Triforium

The triforium is a transition in the high wall of late Romanesque, but mainly Gothic basilicas, which is only open to the nave towards. It forms a middle floor between the arcades on the ground floor and the clerestory, the window area of the nave. Is the triforium not designed as a walkway, but hidden up the masonry wall as merely outline, one speaks of a Blendtriforium.

Word Meaning

The often claimed derivation of the term from the Latin tri - ( three - ) and foris ( door opening ) in the sense of " triple opening " is probably wrong, since the first use of " triforium " in the report of the medieval monk Gervase on the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Canterbury from 1185 refers to a walkway without triple openings. It is therefore proposed as a likely a derivative of the medieval Anglo- Latin term for " broken " arts and crafts or emergence as an English- Latin coinage thoroughfarum ( " passage "). In the present use of the word is in any case not linked to the presence of triple openings.

Function

The triforium is essentially a style element that has its origin in the fact that behind the original pitch roofs of the aisles are and thus not enough the windows of the clerestory to the arcades. It avoids that it generates an unstructured surface, and serves as the sculptural enrichment, less a practical purpose (function as a running gear).

History

An important precursor of the triforium was born in 1140 in the cathedral of Sens ( France). For the first time the real triforium occurred probably in the cathedral of Noyon (France) in 1150 in appearance - but in a characteristic of the early Gothic four divided wall elevation ( Soissons, Laon, etc.). Since the start of construction of the new nave of Chartres Cathedral sat down after the year 1190 in almost all Kathedralneubauten the classic three-piece wall elevation of the Gothic ( arcade zone, triforium, clerestory ) by.

In the development of Gothic architecture you designed other roof forms for the aisle, to avoid any windowless zone. Either received the aisle a gable roof or every yoke of aisle or yoke - pair with double aisles, a separate hood as a hipped roof. Thus, the triforium was provided with windows and almost the entire wall surface was carried thins. This makes the triforium had indeed lost its original function, but was retained as a structural element for a long time. In some late Gothic churches, however, it disappeared completely; the top and clerestory was then run down to the arcade zone, so that the classic three-piece wall elevation of the Gothic was now reduced to a two-part.