preview

St Gall Analysis

Decent Essays

Introduction
The monastery plan of St. Gall is a document that uniquely captures an early medieval nature not only in its architecture but also in its life forms.
This plan is one of the most remarkable visualizations of a building complex produced during the early ninth century.
It provides direct insight into the organization of the medieval monastery.
Making of Plan / Physical Descriptions
The plan of St. Gall provides an overall snapshot of an institution of about forty buildings inhabited by about 110 monks, with an equal number of laypeople who served as support staff. The plan was drawn on parchment 30.5 inch x 44 inch sewn together from five separate pieces. The building name /purpose is written in Latin using dark brown ink. The designer of this plan also has a dedicatory legend indicated to the top margin above the cemetery/orchard.
The plan of St. Gall includes a church, scriptorium lodging for visiting monks, a monastic dormitory, refectory, school, kitchen, bake and brew house, guest house, abbot’s residence, an infirmary, numerous fields and industrial out-buildings; along with fences, walls, gardens, orchids and roads.
The plan of St. Gall is referred as a replication of an original prototype. This orchestration was not concretely designed for a particular site. According to Prof. Mark Jarzombek’s article, The Medieval Monastery: The Plan of St. Gall, “It is an ideal plan incorporating the monastic reforms promulgated at the synods held at Louis the

Get Access