now she has become a temple, and the cathedral itself is her altar. Moreover, it can be assumed that, according to the plan of Ivan IV, the entire country was to become a sacred territory - the “Holy Russian Empire,” in the words of Tsar Kurbsky, who was then still part of the inner circle.
This was an important turn. While remaining faithful to Orthodoxy, Tsar Ivan saw it in a new way. In some ways this is close to the Renaissance aspirations of the Western world. Now it was necessary not to ignore the vanity of mortal reality in the hope of a happy existence after the end of time, but to respect the Creation given here and now, to strive to bring it to harmony and cleanse it from the filth of sin. In principle, the Kazan campaign was perceived by contemporaries not simply as an expansion of the territory of the state and the subjugation of previously hostile rulers. This was the victory of Orthodoxy and the bringing of the sacredness of the teachings of Christ to the lands of the Golden Horde.
The temple - unusually ornate (although initially crowned with more modest domes), symmetrical in plan, but triumphantly reaching towards the sky, not hidden behind the walls of the Kremlin, but placed in a place where people always crowd - became a kind of appeal from the Tsar to to his subjects, a visual image of the Orthodox Rus' that he would like to create and in the name of which he later shed so much blood.
Guilhem Vellut / CC BY 2.0Consecration of the Alexander Nevsky Church in Paris. Illustration from the collection “Russian art sheet”. 1861 Metropolitan Museum of Art
Some churches, in addition to regular services, carry out a special mission - to worthily represent Orthodoxy in a different denominational environment. It was for this purpose that in 1856 the question of rebuilding the embassy church in Paris, previously located in the building of a former stable, was raised. Having overcome administrative difficulties and received permission from the French government (the war in Crimea, after all), construction of the building began in 1858 and was completed in 1861. It is clear that he had to become very Russian and Orthodox in spirit. However, architects Roman Kuzmin and Ivan Shtrom began designing even before the usual canons of manner a la Russe had been developed. It is rather eclecticism in the full sense of the word, a mixture of styles and national traditions - however, successfully fused in a single work.
In the interior there is an obvious reference to Byzantine traditions: the central volume is adjacent to mosaics covered with gold backgrounds (halves of dome ceilings), as, for example, in the Church of St. Sophia of Constantinople. True, there are not two of them, but four - a solution proposed by the Turkish builder Mimar Sinan. The plan of the building is given the shape of an equal-pointed Greek cross, whose arms are rounded on all sides thanks to the apses. Externally, the composition rather refers to the temple architecture of the times of Ivan the Terrible, when the building was made up of separate aisles-pillars, and the central part received a tent-roofed finish. At the same time, the building should not seem foreign to Parisians either: clear faceted forms, masonry made from local material, which is not entirely fair to call squirrel-stone, and, most importantly, the three-lobed outlines of the Gothic windows made the building completely at home in the capital of France .
In general, the architects managed to fuse the motley variety of styles into a single image, closest to the festive “pattern” of the 17th century, from the time of Alexei Mikhailovich.
On August 30 (September 11), 1861, in the presence of numerous guests, the building was consecrated. “Let’s say that this time the Parisians, especially the English and Italians, were unusually struck by the external, ritual form of Eastern worship, filled with greatness.<…>Everyone - Catholics and Protestants alike - seemed keenly touched by the grandeur of the Eastern rite, its ancient character, which inspires reverence. It was felt that this was truly a first-century Divine Service, the Divine Service of the Apostolic Men, and an involuntary disposition was born to love and honor the Church, which preserved this Divine Service with such respect” - this is how contemporaries perceived this event Barsukov N.P. Life and works of M.P. Pogodin. St. Petersburg, 1888-1906.
Fragment of carving on the facade© RIA Novosti
This is a small family church in the estate of the famous entrepreneur Savva Mamontov. And yet, in the history of Russian culture and Russian temple architecture, it ranks special place. Having conceived the construction, the participants of the famous Abramtsevo circle Abramtsevo art (Mamontovsky) circle(1878-1893) - an artistic association that included artists (Antokolsky, Serov, Korovin, Repin, Vasnetsov, Vrubel, Polenov, Nesterov, etc.), musicians, theater workers. sought to embody in this work the very spirit of Russian Orthodoxy, its perfect image. The sketch of the temple was created by the artist Viktor Vasnetsov and implemented by the architect Pavel Samarin. Polenov, Repin, Vrubel, Antokolsky, as well as members of the Mamontov family, including its head, a successful amateur sculptor, took part in the work on the decoration.
