AMAD
"Archivum Medii Aevi Digitale - Specialized open access repository for research in the middle ages"To submission
| Title: | The Inverse Design Problem of Medieval Wooden Churches in Norway |
| Contributor: | The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives |
| Author: | Jørgen H. Jensenius |
| Description: | Abstract: This paper discusses the “inverse design problem”: how to reconstruct the original design principles in medieval wooden churches of Norway. In Northern Europe, many of the early medieval churches were of wood and the principal load-bearing elements consisted of earth-bound posts. Norse traders, raiders and craftspeople became acquainted with Christianity in the 8th and 9th centuries, if not earlier. So, before the arrival of the first missionaries to Scandinavia, Norse craftsmen may have known how to plan, design and construct churches. In the early 12th century, the most common way of building churches in Norway was with the posts/staves on low foundations of stone. The medieval craftsman had his knowledge of form transferred mnemonically by words and actions from other carpenters; no design manual seems to have been left. The direct design problems may have had some possible solutions, one of which was established in plan and elevation. Attention to measurements and ratios was obviously essential to ensuring an easy and sound construction. The modern building archaeologist, however, has to solve the “inverse design problem”: how to extrapolate from the existing solutions the lengths and ratios back to several possible options. The options are contingent on different materials, static necessities, economy, Biblical symbolism, sub-Euclidean geometry and vernacular building traditions. The paper proposes a way to circumvent the inverse design problem in a research situation, exemplified in the medieval wooden churches of Norway. Even if this problem may not have a solution in a strict sense, the probability of one selected option to another has to be discussed and evaluated before one elaborates a hypothetical design system. |
| URI: | https://www.amad.org/jspui/handle/123456789/76685 |
| Other Identifier: | http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/conferences/CD_doNotOpen/ADC/final_paper/127.pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.549.6429 |
| AMAD ID: | 568297 |
| Appears in Collections: | BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) General history of Europe |
