drums crowned by tapering domes were deliberately scored to resemble candles, thus manifesting a certain aesthetic and religious attitude.Why are onion domes predominant in Russian architecture?
soumis il y a 3 ans par res3k
Does it have any connection to similar domes in mosques?
Onion domes are predominant in Russian architecture because they became an important stylistic component of Russian Orthodox church design. According to what I have read, the dome’s importance comes from symbolic and technical aspects. Russian onion domes have complex symbolic associations, from the classic "vault of heaven" to their appearance as tongues of flame, recalling the holy spirit. On the technical side, you have the often repeated theory that the domes were an adaptation to the climate, especially Russia’s heavy snowfalls. The wooden construction of the onion dome would also have been a plus for Russian architects, was this material was in greater supply than the stone necessary for traditional, byzantine-style dome construction.One final reason for the predominance of the onion dome in Russian architecture: the origin of the dome and the associations that come with its origin. Russian church architecture, which features the dome most prominently out of all, is heavily influenced by Byzantine architecture. As Orthodox Christianity was the predominant religion, it follows that Russian builders sought to emulate the styles of the center of Orthodox Christianity, namely Constantinople. This architectural tradition places high importance on centrally-planned, domed spaces. This architectural tradition was combined in Russia with the native wooden-building traditions that have much in common with Scandinavia. These traditions stressed complex, creative wooden constructions with strong vertical components such as steeply pitching roofs and elaborate frameworks. The onion dome is a product of the combination of these two traditions. One source, an examination of the origin of the domes by S. V. Zagraevsky, argues that the domes were a Russian development in the 13th to 14th centuries along these lines–that Russian carpenters, skilled in complex woodwork from both building construction and shipbuilding (alluding to Rus’s Scandinavian roots) developed the onion dome independently in order to fulfill the need for domes over Byzantine-influenced churches using wooden construction. This form of dome becomes widespread in the medieval period, thus cementing itself into "tradition" and becoming an essential part of Russian architecture.Note on sources and origins: like always, the story is far more complex than can be presented, and I would invite an expert on Russian culture to step in. The origins of the onion dome are shrouded as no original wooden domes from the period survive and scholars are forced to work from written and illustrative documentary evidence, which is open to varied interpretation. What I have read also presents two conflicting stories: that onion domes were a product of Indian and Byzantine sources that combined in the Islamic world, or that they were the products of independent developments that settled on the onion shape to suit their own technical or symbolic needs and which are only distantly connected to other similar designs in Central Europe, Russia, the Middle East, India. What is conclusive is that the widespread use of these domes dates back at least to the 12th-13th centuries. On sources, the most recent source on onion domes in English that I found (thanks to wiki) was Forms of the domes of the ancient Russian temples. Other works, such as National Elements in Russian Architecture and The Origin and the Distribution of the Bulbous Dome date back to the 1940s, but provide good insight into wooden dome architecture (note: these are JSTOR links). The wiki article on the Onion dome has a good introduction on these domes and has a list of sources, although many of them are in Russian.
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[–]intangible-tangerine 1 point il y a 3 ans*
This is a story which begins with early Slavic Christian Religious architecture, which exerted a strong influence on secular architecture on the region. I’m just going to generalise and use ‘church’ here for all buildings used for Christian religious services, not bothering to distinguish between churches and basilicas and cathedrals and so forth as I don’t wish to over complicate matters.
When the Kievan Rus, a confederation of Slavic tribes living in parts of modern day Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, were gradually Christianised from the mid 8th to the early 11th c. they were primarily influenced by missions from the Byzantine Church and so they adapted the Byzantine dome for their own church architecture. However, whereas Byzantine Churches usually featured a large central dome, as can be seen with the most famous example, the Hagia Sophia these early medieval Slavic churches feature several smaller domes with the characteristic bulging onion shape, see the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Novgorod built in the late 11th c. which may be due to some influence from earlier Slavic pagan architectural styles that are lost to us. Perhaps reflecting earlier buildings with multiple tower structures or bulged roofs.
This onion dome hasn’t been completely dominant through all of the history of Russian and Eastern European Christian architecture, during the later medieval period a fashion for pointed roofs emerged, such as that of the 15th c. Spasskaya Tower in Moscow. Nevertheless the onion domed towers continued to be built alongside these. Sometimes the two styles were used simultaneously as seen with this early 16 th church at Ostrov, near Moscow where a pointed roof is topped off with a small dome.
… and so this story continues, waves of architectural fashions such as 17th c Ukrainian Baroque and 19th c Neo-Classical Byzantine sweep through the region, some of which typically incorporate onion domes and some of which don’t, but it never disappears from the architects’ tool kits. Because it was associated so strongly with the original conversion of the Keivan Rus, regarded as the common ancestor culture of Russia Ukraine and Belarus, it was had strong connotations of connecting later structures to this past and tying them in with a narrative of distinctive Russian/Slavic identity.