Although the construction was undertaken for a very practical purpose - to build a church where residents of the surrounding villages could come - the main artistic task of this enterprise was the search for means of expressing the origins and specifics of Russian religiosity. “The rise in energy and artistic creativity was extraordinary: everyone worked tirelessly, competitively, selflessly. It seemed that the artistic impulse of creativity of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was again in full swing. But back then, cities, entire regions, countries, peoples lived with this impulse, but we only have Abramtsev, a small artistic friendly family and circle. But what's the problem? “I breathed deeply in this creative atmosphere,” wrote Natalya Polenova, the artist’s wife, in her memoirs N.V. Polenova. Abramtsevo. Memories. M., 2013..
In fact, the architectural solutions here are quite simple. This is a brick pillarless temple with a light drum. The main cube-shaped volume is laid out dryly, it has smooth walls and clear corners. However, the use of inclined (retaining walls), their complex shape, when the crowning, flatter part hangs like a tooth over the steep main one, gave the building an ancient, archaic appearance. Together with the characteristic belfry above the entrance and the lowered drum, this technique gives rise to strong associations with the architecture of ancient Pskov. Obviously, there, far from the bustle of metropolitan life, the initiators of the construction hoped to find the roots of the original Orthodox Slavic architecture, not spoiled by the dryness of the stylization solutions of the Russian style. The architecture of this temple was a remarkable anticipation of a new artistic direction. At the end of the century it came to Russia (analogous to European Art Nouveau, Art Nouveau and Secession). Among its variants was the so-called neo-Russian style, features of which can already be seen in Abramtsevo.
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By mastering new technologies, a person changes the space around him, at the same time modernizing the material attributes of religion - the buildings of churches and temples. Such changes also affect the Orthodox environment, where the question of “modernizing” the church tradition of building churches is increasingly being raised. Catholics, on the contrary, are trying to take control of this process - not so long ago the Vatican officially stated: “Modern Catholic churches resemble museums and are built more with the aim of receiving an award for design than to serve the Lord...”. The works of Western architects are indeed often awarded in various professional competitions and awards; some of them later become widely known and become architectural symbols of cities.
We present to you photographs of modern churches built with elements of modernism and the “style of the future” - high-tech.
(Total 21 photos)
1. Protestant “Crystal” Cathedral in Garden Grove, Orange County, California, USA. This is the most famous example of the high-tech style, which involves straight lines in design and glass with metal as the main material. The temple is built from 10,000 rectangular glass blocks held together with silicone glue, and its design, according to the architects, is as reliable as possible.
2. The church can accommodate up to 2900 parishioners at a time. The organ located inside the Crystal Cathedral is truly wonderful. Operated from five keyboards, it is one of the largest organs in the world.
3. In many ways similar to the “Crystal” Cathedral, the Church of Light from Light (eng. Cathedral of Christ the Light) - catholic church in Oakland, USA. The church is cathedral Diocese of Oakland, as well as the first Christian cathedral in the United States built in the 21st century. The temple has been widely discussed in the American press due to the significant construction costs, as well as the surrounding garden, which is dedicated to victims of sexual abuse by clergy.
4. Interior Churches of Light from Light.
5. Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, often called simply Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, is the main Catholic church in Liverpool, Great Britain. The building is a striking example of architecture of the second half of the 20th century. Serves as the see of the Archbishop of Liverpool and also acts as a parish church.
6. The interior interior with state-of-the-art lighting will amaze both believers and atheists.
7. The Church of the Holy Cross in Denmark is impressive with the geometry of the building in a minimalist style and its location - almost in the middle of a field.
8. Built in the late 90s Catholic Church in the city of Evry (France) is called the Cathedral of the Resurrection. Pay attention to the floral decor in the form of green bushes located on the roof of the building.
9. The Church of the Merciful God the Father in Rome is a major social center of the Italian capital. This futuristic building is specially located in one of the residential areas in order to architecturally “revive” it. Precast reinforced concrete was used as a building material.
10. Hallgrimskirja - Lutheran church in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. This is the fourth tallest building in the entire country. The church was designed in 1937 by architect Goodjoun Samuelson, and it took 38 years to build. Although the building was created long before the expansion of high-tech into the world of architecture, in our opinion, general form temple and its unusual shape make it a very interesting example of modernism. The church is located in the very center of Reykjavik, visible from any part of the city, and its top part also used as a viewing platform. The temple became one of the capital's main attractions.
