Cristo de la Luz (Toledo)

The little church Cristo de la Luz in Toledo was built in 999 on Visigoth remains as the mosque Bab-al-Mardum. It is one of the oldest Moorisch monuments in Spain. After the christian reconquest of Toledo in 1085 it was rebaptised into a church. In the 12th century an abse was added but the original structure and the architactural decoration remained intact.
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In the square plan (ca. 8m x 8 m) you can see how the central dome is surrounded by 8 extra (lower) domes. Extraordinary is the inventive way of adding ribs unto the vaults. In every dome this occurs in a different way, but never just straight from bottom to the apex. These ribs are used to create a change of the basic square figure for a second, smaller dome. Sometimes this is one is square too, in other cases it is octogonal. Cristo de la Luz looks like a sample card of possibilities to build up combined domes. Taking into account the small dimensions of the 8 domes (squares with sides of barely .5 m) it's obvious that the ribs weren't structurally needed at all, but an inquiry on vaults.
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When looking at the plans of the domes, you can look at them as the tiling of a square. The knowledge of constructing multiple layers is undoubtly important in the evolution of Islamic domes and muqarnas. In separate activities in this chapter we focus on these 9 domes. As yo can see on photographs and the scetch below all isn't straight and fine yet. But surely yet in 999 they mark a testimony of the knowledge of concepts on spatial geometry.
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