The Axis Knik in Romanesque and Gothic church construction means a different direction of the longitudinal axes of the nave and choir. The bend point is usually located at the triumphal gate, where the nave and choir meet.
Change of direction in a building axis
BearbeitenThe most common reason for the axis knik is a temporally separate easting of the longitudinal axis and the choir according to the rising sun on the locally given horizon. The nave corresponded to the earthly realm and the choir to the heavenly realm, where, according to canonical requirements, when staking out the church floor plan, the nave was staked out first and then the choir. From the thickness of the kink, the days between the two staking processes can be calculated. Since an increase in the height of the feast day was observed, as well as thematic backgrounds of the patron as well as the bishop determined the feast days, the year of foundation of the church and partly also the associated foundation or expansion of the city can be determined on the basis of the axis kink, which represents a time marker.
The interdisciplinary observance of scientific methods of surveying, the knowledge about the working technique of that time with groma and measuring chain, the knowledge about the usual forms of division with fathoms, the calculated knowledge about the position of the sun to the local surveyed horizon related to the probable years on the one hand like the observance of the feast days according to liturgy and patronage and the chronological increase of the feast days, thus with historical and theological justifications on the other hand, yield the staking days and the foundation year. The obligation of orientation according to the rising sun was abolished at the Council of Trent (1545-1563).
Bends in building axes, however, also occur in non-medieval architecture, for example in the rock tomb of Nefertari or the parish church of Liesing (there called "broken main axis"). They are attributed to very different causes (curved afterlife space of Egyptian mythology or better utilization of building space).