11. In the center of Strasbourg, France, a modern cathedral is being built, which still only has a “working” name: Folder. Consisting of a series of pleated arches, the building would look extremely original as a venue for Catholic ceremonies, such as weddings.
12. Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of St. Joseph was built in Chicago (USA) in 1956. It is known throughout the world for its 13 golden domes, which symbolize Jesus himself and the 12 apostles.
13. Church of Santo Volto in Turin (Italy). The design of the new church complex is part of the program of transformations provided for in the 1995 Turin master plan.
14. St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco is a fairly avant-garde building, but local architects call it a "reasonable conservative option."
15. The minimalist Church of Light was built in 1989, designed by famous Japanese architect Tadao Ando, in a quiet residential area in the suburbs of Osaka, Japan. Inner space The Church of Light is visually separated by rays of light coming from a cross-shaped hole in one of the walls of the building.
16. In the center of Los Angeles is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The church serves a general archdiocese of more than 5 million Catholics. It is in this temple that the archbishop conducts the main liturgies.
17. Harissa Church in the capital of Lebanon - Beirut. It consists of 2 parts: a bronze statue of the Holy Virgin Mary weighing fifteen tons, located at an altitude of 650 meters above sea level, made in the Byzantine style. There is a small chapel inside the statue.
18. The second part of the Harissa Church is a futuristic cathedral made of glass and concrete. This complex is a real Christian symbol in a somewhat unusual setting. It is also called the "Banner of Christianity in the Middle East."
19. Unusual in shape, materials and general concept The building is the relatively recently built Santa Monica Catholic Church. The temple is located an hour's drive from Madrid (Spain).
20. Interior of the Church of Santa Monica.
21. To conclude our review - a completely unconventional Trinity Church in the traditional and conservative capital of Austria - Vienna. The Church of the Holy Trinity (German: Kirche Zur Heiligsten Dreifaltigkeit) in Vienna, better known as the Church of the Holy Trumpets, is located on Mount Sankt Georgenberg. Built in 1974, the Temple belongs to the Roman Catholic Church. Due to the complete inconsistency with traditional church forms, the construction of the building, of course, met significant resistance from local residents.
On January 20, as part of the Christmas educational readings, the conference “Modern Temple Architecture: Traditions and Modernity” was held. The builders of churches and their customers discussed what a modern Orthodox church should be like.
Archbishop Egoryevsky Mark, chairman financially–economic management Russian Orthodox Churches:
Sometimes, when visiting construction sites, you hear how many cubes of concrete are needed and who to order windows from. But it’s not often that people talk about beauty and how the temple will fit into the surrounding landscape.
We have made progress in many areas - mosaic and mural painting, jewelry art. Alas, architecture is still lagging behind.
The problem is that many architects are selfish. They don’t think about how the temple will be painted later, where the iconostasis will be placed and the choir will be located. We lack synergy.
The second problem: very often, when building a temple, architects blindly copy samples from the 14th-15th centuries. And at this time, temples are appearing in the West that do not look like temples. There should be moderation in everything, but there should be no slavish imitation of tradition.
I have been entrusted with the Moscow “200 Temples” program. Initially it was assumed that the churches there would be standard and prefabricated. But it turned out that the temples they build are not standard, and they are built slowly. But perhaps in this case it is sometimes easier to order individual projects.
Some of the temples, chosen at one time by the commission, are beautiful, but very difficult to repair, which cannot be done without scaffolding and cranes, and are expensive to operate - for example, if thermal heating is provided.
In my opinion, we need to have inexpensive designs of pre-fabricated temples that are erected as temporary or non-temporary as soon as the land is cleared. And we have examples where a community and a Sunday school then arise around such a church, and the community begins to live.
Is it necessary to build such temporary shelters if people, even secular ones, strive for beauty, and even the meeting of the Fathers, the name of which is usually translated in our country as “Philokalia,” is actually translated as “love of beauty.” But, in my opinion, in the current crisis conditions we also need to think about inexpensive temporary churches.
Sergey Olegovych Kuznetsov – main architect cities Moscow:
One of the current modern problems– quality of temple projects. Any person who has studied architecture can confirm that temples are usually cited as examples of architecture of any era in institute programs.
