Church Architecture - Essay Example

The early church building architecture is one of the most outstanding designs ever seen in human construction history. Churches all over the world share similar architectural designs in the interior and exterior regions. Normal church architecture always seems to be dominated by a round shape style. The basic architecture of the church includes a Nave, which is the part where worshippers stand during the service. The Pulpit is the podium on the left side of the church where the gospel is read, and the Nathex am outside part of the church that serves as an entry to the Nave.

The church is characterized by wooden seats arranged in from the front. The interior design of the churches includes minimum three entries, a high ceiling and large decorated windows (Campbell, 2004). The exterior of the church is mainly raised roof, with a cross at the top. Early churches have the exterior decorated with statues of angels. The exterior design of churches is large and spacious just as the interior and constructed using strong stone blocks. Apart from this the doors were made of wood and locked by interlocking strong metal pieces.

The main material used in construction of early churches was a huge stone blocks, clay bricks wooden beams, timber and bricks. The roofing was mainly made clay tiles (Ward-Perkins, 1994). Islam can be traced as far as Christianity and its architecture is unique and attractive. Mosques have interior is spaced just like in a church, but it has no seats. Since Muslims worship while kneeling down, the floor of a mosque need to a furnished material such as a carpet. The interior architecture f a mosque boasts of beautiful decoration mostly of handmade tiles (Haog, 1991).

Islamic interior architecture also includes arches and domes giving the most spacious view from the inside. The domes are decorated with glass to allow sunlight; this ensures the spacious interior of a Mosque is nicely light. The decorations include verses of Quran, patterns of different shapes in different colors and many windows some of which are blind. The most important part of the mosque is the Mihrab to the right of the Mihrab is the Minber or pulpit. This is where the Imam stands when giving the sermon.

The exterior architecture of the Mosque has a minaret, a raise tower like structure shaped like a pencil which mainly is used to call worshipers to the morning player. The Mosque is made of Marble carvings, wood, plaster, stone, glass for windows and handmade ceramic tiles decorating both the interior and the exterior (Ward-Perkins, 1994). The gothic buildings were mainly made up of stone, and emphasized on strong buttressed walls, minimal wall space, highly vaulted ceiling and vertical lines.

The roof of the Gothic building was quiet heavy and architectures had to consider the possibility of a collapse. To prevent this from happening they developed buttresses. These exterior structures ensured that the walls and pillars could support the heavy roof by distributing weight evenly enabling them to resist the outward pressure of the roof. The Gothic building exterior also comprised of a tower forming part of entry to the Nave. The towers had a large window in the entry side to ensure that the inside of the building is well lit.

The interior of the gothic building almost resembled the church, it had large stained glass windows, wooden seats, a nave, pulpit and an altar. The interior decoration mainly comprised of stone carvings and coloured windows. Gothic architects appreciated geometry therefore the stones used in construction of gothic buildings were specifically cut to fitting. Other than this metal, glass and wood comprised the main materials used on construction of the buildings (Draper, 2006). The renaissance period architecture emphasizes on geometry, proportionality, symmetry and regularity of parts.

The columns, plaster, and lintels were arranged orderly and the architects utilized the use of dome, niches and aedicule’