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True or not an architect once told me that the shape was heavily influenced by Russian climatology, with significant quantities of snow along the year this shape prevents the snow to accumulate on the roofs hence they would not collapse under the snow weight.You seem to be downvoted as a non-historian, but the hypothesis if very plausible. Initially church architecture in Russia was obviously very influenced by the Byzantine architecture, and domes were either egg-shaped, or even flatter than that (modern reconstruction of the Pirogoshcha Church of Our Lavy in Kiev, Ukraine)). But then in Russia they were quickly replaced by so called "helmet domes" (example: Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, Russia). And it is this transition that might have been indeed influenced by the simple snow factor.
Starting as of XIII and for sure by XVI century helmet domes gradually evolved into onion domes. I don’t know why it happened. Maybe, in a way, it "just happened", because all styles tend to evolve somewhere, and it does not always happen for particular reason, or serve a particular purpose.
I am not quite sure I can endorse what intangible-tangerine said in the comment nearby about secular architecture being an example here. Secular architecture in Russia was overwhelmingly wooden, and the only major type of brick "domes" that evolved from wooden domes is the tent roof church, which was quite popular for a while, but was then officially prohibited in XVII century for some reason, and allowed only for construction of bell-towers. It is rather uncomfortable to make a roundish dome, be it egg-, helmet-, or onion-shape one out of wood (even though it is technically possible). I am also not aware of any evidence for pre-Christian, or secular round dome-like structures in Russian architecture.As for pagan temples, it looks like Slavic pagan shrines were almost always located outdoors. While among Western Slavs some temples might have apparently existed, for some reason in modern reconstructions they are always depicted quite squarish in design (but here I am not sure, as the whole topic of Slavic Paganism is a rather sketchy one, due to a strong influence from romantic neo-pagan groups).
[+]Centurion521 nombre de points du commentaire sous la limite (11 enfants)
www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gb89y/why_are_on…
An onion dome (Russian: луковичная глава, lúkovichnaya glava; compare Russian: лук, luk, "onion") is a dome whose shape resembles an onion. Such domes are often larger in diameter than the drum upon which they sit, and their height usually exceeds their width. These bulbous structures taper smoothly to a point.It is the predominant form for church domes in Russia (mostly on Russian Orthodox churches) and in Bavaria, Germany (German: Zwiebelturm (literally "onion tower"), plural: Zwiebeltürme, mostly on Catholic churches), but can also be found regularly across Austria, northeastern Italy, Eastern Europe, Mughal India, the Middle East and Central Asia.
Other types of Eastern Orthodox cupolas include helmet domes (for example, those of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod and of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir), Ukrainian pear domes (Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev), and Baroque bud domes (St. Andrew’s Church in Kiev).Art historians disagree on when and why onion domes became a typical feature of Russian architecture. Byzantine churches and architecture of Kievan Rus were characterized by broader, flatter domes without a special framework erected above the drum. In contrast to this ancient form, each drum of a Russian church is surmounted by a special structure of metal or timber, which is lined with sheet iron or tiles.By the end of the nineteenth century, most Russian churches from before the Petrine period had bulbous domes. The largest onion domes were erected in the seventeenth century in the area around Yaroslavl, incidentally famous for its large onions. Quite a few had more complicated bud-shaped domes, whose form derived from Baroque models of the late seventeenth century. Pear-shaped domes are usually associated with Ukrainian Baroque, while cone-shaped domes are typical for Orthodox churches of Transcaucasia.Russian icons painted before the Mongol invasion of Rus do not feature churches with onion domes. Two highly venerated pre-Mongol churches that have been rebuilt—the Assumption Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. Demetrius in Vladimir—display golden helmet domes. Restoration work on several other ancient churches revealed some fragments of former helmet-like domes below newer onion cupolasPrior to the eighteenth century, the Russian Orthodox Church did not assign any particular symbolism to the exterior shape of a church.[10] Nevertheless, onion domes are popularly believed to symbolise burning candles. In 1917, noted religious philosopher Prince Yevgeny Trubetskoy argued that the onion shape of Russian church domes may not be explained rationally. According to Trubetskoy, drums crowned by tapering domes were deliberately scored to resemble candles, thus manifesting a certain aesthetic and religious attitude.[11] Another explanation has it that the onion dome was originally regarded as a form reminiscent of the edicula (cubiculum) in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Onion domes often appear in groups of three, representing the Holy Trinity, or five, representing Jesus Christ and the Four Evangelists. Domes standing alone represent Jesus. Vasily Tatischev, the first to record such interpretation, disapproved of it emphatically. He believed that the five-domed design of churches was propagated by Patriarch Nikon, who liked to compare the central and highest dome with himself and four lateral domes with four other patriarchs of the Orthodox world. There is no other evidence that Nikon ever held such a view.brightly painted: their colors may informally symbolise different aspects of religion. Green, blue, and gold domes are sometimes held to represent the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, respectively. Black ball-shaped domes were once popular in the snowy north of Russia.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_dome
