Leonardo's temple, third part (5th of December 2010)

It has been a year since I >> announced a creation of a model of a centralized temple according to Leonardo's sketches. I lost a will for that project and I didn't finish it in a sense I saw it finished when I started the project. But it is better to finish and pack the things then to leave them scattered around, so I decide to pack this project. It is not very likely that I will return to it. And the images that I bring show how the project was packed.

The image that opened this post (above) shows the temple on a rocky piece of shore. One can see open sea with scattered rocks.

The roof of the temple is made of brick (see below). I chose that variant because of the same solution in the Florentine cathedral which would surely inspire Leonardo because he, at the age of fifteen, contributed to the finishing of the Florentine cathedral by mounting a copper sphere at its top, together with his teacher and boss Andrea Verochio. On the image above one can see that my model of Leonardo's temple also has a copper sphere at its top.

A symmetric octagonal structure around the main dome is broken by the entrance that is formed by two smaller domes. From this perspective one can clearly see the entrance (above), and one can also note that the elegance of the structure is not lost due to this intervention. The entry steps/stairs are also arranged in a (half)octagon, in accordance with octagonal symmetry of the parts of the plan. The plan can be more clearly seen in a view on the structure from above (below).

The temple is perhaps somewhat more lively, or colorful, than would be made by Leonardo, and the reason for that is my wish to make not only the temple that would have been built by Leonardo, although this is the basic motivation, but also to make the temple to honor Leonardo. That is why one can see an array of colorful details that I will explain later.

Below one can see the entrance to the temple. A similar scene would be seen by a visitor from the land.

On the image below one can see one of the "monuments" in the concave spaces around the main dome. Leonardo had there >> in his sketches clearly reserved spaces for sculptures, monuments. In my version these concavities are "inhabited" by copper Leonardo's hair whose construction and relation to Leonardo was described in an >> earlier post. Each sculpture is different. The windows covered by small quarter-spherical roofs (below) are also inspired by Leonardo's folias, i.e. his designs related to quadrature of the circle and inscribing circles in lunes. I have written a bit more on that aspect of Leonardo's interest in a post >> lunes and rosettes.

The temple entrance doors (below) are also inspired by Leonardo's geometry and the ideas about "the quadrature of the circle", this time with an octagonal twist. That is how the silvery and golden patterns on the copper doors were made. One can again discern lunes. One can also see that the temple's interior is lit, and in the center of the temple, below the main dome there is an icosahedron floating above a cylindrical support. The temple contains polyhedra below each of the domes around the main dome, except below the small dome above the entrance where a polyhedron would block the entrance (see the >> temple plan here). Thus, there are eight polyhedra in total, and I have chosen deltahedra that were described in a post >> deltahedra a la Leonardo. Those were again, of course, inspired by Leonardo's illustration for the book by Luca Pacioli.

When one enters the temple a bit deeper, the central, especially lit structure is seen better (below), and one can also see the rosettes and the ornaments above them. Colorful and baroque-like, but I still hope that it would be in accordance with Leonardo's ideas.

The central space of the temple is more clearly seen on the image below. Eight rosettes, of which only three can be seen on the image, were again inspired by lunes and Leonardo's ideas on "squaring the circle", and the construction of rosettes was described in a post >> lunes and rosettes. Above the rosettes one can see "lacy" ornaments that are simulations of "Leonardo's knots" (see also the image above). The construction of these ornaments was described in an earlier post called >> Leonardo's knottiness. The same ornament beautifies also the cylinder that acts as a support for the "floating" icosahedron. One can also see the passages to the small spaces below the surrounding small domes. In each of the small spaces there is one of the deltahedra set in a similar fashion as the icosahedron in the center of the temple.

A view from the top of the main dome (below) more clearly shows the plan on the main part of the temple and small passages to the surrounding spaces. One can also see the ordering of the floor stones with octagonal symmetry. On the floor one can also discern the traces of the light from the outside that passes through the rosettes.

And finally, the view towards the top reveals the ceiling and the ceiling light surrounded again by a Leonardo's "knottiness". One can also see the structure of the trusses for the dome. The eight-fold symmetry is again obvious.

In the end, here is the list of the posts from the past that will explain certain aspects of the finished model in some detail:

• Leonardo's temple, first part - describes the idea for the construction of Leonardo's temple, contains Leonardo's sketches of temples.
  
  
• Leonardo's temple, second part - describes the construction of the 3D model of the temple, shows the comparison of the plan with Leonardo's sketches.
  
  
• Leonardo's hair - describes the making of the structure of "Leonardo's hair" that was used as a template for the copper sculptures around the temple, shows the relation of the structure to Leonardo's sketches.
  
  
• Deltahedra a la Leonardo - describes the construction of polyhedra (deltahedra) "a la Leonardo" and Leonardo's sketches for the book by Luca Pacioli.
  
  
• Leonardo's knottiness - describes the making of "Leonardos knots", the structure similar to knots that are found as ornaments at several places in the temple.
  
  
• Lunes and rosettes - describes Leonardo's designs based on geometrical structures known as lunes and made out of Leonardo's obsession with the "quadrature of the circle".

There is also a follow up to this story. Croatian television made a 7-minute long story describing this project. You can >> see the video with some additional information HERE.

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Last updated on 7th of June 2011.