THE 40-FOOT MODULE (LARGE MODULE)
This module controls the proportions of the Church and
the layout of the Claustrum (fig. 61). The transept and
nave of the Church, being of equal width, by necessity form
a square at their area of intersection. As is the case in
certain Romanesque churches of Normandy and the Rhineland
two centuries later, the dimensions of this square
determine the layout of the remaining portions of the
church. Thus on the Plan of St. Gall the transept of the
Church forms an oblong composed of three times the area
of the crossing unit. The nave is a space composed of
four and one-half such units, while three more units of
identical size are added to the east of the transept; the forechoir,
the sacristy, and the library. It should be noted that
in the nave the squares are arranged in such a manner that
the corners coincide with the axis of each column. The 40
feet assigned to the width of the nave must for that reason
be interpreted to relate not to the clear span between the
bases of these columns, but to the distance from axis to axis
of each corresponding pair of columns.
That the Church of the Plan of St. Gall is laid out
according to a system of squares has been observed by
many previous students of the Plan, but a fact that appears
to have been entirely overlooked is that the entire aggregate
of buildings forming the Claustrum is developed in a
similar manner.
A glance at figure 61 shows that the body of the Church
can be inscribed into a grid of 40-foot squares (three units
wide and nine units long), and the claustral structures that
abut the Church to the east can be entered into an adjacent
grid of identical squares (three units wide and five and one-half
units long). I have no doubt that this is the manner in
which the drawing was started. But attention must be
drawn to the fact that the alignment of the drawing with the
grid is not perfect. There are two discrepancies—not large,
yet conspicuous enough to cause some concern.
One of these is that the aisles of the Church are not 20
feet wide, as one should expect them to be in the light of
their explanatory titles (latitudo utriusque porticus pedum xx);
instead they measure 22½ feet. The other is that in certain
places the Dormitory and the Refectory extend over the
southern boundaries of the 40-foot grid of the Claustrum
by as much as 5 feet. I believe that these deviations are the
result of purposeful modifications undertaken as the drawing
progressed from its initial conception into its final
stages; and I shall discuss this point in detail later.
