When you think of domes and domed buildings, the first thing that probably pops up in your mind is middle eastern architecture, however, the history of domed buildings is traceable to the Byzantine Empire and Churches. Sounds strange, right? Strap in and let’s discover how Byzantine architecture came about and what makes it stand out even till date, centuries after it thrived.

After Emperor Constantine relocated the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium (the present-day Istanbul), he announced his own brand of Christianity and the religion was legitimized in the Eastern Roman Empire. This religious freedom brought about new demands such as the need for places of worship.

Later on, Constantine renamed Byzantium to Constantinople, after his own name. The present day Hagia Irene in Istanbul, Turkey, is the site of the first Christian church ordered to be built by Constantine in the 4th Century. However, most of the churches built by Constantine during this era were destroyed.

Byzantine architecture flourished and became widely popular under the reign of Roman Emperor Justinian the Great between 527 to 565 AD. Because Justinian was not born in Rome, but in Macedonia in Eastern Europe, his architectural style was really unique, and his rule changed the slope of architecture in Rome, as he merged both Roman and Eastern architectural and construction methods. Emperor Justinian rebuilt the early churches built by Constantine, which had been destroyed.

Early Byzantine-era churches have a square-shape and a central floor plan rising up to one dominant center dome of great height. Byzantine era architects learned from each other and from each of their projects. The most distinctive feature of this architectural building style was the domed roofs placed above a square base. At first, this was a challenge, because, of course, square pegs fit into square holes, and placing a round dome on a square base had been unheard of. The builders of this structure experimented with various methods of construction, and when the ceilings fell, they tried something else.

Finally, they came up with two alternatives to effectively allow a dome rest above a square base. The first device was the use of squinches, which are arcs in each of the corners of a square base that transforms it into an octagon, thus creating sufficient balance for the dome to rest.

The second and more popular method which Byzantine engineers turned to, was the use of pendentives. A pendentive is a triangular segment of a spherical surface, filling in the upper corners of a building and forming a circular support for the dome.

Pendentives were used to elevate domes to new heights and so domes could rise from the top of the vertical cylinders, like a silo. Examples of this silo-like pendentive construction include the most famous Hagia Irene in Istanbul, Turkey, and the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy.

Byzantine architects combined the basilica style (high walls and large open spaces for audiences) and a symmetrical central plan which resulted in the characteristic Byzantine Greek cross-plan church, with a square central mass and four arms of equal length.

The Greek cross was an early form of the Christian cross, predating the subsequent Latin cross. Byzantine structures featured soaring spaces and intricate ornate decorations like marble columns, mosaics on the vaults, gold-coffered ceilings and inlaid stone pavements. A great example of Byzantine architecture is the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.

Byzantine buildings featured geometric complexity and classical orders. Mosaics replaced carved decoration and brick and plaster were combined with stone for decorating important public structures. Light was filtered in from the windows through thin alabaster sheets to softly illuminate interiors.

Builders in the Byzantine era favored the Middle Eastern columns with decorative impost blocks over the classical order. Mosaic decorations and narratives were common among the buildings.

Another feature of Byzantine architecture was the quincunx, a geometric pattern consisting of five points arranged in a cross, with four of them at the corners of a square or rectangle, and a fifth at its center. Byzantine buildings also featured lofty and towering spaces, with high windows on the domes, which were made to look like a crown with jewels of light, symbolic of the ‘vault of heaven’. This style of building domed churches made worshippers at ease and reminded them of the beauty of heaven and the supernatural.

The interior of Hagia Sophia, depicting the triangular pendentives and windows. The ceilings of the buildings were often coffered with gold while empty spaces were covered with mosaic. Central plan churches often featured an atrium, a narthex, an apse and a nave. An atrium is a large open-air space in the middle of a building. A narthex is an entrance lobby directly opposite the main altar, and an apse is the semi-circular end of an aisle, usually where the altar is placed. A nave is simply the central aisle, the area distinct from where the choir and clergy seat.

In later years, Byzantine buildings increased in geometric complexity; brick and plaster were used in addition to stone in decorating important public structures.

The influence of Byzantine architecture spanned all through the reign of Justinian and further extended centuries later, until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This architectural style greatly influenced early Islamic architecture, including the Umayyad Great Mosque in Damascus, as well as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. This explains why mosques are mostly domed.

Why then do we not see most churches tilting towards the domed style of early Christian architecture? Well, in the Western Roman Empire, of which Italian towns such as Ravenna is included, the Byzantine architectural style gave way to Romanesque and Gothic Architecture, and the towering spire, which is now very common among church buildings, replaced the high domes of early Christian architecture.

Till date, Byzantine architecture remains one of the most influential architectural styles. Most architectural innovations for many centuries draw from the Byzantine style. The Ottoman Empire was gravely influenced by this same architectural form.

Sadly, many of the churches built in the Byzantine style especially in Turkey, were destroyed by the Ottoman empire. The Hagia Irene, however, still stands till date, and a visit to it would be in order, to gaze at and admire the intricacies of the Byzantine architectural era.