Hagia Sophia: From the Age of Justinian to the Present ed. by Robert Mark and Ahmet Ş. Çakmak

Abstract

894 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE stairways, including Muybridge’s pioneering stop-motion photography of human movement. Among Templer’s deductive descriptions of human-eroded stair surfaces and stair-climbing test results are strong echoes ofEugene Ferguson’s attention to the human machine as a form of organic technology. In sections with tides like “Human Territoriality and Space Needs on Stairs” and “Gait, Missteps, and Stair Geometry,” Templer breaks down human locomotion into micromotions of the foot, hand, and torso that imperceptibly determine the success or sudden failure of our stairjourneys. The alarmingannual rate ofsevere injuries from accidental falls on stairs inspires Templer to build an authoritative case for closer attention by designers and builders to proper handrail forms, lighting, surface treat­ ments, and step configuration. “The stair,”Templer cautions in his preface to volume 1, “has changed more in response to shifting aesthetic, archi­ tectonic, and cultural goals than from theoretical or empirical refinement” (p. ix). Sections in volume 2 end with heavily documented design guidelines that likely will become standard references for the building trades. More broadly, Templer’s work dramatically enlarges the dusty 19th-century bookshelf of treatises on wooden stair construction for carpenters and joiners, thick with descriptive geometry but weak on how people actually climb stairs. Templer also contributes a new category of objects to the roster of artifacts used by material culture historians who rely on patterns of wear and use as primary evidence in their research. Fire codes and disability legislation are relegating public steps and stairways to enclosed concrete shafts in the rear of buildings, devaluing the natural appeal of climbing up into a building under one’s own power. Committed stair climbers, meanwhile, repair to the fully destructured machinery in fitness studios. But real stairs are there in the shadows and in historic buildings as functioning partners in our most tactile moments of interaction with the built world. Will this affair ever truly die? Witness the wildly popular annual runs up the lofty stairways of the Empire State Building and the CN Tower in Toronto. The real stair machines are us. David Shayt Mr. Shayt works in the history of occupational crafts at the Smithsonian Institution and has written on early foot-powered machinery, most recently on prison treadmills in Technology and Culture (October 1989). Hagia Sophia: From theAge ofJustinian to the Present. Edited by Robert Mark and Ahmet §. Qakmak. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp· xix+255; illustrations, notes, appendix, index. $85.00. Hagia Sophia, known throughout history simply as the Great Church, was built by the Byzantine emperorJustinian in Constantinople (Istan­ TECHNOLOGYAND CULTURE Book Reviews 895 bul) in five remarkable years, between 532 and 537. In its stunning combination of colossal dome with a daring structural system, Hagia Sophia is indeed “unparalleled in premodern Western architecture” (p. xv). It is also intrinsically flawed, with structural weaknesses that have necessitated numerous modifications and partial rebuildings. Robert Mark and Ahmet Qakmak’s Hagia Sophia compiles papers from a colloquium convened at Princeton University to explore architectural and technological issues surrounding the design, construction, and preservation of Justinian’s masterpiece. Three questions in particular are assessed: the material and theoretical resources available to the original architects, the response of the building through history to the action of environmental loadings, and its ability to survive a major earthquake, a likelihood in the not-too-distant future. The four main sections reflect the thematic variation of the papers: structural precursors of Hagia Sophia, observations on the fabric of the Byzantine Hagia Sophia and similar structures, modem scientific struc­ tural studies of Hagia Sophia and related buildings, and the afterlife of Hagia Sophia in the Ottoman Empire. An appendix presents a selection of the incomparable architectural drawings of the late Robert Van Nice. In section 1, of particular interest to architectural historians, W. MacDonald (“Roman Experimental Design and the Great Church”) and S. Curcic (“Design and Structural Innovation in Byzantine Archi­ tecture before Hagia Sophia”) address the historical evolution of principles of design and structure employed in Hagia Sophia. Curcic sets a historical context for a recurrent theme of the book—how Hagia Sophia would fare in an earthquake—by exploring the struggles of ancient...