St. Stephens Cathedral: Bio-Structural Architecture
Liu Chien Sheng
“This is a postgraduate thesis on a cathedral, presenting a new idea of societal multi-function, and the development of sanctity and form. The site is located in St. Stephen’s Cathedral which is the center of economy, culture and traffic in Vienna, Austria.
New cathedral integrates the surrounding societal functions, such as religious, art, commercial activities, tourism and traffic system. The church is placed on the ground floor, theaters and department store on the upper floor of the basement, and metro station on the bottom of basement. All the layers are divided by glass floor, and thus, the activities in different level generate visual overlap by the transparence of glass floor. People can experience the new cathedral through variety of spaces. This design is more appropriate style for the cathedral which is required to have multiple functions in modern human life.
Moreover, it also attempts the rising sanctity by new space approach.
1. The main cathedral building was set up among the large opening, and isolates fm residential area for showing its uniqueness to god.
2. After Roman and Gothic Style, the new style is continued in a rising structure with twist. The unawareness of direction and the reflective light create a new experience of sanctity.
3. The glass floor is transformed from rose window, and keeps the cross to be the main ground floor.
The form of architecture comes from the reserved altar structure of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. After defining the principle of the transformation, the basic column structure was reformed into various types and generates the spaces in different parts of columns to accomplish the catalogs of typologies. ” -Source
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