[ILLUSTRATION]
107. PLAN OF ST. GALL
CHURCH AND CLAUSTRUM
AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION
The Plan opposite demonstrates how the Church and claustral
buildings would have appeared had they been rendered with all of
their wall thickness.
On the Plan itself the walls of all buildings are rendered as simple
lines (see above, pp. 57ff)—a procedure which even today an architect
follows, if faced with designing a project of similar complexity
drawn at a similar scale. (Even the Romans used this method in
comparable cases; see above p. 58.) This mode of rendering presents
no difficulties where buildings stand separately on their sites, because
necessary space allowance for wall thickness is, in construction,
available from outside and need not be subtracted from the proposed
structure's interior.
The author of the Plan was aware that where several buildings
shared common walls (as in the case of Church and Cloister, or
Church and lodgings built against it in the north), severe deficiencies
of interior space might occur in construction unless special provisions
were made for wall thickness from the very outset. For this reason
he allotted to each aisle of the Church a width of 22½ feet although
an explanatory title states explicitly that it should be 20 feet (see
above, pp. 97ff).
In rendering interiors on the Plan, the drafter insured against
potential congestion by another precaution. Wherever normal
dimensions of furniture could not be accurately expressed by the
standard module 2½ feet, he invariably chose the larger, never the
smaller module. He thus accumulated extra interior space in
numerous small increments that eventually provided for the wall
thickness not explicitly drawn.
Because all these precautions were taken by a designer whose acuity
in planning has been unjustly underrated for more than a century of
modern scholarship, we encountered no difficulty, when preparing
the Aachen model, in furnishing its builder with working drawings.
He was able to build without distortion the buildings of the Plan
including their full-scale wall thickness, at four times the surface
area of the Plan. These working drawings are so true to the idea
embodied in the Plan that with their aid, the entire monastery
might actually be erected at the monumental scale intended by its
originator, when supported by appropriate large-scale detailed
construction drawings.
Essentially the Plan of St. Gall depicts a ground-level plan.
Consequently the bed layout of the Monks' Dormitory (which
occupies the upper level) is shown in dotted line in the authors'
interpretation, as explained by the inscription within the space
designated Monks' Warming Room.
It will be seen that the Warming Room had access on the south to
the Monks' Laundry and Bathhouse, and on the west opened onto
the east cloister walk.
The Monks' Privy above, at Dormitory level, likewise renders the
toilet layout in dotted line (see fig. 192, p. 244). Location of the
stair access from ground floor Warming Room to Dormitory and
Privy is not shown.