It is very sad that temple architecture has lost this status of the cutting edge of architecture. Our task is to return him.
As for the task of prefabricated churches, I constantly think about why we don’t build enough of wood, a native Russian and renewable material.
Both I and the Moskomarkhitektura team will be happy to participate in these creative searches and will do everything possible to contribute to the development of Moscow temple construction.
Metropolitan Nizhny Novgorod And Arzamas Georgy:
There are two problems that we face today - our ignorance and the low level of construction management. If we want to have good temples By appearance and functionality, good design work is needed.
The architect must lead everything, because as soon as someone else intervenes in the situation - even the governor - the unified ensemble falls apart.
Metropolitan Georgy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas
The second problem is who will build it? If a temple is designed by a person who built a cinema yesterday and today shopping mall, it turns out who knows what - a room for mass stay.
On the other hand, the customer must trust the author of the project. Because if the customer keeps asking: “I only need windows like these,” then the original idea turns out to be something different in style.
The architect must also accompany the construction. Because the customer’s attempts to find cheaper craftsmen and materials sometimes lead to having to solve problems in an already finished building.
In my diocese, I have selected several workshops that can ensure quality and, at the same time, carry out some examination of projects. Because “falling into the exclusive” in the matter of temple building is just as dangerous as “falling into consumer goods.”
It would be useful to oblige design workshops to also maintain their churches. Then the issue of unnecessarily expensive heating in projects would be resolved.
That is, the issue of not only the construction, but the maintenance and preservation of temples is important. If a newly built church becomes smoky after three years, it is, in my opinion, necessary to figure out whether it is the fault of the designer.
Bishop Nizhny Tagil And Serovsky Innocent:
I think ours church architecture must be universal. When necessary, temples should be designed with rich decoration. But sometimes you need minimalism.
For example, if we calculate the number of people, then in our diocese we need forty or fifty churches. But a temple is not a parking lot; it cannot be counted simply by the number of people.
When they talk about “low-budget” churches, you need to keep in mind that we will always have outlying areas where there is little money and there will be even less.
Bishop of Nizhny Tagil and Serov Innocent
It’s a pity that we don’t have a “ministry of church art.” It’s easier for us to invite architects and builders. In the Vladimir diocese I had a diocesan architect, in the current one - I can only dream of such a person on staff.
But we have many churches in semi-basement rooms, in transformer booths and villages about which they say: “They are dying.”
In my opinion, we need to create an image of a modern temple. And in the modern state, this image should be ascetic. And just as an icon is “speculation in colors,” so a temple should be “asceticism in architecture.”
Yes, we need both mobile and prefabricated churches - the command of military units has been asking me for them for a long time. But we need the image of the temple and the general architectural educational program more.
Archpriest Andrey Yurevich, main architect Financially–economic management ROC:
Almost five years have passed since the “200 churches” program started in Moscow. The results that are usually summed up on it are quantitative - how many plots are allocated, churches are built, etc. But they rarely talk about quality.
Initially it was planned that the program would be based on a modular temple-constructor, but then it was abandoned. We decided to focus on the so-called “standard projects”.
Archpriest Andrei Yurevich (center)
However, if exemplary projects were historically developed, it was for the provinces, where there have always been problems with construction personnel. Individual projects were typical for the capitals, and the priests, whose microdistricts are already standard, insist on them. They say, let at least the temple be atypical in a microdistrict of identical high-rise buildings.
In addition, typical house construction involves factories standard designs which are produced in batches. There is no such production for temples; each of them is still built as individual project. As a result, all the savings amount to several tens of thousands of rubles for design, which a large Moscow parish will always find.
Most projects are not well thought out. Not only is there no utility rooms, there is no space for a choir, a wardrobe, a sexton, or a room for mothers with many children. All this is cut off from the main volume, and as a result the temple turns out to be quite small. But in the case of Moscow, building a church for 200-250 people, in my opinion, makes no sense at all.
The solution is development standard projects we must continue, and the projects themselves must be further thought out, including using a “basilica” type project - it is simple to construct and can vary in internal content.
Until now, the clergy house is planned as a separate building. It would be interesting to make complete complexes, where the temple premises would be integrated into a complex of utility rooms. This would allow saving on communications and would solve the problem of urban development, where often a site is allocated exclusively for the temple area - then all services are located on the lower floors.
