Westminster abbey

The plan of Westminster breaks with the English tradition of a single axial chapel: its multisided apse surrounded by an ambulatory and five radiating chapels derives from French models. Prior to Westminster, this type of apse could be found in only one other thirteenth-century English structure-the Cistercian Abbey Church of Beaulieu. In the choir, the three bays that decrease in depth recall the choir of the Cathedral of Reims. As in Notre-Dame at Paris, the piers of the apse are spaced as far apart as those in the rectilinear bays: but this scheme had already occurred in eleventh- century England (Gloucester and Tewkesbury). The side aisles of the transept bring to mind Chartres and Reims, and the rhythm and proportions of the elevation are also comparable to those of the great French edifices. The choir has the sweeping narrowness of the lofty nave at Royaumont (branner). The windows are of the Reims variety-two lancets beneath a traceried rose window with hollowed corner spaces (spandrels)-and they extend to well below the springings of the vaults. The upper walls are thin and constructed in the French manner, rising from a single tas-de-charge (springing stone). The columns engaged in the piers rise uninterruptedly along the wall and up to the vaults, thereby giving a sweeping, punctuated effect to the bays.

The first master of Westminster was Henry of Reynes, and it has been proposed that he may have come from Reims. However, the research of Lethaby indicates that, although he had traveled in France, he was in fact an Englishman. Indeed, certain features of Westminster are decidedly English. The piers and their engaged shafts are in Purbeck marble, establishing a polychromatic effect that is taken up by the two-toned motifs covering the spandrels of the principal arcade. The arcade itself consists of sharply pointed, heavily molded arches that are great deal taller than the clerestory windows. The middle story comprises, not a triforium, but a full-flegged gallery lighted from the outside; each of its interior bays includes two cusped arcades beneath a relieving arch, the whole crowned with a rosette perforation. This arrangement recalls the triforium openings in the nave of Amiens, except that the latter is carved in much higher relief. As for the clerestory windows, they are recessed from the wall ribs, resulting in a plasticity quite different from that of French schemes. With its superposed galleries between the windows, the end of the north arm of the transpert is even more typically English, despite the presence of an upper rose window derived from the north rose of Notre-Dame at Paris (Branner).

Westminster is a happy confluence of French borrowings and local traditions. Characteristic elements of Rayonnant Gothic can be detected in the treatment of the windows and gallery bays, and this phenomenon is even more obvious in the chapter house, completed in 1253.

In accordance with English custom, this is a separate building,whose octagonal form had a direct effect on the chapter house of Salisbury. Proceeding upward, the elevation consists first of cusped arcatures (not set in pointed arches), then very large windows composed of four lancets within two pointed arches perforated with quatrefoils and topped with a sexfoil rose window. This composition comes from the side-chapel windows in Notre-Dame at Paris (Branner) and demonstrates that the master of Westminster was well informed about the latest projects in the domaine royal of Louis IX.

We can even observe curvilinear profiles in the gallery windows, evoking the rounded triangles carved in the interior of the north arm of the transept of Notre-Dame.

Even though Westminster Abbey was not completed in the thirteenth century-only the apse, transept, and four east bays date from this period-its influence was deeply felt throughout England.

1. Answer the following questions:

1. Where did apses of Westminster Abbey derive from?

2. What are the windows of W.A.?

3. What manner was used in construction of the upper walls?

4. How did the columns look like?

5. Who was the first master of Westminster?

6. What material was used for the piers?

7. What does the arcade consist of?

8. What part of Gothic style was characteristic for the gallery bays?

9. What other architectural masterpiece can you compare Westminster to?

10. Was W.A. completed in the 13th century?

2. Translate the following words and expressions from English into Russian:

axial chapel; multisided apses; radiating chapel; piers; rectilinear bays; lancet; shaft; polychromatic effect; full - flegged gallery; relieving arch; octagonal form; curvilinear profiles; rounded triangle.

3. Complete the following senteces:

1. In the choir the three bays ... the choir of the Cathedral of Reims.

2. The piers of the apse are ... as far apart as those in the rectilinear bays.

3. The upper walls are ... and constructed in the manner.

4. The first master of Westminster was ...

5. The middle story comprises, not a triforium, but a ... lighted from.

6. As for the clerestory windows, they are recessed from the ...

7. Westminster is a happy confluence of French ... and local ...

8. This composition comes from the ... windows, in Notre - Dame at Paris.

4. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate prepositions:

1. The plan of Westminster breakes ... the English tradition.

2. Prior ... Westminster this type of apse could be found in Cistercion Abbey church.

3. The coluns engaged in the piers rise uninterruptedly ... the wall.

4. The first master of Westminster may have come ... Reims.

5. The arcade itself consists ... sharply pointed, heavily molded arches.

6. As ... the clerestory windows they are recessed ... the wall ribs.

7. In accordance ... English custom this is a separate building.

8. We can even observe curvilinear profiles ... the gallery windows.

5. Give the descriptions of the

a - the choir

b - the windows

c - the columns

d - the middle story

e - the arcade

6. Retell the text

EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

EARLY SKYSCRAPERS

We usually use the word skyscraper to mean many-storied buildings in which people live and work. These could not have been built until a new method of construction was developed. You may recall how the Crystal Palace gained its strength from a rigid frame. A next logical step seemed to be to erect a rigid frame upward by story, and hang walls and floors from it. In 1860, a naval boat store that was built at Sheerness, in Essex, England, developed the principle in an important way. Unlike the Crystal Palace, it had to be built without cross bracing because the boats had to be moved around. So the joints between girders were made to provide through support.

EARLY FRAMES

Framed skyscrapers soon exceeded by far anything possible with load-bearing walls. The tallest load-bearing building was the Pulitzer Building in New York, which needed masonry 10 feet thick at the base to carry its 14 stories.

