CAVE DRAWINGS

When we were traveling in the Cappadocia region of Turkey, we of course visited many caves which were carved out of the rock. Cappadocia is famous for cave dwellings and cave churches. Cappadocia is covered with a thick layer of lava and which arose from volcanoes in the region. It turns out that this lava was relatively soft and inert, making it relatively easy to carve. Thus early humanity were able to sculpt out of the lava flows cave dwellings. These caves were impervious to the weather and provided a secure place to live.

Monks in the 4th century carved monasteries out of the rock. This was in the early Byzantine period. These monks had been exposed to the Byzantine basilica form. What I find almost unbelievably amazing is that they carved out of the rock interior volumes which were patterned directly from the basilica form. This of course is in direct contrast to the modernist philosophy of the bubble as the perfect form model.  In fact, there is no exterior form.  You might say that these are formless.  Yet they contain volume.  They could have carved out anything they want. Certainly the dome and arch shapes that they carved were not needed for structural reasons.  Yet they stayed with the spiritually significant volumes.

Nevertheless, they did carve these arches and domes. The arches and domes of the early basilica must have had such wondrous hold on the monk’ imaginations that they could think of nothing other than carving these arches and domes inside the rock.

Trying to understand these religious spaces as only interior volumes became very interesting to me. I was also very interested in the fidelity with which the monks adapted the basilica forms and principals. These drawings are some of my attempts to resolve how the interior volumes work without any regard to the exterior form. I think it is safe to say that being able to draw transparently might be the best way to get at this basic dichotomy.

Both of the cave drawings attempt to capture the basic concept of interior carved spaces. You can tell where the doors are and how the interior circulation of the spaces worked. You can see the shape and volume of the interior spaces