Form, Style and Meaning in Byzantine Church Architecture (Collected Studies)

Using detailed analyses of individual buildings, Hans Buchwald examines the various approaches to Byzantine architectural forms. One group of articles focuses on stylistic currents in Asia Minor, including that of the 13th-century Lascarid dynasty, previously unknown. Others explore methods which appear to have been used in the design of Byzantine churches, such as dimensional "rules of thumb", modular and geometric systems of proportion, and the "quadratura", hitherto recognized only in Western architecture. The final essays pose further questions: what were the aims of Byzantine architects in their transformations of older existing buildings? How and why did they use stereometric Euclidean geometry? And was there any ultimately Platonic connection?