FIRST SKYSCRAPER

The world's first true skyscraper, though it had only 10 stories, was Chicago's Home Insurance Building (1885). It had supporting brick wall, but its floors were supported on iron-and-steel frames. Almost immediately, the Tacoma Building, also in Chicago, was put up. It was taller than the Home Insurance Building and almost all its mass, including the brick walls, was supported by the frame.

CHICAGO SCHOOL

The 21-story Masonic Building in Chicago was the tallest skyscraper yet when completed in 1892, but by the turn of the century the honor had passed to New York City's 36-story Park Row building.

WHY SKYSCRAPERS?

After the great Chicago Fire devastated the city in 1871, a building boom followed that raised the price of land. Building high was the best way to get value.

William Le Baron Jenney developed the high-rise steel frame, which allowed for buildings taller than ever before.

NAVAL BOAT STORE

The structure of the store is of cast-iron columns, 13 feet off the ground, which support 23-foot-long wrought-iron beams and 13-foot-long cast-iron cross beams. All have an I- or H-shaped cross section and brackets that support the points where they interlock, forming a completely rigid iron frame. Almost certainly, the Sheerness Naval Boat Store was the world's first multistory building with a rigid portal frame, and was thus the direct forerunner of the modern skyscraper.

EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

Compared to the narrative complexity of earlier skyscrapers such as the Woolworth Building, the Empire State Building's interior and exterior were exaltingly simple in their message. The one-hundred-foot-long, three-storey-high navelike vestibule of stainless steel, marble, and glass terminated in a map of the New York metropolitan area and was surmounted by a portrait of the building itself, thereby dedicating the building to its place as it celebrated its towering mass as a worthy object of veneration - a transcendent symbol in its own right,cosmically tied to the earth by radio waves emanating from its peak. The tower within the tower also relieved one of the principal ironies of building skyscrapers in Manhatten's grid:when the man on the street came close enough for an unencumbered view, he could only see a foreshortened image;inside the Empire State's lobby, he could master a full-lenght silhouette. The architects of the Cities Services Building (1930-32), Clinton & Russell, took this reorienting gesture further by using a model of their tower to frame the building's portal.

Shreve, Lamb & Harmon's Empire State design, a paradigm of symmetrical massing, was remarkable for its central shaft, 725 feet of unvarying fenestration and wall that contemporary critic Douglas Haskell described as having " something positively brutal in the monotony, but something inevitable and hypnotic too". Haskell theorized that the Empire State Building was exciting because of its contradictions: " It was caught at the exact moment of transition-between metal and stone, between the ideal of ' monumental mass' and that of airy volume, between handicraft and machine design. " Here was a commercial architecture that went beyond the ballyhoo of Chrysler to achieve a genuine modern synthesis of technology and romance-an incomparably sublime mass masonry monumentalized in heroic height.

For its visitors, the building was hypnotically brutal less because of its unornamented shaft than because of the violent shift the street to the observation deck, where for an hour or two visitors could become the gilded citizens of Hugh Ferriss's vision, looking down from a lofty perch of perfect peace onto the teeming city of traffic and shadows a quarter mile below. Though the Empire State Building was "user Friendly", with lobbies and shops at ground level and observation decks at its peaks, it was terrifying as well, a fact that the pulp novels and movies of the day exploited to the fullest. In The movie King Kong (1933), New york City's insatiable appetite for new sensations brings Kong to the Broadway stage, where the bright lights provoke his destructive rampage. Kong embodies the terrors inherent in Manhattan's everyday frenzy by grabbing Fay Wray through her hotel room window, wrecking an elevated train, and climbing the Empire State Building, Ultimate Symbol of New York's lust for architectural thrills. In the end, the skyscraper city's own greed has released the force that would destroy it, an animal almost as big and surely as proud as the towers themselves. At the moment when the economy crashed and all the civilization it had supported seemed dangerously close to crashing along with it, only Fay and the airplanes, flying free of the dangerous city-the symbolic alliance of beauty and mechanical strength-could save the city from itself.

1. Answer the following questions:

1. What does the word " skyscraper" mean?

2. What principle is laid in the construction of the skyscrapers?

3. What was built in 1860?

4. What was the first true skyscraper?

5. What was the tallest load - bearing building?

6. How many stories did it have?

7. What was the reason of building skyscrapers in Chicago?

8. What is the total height of the Empire State building?

9. Why was the Empire State Building exciting after the words of Haskell?

10. What movie is this building associated with?

11. Empire State Building isasymbol of New York city isn't it?

2. Give the Russian equivalents to the following words and word combinations:

skyscraper; rigid frame; girder; load - bearing wall; cast - iron column; wrought - iron beams; full - lenght silhouette handicraft; destructive rampage; shaft.

3. Complete the following sentences:

1. Unlike the Crystal Palace it had to be built without ... because the boats had to be moved around.

2. Chicago Insurance Building had supporting ...

3. William le Baron Jenney developed the ...

4. The structure of the store is of ...

5. Sheerness Naval Boat Store was the direct ... of the modern skyscraper.

6. Empire State's design was remarkable for ...

7. Empire State Building was exciting because of its ...

8. For its visitors, the building was ...

4. State the form and the syntactical function of the participles in the following sentences:

1. It had supporting brick wall.

2. Almost all its mass, including the brick walls, was supported by the frame.

3. The 21 - story Masonic Building in Chicago was the tallest skyscraper when completed in 1892.

4. Compared to the narrative complexity of earlier skyscrapers, the Empire State Building was simple in its message.

5. This was a building cosmically tied to the earth by radio waves emanating from its peak.

5. Find the infinitives in the text and State their forms and functions.

6. Retell the text.