Flippo Brunelleschi's Dome Research Paper

Throughout the book Brunelleschi’s Dome, Filippo has to overcome others to make his ideas become a reality. First he loses the bronze door competition to his competition Lorenzo. Then he has to fight against the Opera del Duomo to allow his model to be used for the Dome. He continued to fight for he designs with trying to flood Lucca, and building II Badalone, both being fails. After those fails, and the Domes set backs, the Opera began to lose faith in Filippo, but that wouldn't stop him. He continued to be in charge of building the Dome, and later designing the lanterns after having Antonio steal his ideas.

During all of this Brunelleschi not only built the dome in the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral (what today is still the biggest dome in the world), but mechanical marvels of worker platforms and lifts that managed to carry workers and hundreds pounds of materials hundreds feet in the air over the course of 28 years with only a single death. This showed how Brunelleschi was a mastermind in architecture and how he revived it.

The structure, approved and paid for by the city council, was a feat of amazing architecture on the part of Fillippo Brunelleschi. This was the largest dome created in that time and it was Brunelleschi’s ingenious design that won the commission against Ghiberti and other artists. The Church’s possession of grand cathedrals like this one served to demonstrate to the people the greatness of the faith and the power of God. There was a religious aspect to the construction of the immense cathedrals and basilicas; the people were paying homage to their god and constructing churches they felt were worthy for him. However, it was also somewhat political, as the grandeur of the churches was displayed to all the people in the city. No one could question the Catholic church’s might and colossal influence after viewing a cathedral such as the

Robert A. Scott wrote The Gothic Enterprise in an attempt to give readers a bit of insight into the world of cathedrals. He moves from topic to topic, explaining how Gothic Cathedrals came to be, how they were constructed, and who ran them. Two course themes very applicable to Scott’s text are “How Technologies Develop” and “Technology and the Environment.” Over the nearly 500 year period of cathedral building, technologies to make the process easier were developed. For example, the windlass were used to hoist the heaver timbers up to the roofs of the cathedrals. Flying buttresses were also put in place after wind started to become a problem with the building of the spires. This environmental problem, along with others such as flooding at the

49,250 seats, all filled with orange-dressed alumni, students, friends, families, and visitors. An enclosed dome; full of life, excitement, and 5 division one athletic teams, located in the heart of Syracuse University. Yes, I am talking about the famous Carrier Dome, Syracuse University’s home sports stadium.

The motivation behind Brunelleschi’s Dome originated from the desire to show-off Florence, Europe’s financial and cultural wealth. Later, the large dome was added to display that the church was the most beautiful and best that was ever been built.

One of the more inspiring and brilliantly conceived and constructed dome structures in the world is the Pantheon of Rome. This example imposes a magnificent strength of ingenuity and dominance over their surrounding landscape, and the Pantheon deserves to be researched and admired for its architecturally innovative and bold design of its time. The building was accommodated with serious technical impediments that required a thorough and scrutinizing attention to detail in order to overcome. It is because of the prevailed obstacles by the various designers, architects and builders of this building that captures the consideration of those interested in the development of building technology and progress throughout the

Filippo Brunelleschi was a genius at not only architecture, but at sculpture, woodcarving, drawing, and clock making. When the priests in Florence, Italy in 1418 were deciding on what they were going to do with the big hole they had in the roof of their cathedral, Brunelleschi volunteered to be the architect (King, 2013). His motivation was to help the church, however, he also knew that this would allow him to have never ending fame and a big salary once the job was complete. Even though he would not reveal his plan on how he would accomplish this extraordinary task, they accepted his as the supervisor of this great project.

Next, we used a compass to sketch a circle with a radius of 3.625 inches into a Maple Log and then proceeded to cut it out using a bandsaw. Due to the fact that the shape was not a perfectly cut, we used a lathe - a machine designed to shape wood or other materials by rotating the piece being worked on and using changeable cutting tools - to make it into an exact cylinder. We did the same process for the dome; however, there were slight differences. The dome was made out of a Red Cedar Log and had a radius of 7 inches. Also it was shaped like a dome rather than a cylinder and only had a height of 1 and 3/4 inches. In addition, while we were creating its dome shape on the lathe, we made indents (rings) in the side to make it look similar to the real Pantheon's dome.

In 1296 the town fathers of Florence had built a cathedral to showcase their place as one of the cultural and economic capitals of Europe. The one problem with this cathedral was that for over a century it was without a dome and so snow, wind, rain and sunshine poured into the cathedral all through the seasons. They decided that it was time to fix this issue and so issued a challenge and contest to create a dome that could stand unsupported and cover the cathedral. It would be the largest unsupported dome in the world. This challenge was taken up by a gold smith by the name of Filippo Brunelleschi.

Back in France, Bartholdi had problems of his own. The structure of the statue located in the interior was a very formidable task due to its intricate makeup. To circumvent this problem, a man named Alexandre Eiffel, well known due to his composition of the architecture for the Eiffel Tower in Paris, was hired as the structural engineer. He was able to make the skeletal framework and the iron pylons for the statue and construction continued. The statue was completed in 1884, surpassing the deadline by a reasonable number of years.

An example of the Medici support to artists involves The Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. The dome of the chapel was built so large that no architect knew how to complete the rooftop structure and was a humiliating point in Florentine history. A contest to see who could develop a solution to complete the dome was won by a Florentine engineer named Brunelleschi, who felt he had found the solution. With the successful completion of the chapel, support from Cosimo de Medici and the holy consecration performed by the Pope, a great structure was once again a source of pride to the Florentines and the

The genius by Roman architects and engineers of the arch, vault and dome, improved their evolution of concrete, as well as working out probable problems of grand architecture, which is to bridge space (Roman architecture [sa]). Roofing a

Lastly, Golding also illustrates the organization and professions the workmen who construct the spire accurately. Roger Mason is at the head of the construction for the spire. He is a medieval master builder, someone who was highly skilled and overlooked most of the construction (“Medieval Mason”). They were responsible for designing the plan and then ordering his workmen to complete the jobs. Some professions of the workmen required certain skills, while others require physical strength. An important job in the construction that demanded superb skill was the master stonemason. Stonemasons were part of a guild, and would have to work his way up from an apprentice to a master mason by working on building sites and learning useful stone masonry

All over the world, people still come to admire the beauty of European cathedrals. Many of the cathedrals are fragile due to age, neglect, pollution, and insufficient funds available to restore these historical and magnificent buildings. Nevertheless, visitors to these architectural masterpieces are fascinated by the design and structure of these churches. The cathedral builders using their own ingenuity, expertise, and limited resources were able to defy the laws of gravity and time. (Icher 30)