Sergey Valerievich Chapnin, main editor magazine « Temple Builder»:
The Khramozdatel magazine was conceived as a platform for the exchange of opinions. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to hold large conferences more than once a year.
But their results should be published not only in notes and news, but in extensive articles. And we are pleased to offer a platform for this, which has already been joined by sculptors and icon painters, who, as it turns out, do not have their own magazine.
One of the prospects for the development of temple architecture, in my opinion, is not only following tradition, but also looking at the West, where there are also very interesting traditions. For example, the chief architect of the Sagrada Familia once wrote a very interesting article for us, and many Orthodox priests noted that the story about the construction of such an outstanding temple can enrich the Orthodox tradition.
Michael Yurievich Kesler, chairman expert council Guilds temple builders, member council By architecture SAR:
Until now, the criteria for selecting projects have not been clearly fixed.
Firstly, of course, it must be following the canonical tradition. The trouble is that many people understand it differently - from blind copying of samples to an absolute play of the imagination. Unfortunately, modern architects do not know the service well, and this is reflected in functionality.
Splendor is not an abundance of decor, but knowledge of the proportions of ancient architecture and the use of modern, but man-made materials - carving, not cast stone, gilding, not titanium nitride.
Functionality is also important for a modern temple.
We took all these criteria into account when holding a competition for temple projects. Unfortunately, out of two hundred projects sent, we were able to select about thirty.
I would also like to draw the attention of those present to the fact that when further using projects, copyright legislation must be strictly observed.
During the conference, diplomas were also awarded to the winners of the temple architecture project competition.
Andrey Anisimov, Honored Architect of Russia. Founder of the “Temple Builders Guild”, head of the group of architects and restorers “Anisimov Workshops”
One of the main properties of God is His omnipresence, so pray Orthodox Christian you can do it anywhere, anywhere.
But there are places of the exclusive presence of God, where the Lord is in a special, gracious way. Such places are called temples of God or churches.
The symbolism of the temple explains to believers the essence of the temple as the beginning of the future Kingdom of Heaven, puts before them the image of this Kingdom, using visible architectural forms and by means of pictorial decoration in order to make accessible to our senses the image of the invisible, the heavenly, the divine.
Architecture is not able to adequately recreate the heavenly prototype, if only because only some holy people during earthly life were awarded a vision of the Heavenly Kingdom, the image of which, according to their explanations, cannot be expressed in any words. For most people, this is a mystery that is only slightly revealed in the Holy Scriptures and Church Tradition. The Temple is also an image of the Universal Church, its basic principles and structure. In the Creed the Church is called “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.”
In some way, these features of the Church can be reflected in temple architecture.
A temple is a consecrated building in which believers praise God, thank Him for the blessings they have received and pray to Him for their needs. The central, most often the most majestic churches, in which clergy from other nearby churches gather for common ceremonial services, are called cathedrals, or simply cathedrals.
According to subordination and location, temples are divided into:
Stauropegial- churches under the direct control of His Holiness the Patriarch and the Synod.
Cathedral- are the main churches for the ruling bishops of a particular diocese.
Parish— churches in which services are held for local parishes (a parish is a community of Orthodox Christians consisting of clergy and laity united at a church).
Cemetery- located either on the territory of cemeteries or in close proximity to them. A special feature of cemetery churches is that funeral services are constantly performed here. The duty of local clergy is to perform lithiums and memorial services for those buried in the cemetery at the request of relatives. The temple building has its own architectural appearance, established over centuries, with its deep symbolism.
In fact, there are practically no pure styles in architecture; they all exist simultaneously, complementing and enriching each other. Styles do not mechanically replace one another, they do not become obsolete, do not appear out of nowhere and do not disappear without a trace. In any architectural style there is something of the previous and future style. When attributing a building to a certain architectural style, we must understand that this is a conditional characteristic, since each work of architecture is unique and inimitable in its own way.
In order to attribute a building to a specific style, we need to select the main, in our opinion, feature. It is clear that such a classification will always be approximate and imprecise. Medieval Russian architecture does not fit into the European classification in any way. Let's move on to Russian temple architecture.
Rus' adopted the established Orthodox religion from Byzantium, which already had various types of temples. The lack of a tradition of stone construction in Rus' did not allow us to take the complex capital system of the domed Byzantine basilica as a basis. The four- and six-pillar cross-domed type of provincial Byzantine church became the model for Russian churches.
