In 2008 my husband and I went to Florence, Italy. Prior to going, I did some research about a few particular sites we should visit and why they were important. Florence has been considered the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance (Walther, Suckale, Eschenbur, Williams). The key tipping point of that birth was the creation of IL Duomo that Fillipo Brunelleschi designed. We visited it while we were there. The structure was massive. It is the largest massonry dome in the world. When I saw the article options for this assignment I was anxious to learn more about this amazing building.
The problems Brunelleschi faced were immense. First, no one had ever built a dome at this size and scale. Often, the domes that were built during, or
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With this existing architecture, flaws were built in that Brunelleschi had to work around, such as the enormous height of the original building and the non linear 8 sided figure he was supposed to build it on top of.
Third, since a structure of this magnitude and height had never been successfully attempted in Europe, he had to invent a wide array of tools, cranes, and platforms just to build the dome itself.
Fourth, gravity fought him every step of the way. It wanted to pull the dome down which caused him to work with exacting specifications to keep it up. He had to create a design that fought the gravitational pull to the earth.
Fifth, though he was a genius, Brunelleschi was not an architect, he was a gold-smith and watchmaker (Mueller).
With these hurdles in mind, he had some big problems to overcome. Previously, he had gone throughout Italy studying architecture, sculpture and art. He understood mechanics and mathematics, from being a watchmaker, that gave him the scientific frame of mind to call upon all of his other disciplines in order to understand how to overcome the problems he faced. According to Tom Mueller, who wrote “Brunelleschi’s Dome” for National Geographic, he “apply(ed) his theoretical and mechanical knowledge to observation of the natural world, he single-handedly worked out the rules of linear
Because of the his brilliant idea, he broke “all the standard rules of the day” in its design by using steel to replace wood to build the water tower. He explained to use the eight column were better preference to four, as it can bring the task placed upon the metal of the tank shell to transmit the loads to the post well within the limits which existing structures have shown to be safe. The height and capacity of the water tower were monumental at that time, nevertheless they were considered the requirement for a thriving
Now thats hard work and detication. The article states, "The engineers worked throughout the winter measuring, designing, and drawing." This took a lot of hard work to complete the building by spring. This is why intelligence and pysical strength is such an imortant roll in working together to create something big and by being able to get it done in time.
The authors aims were to educate the reader upon the history of the Dome and to show how it was built, why it was an amazing feat, and why Filippo was an ingenious architecture. King achieved his aims very well. Through out the book, he expressed the importance of Filippo and everything that he did. King tells about how Filippo built and designed the Dome. He supported the claim that Filippo was before his time, and that no one could duplicate his work; “A proud Florentine, Michelangelo claimed that he could equal it, Filippo’s dome but never surprises it. In fact, he did not even equal it…” (Page 163)
Thirdly, both projects took multiple decades from conception to realization. The Great Pyramid of Giza is believed to have taken between 20 to 30 years to construct. The amount of stone that was laid in the span of the project indicates that one stone was set roughly every three minutes (Grimault, 2010). The CA/T Project also took 25 years to complete including the planning stages, bids for federal funding, and actual development (Hall, 2006). These multidecadal timelines serve to demonstrate that megastructures require vast amounts of forethought and patience to bring separate systems together as a whole.
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
In the fifteenth-century, the evolution of patronage begin, since power, and money influenced the creation of great artworks. One hand it flourished the Italian architectural collections other hand, notable designers as Brunelleschi, and Donatello designed and experimented with their creations. For example, Brunelleschi creation for the Medici family, which known as the Dome of Florence Cathedral (Fig 12-12). As it has been mentioned in the book he was the founder of the dome and it was one of the Gothic inspired and cost effective creation from that time period. Artist Donatello also made a contribution in the art world in a fascinating way since his work was inspired by as it has been mentioned in the book by the classical forms which
Everyone knows Leonardo Da Vinci for his Last Supper Painting and the Mona Lisa. Not only was Da Vinci a painter he was also an inventor. He had a fascination for planes and other unique things. He made the designs for things like guns and planes that we use for our military and did not even know he was the first with the ideas of these inventions . He made designs for four flying machines such as the anemometer and the parachute. He made designs for four war machines such has the crossbow and armed car. He made designs for five innovations such the clock and the colossus. And last but not least, he designed two water machines such as the scuba gear.
Brunelleschi started out his skilled life as a goldsmith in San Giovanni. A career as a goldsmith was very popular at the time by other great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Donatello. Being a goldsmith inspired Brunelleschi to create and sculpt things. When Brunelleschi was done mastering the skills of metal work, he began working on gears, and then on to clocks. Later he found out that all the traits he learned became very useful for his
The man behind the creation was Judge Roy Hofheinz, who had a very uxorious apartment built within the dome where he resided. Named the Eighth Wonder of the World when it opened in 1965
Geographically, Italy is comprised of a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, as well as two large islands. The shape of Italy has been depicted as a ‘boot’ in many cartoons and drawings for years. The country covers over 116,000 square miles, making it approximately the combined size of Florida and Georgia. (Killinger, 2002) Italy is a democratic republic that has a current population of around 60 million people, making it the twenty-third most populous country in the world. Italy
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
His many works include the “Palazzo di Parte Guelfa,” the “Rotonda degli Angeli,” and the “Ponte a Mare at Pisa.” There is however some debate to whether Brunelleschi was responsible for the original designs for the Pitti Palace. After his death he was buried in Santa Maria del Fiore. However, his tomb was not discovered until 1972 (Lombroso 5).
“The idea was to incorporate a building that could be easily be built and taken down both constructively and economically. Most ideas involved a long, one-story building made of brick. The problem was that it looked far too solid difficult to remove later and it might be even harder to light- not to mention that it probably could not be built in time. Further debates and redrafting delayed the project even further.” (1)
Joseph Davidovits discovered a simple chemical process that turned a putty mixture into stone and argues that this method was used in the construction of the Great Pyramid. Joseph Davidovits explains that the pyramid blocks were simply stone casted instead of being cut and hauled from the quarry. This is a very probable answer because all the needed materials are available. Davidovits indicates that the use of a ramp, as Clifford Wilson suggests, must have been larger than the pyramid in order to allow a slight angle for the workers to drag the blocks up. Another problem with the use of the ramp is that three are no murals at the time showing the ramps and sleds that were supposedly used to move the blocks. Davidovits demonstrates a unique method of the construction of the pyramids, but this is not as well as Wilson’s theory because there are problems with Davidovits’ theory.
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.