Pantheon and Cathedral of Brasilia, both has interior designs to create a spiritual feeling.
Pantheon and Cathedral of Brasilia have religious paintings. Pantheon has mostly general pictures of Christianity, while Brasilia focuses on Catholicism since it’s a Catholic church. In Cathedral of Brasilia, there are pictures and a statue of Saint Mary, who Catholic people pray for too. Having paintings make their visitors know the context of the buildings. Pantheon and the Cathedral of Brasilia, each uses optical illusion to create spirituality.
In Pantheon, they take advantage of their walls to create coffers of their thick walls. By having coffers, Pantheon create an optical illusion. According to the article “Optical Illusion”, Optical illusion is guaranteed to make a space of any size seem larger than they are.
It emphasizes the height of the dome by showing the depth of each coffer, since it looks smaller the farther it gets. By having the coffers to emphasize the oculus, Pantheon is indeed focusing on the spirituality. While on the Cathedral of Brasilia, the church uses curve to create an optical illusion. By curving on the columns, Niemeyer makes it as if the whole thing is absorbed to the sky. In the end, Pantheon and Cathedral of Brasilia have some art paintings or statues and some architectural details to create a spiritual feeling. Pantheon and Cathedral of Brasilia, both uses paintings on the walls or glass as a decoration for different purposes.
Pantheon uses mostly kingdom pattern or it does show that it belongs to the past. While the Cathedral of Brasilia uses abstract painting that revolves or absorbs into Jesus Christ statue. Nowadays, many people don’t even have a religion. Through the decoration on the stained glass, they try remind us the beginning of everything or where the main source of all from. In the end, Pantheon and Cathedral of Brasilia design their paintings differently because of the differences in time and the purposes of the building.
Pantheon and Cathedral of Brasilia, both uses different color to symbolize things they want us to perceive physcologically. Pantheon uses mostly gold, brown, and yellow for the interior. On the interior, gold is the dominant color. “They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be like refuse; their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they will not satisfy their souls, nor fill their stomachs, because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.” (Ezekiel 7:14). From this gospel, we can tell that gold exists in Bible. They want us to think about Pantheon as a treasure. While the exterior of the building is not even painted anymore.
They want to maintain or emphasize the material of the building which is concrete. They also want to show the oldness of this building and making it look so traditional. On the other hand, the Cathedral of Brasilia, uses very contrast set of color. The Cathedral of Brasilia uses mainly white, then green, dark blue and lighter blue/transparent . White symbolizes innocence, purity and honesty. In Christianity, angels are mostly shown as wearing white clothing and the color of their wings are also white. The white color supports the holiness of this place as a church. The other three colors of the interior are to symbolize the nature.
The green symbolizes greenery, trees and vegetable. The darker blue symbolizes the sea or water. While the original color of the stained glass symbolizes the sky, which is always changing. These green darker blue and the lighter blue that are drawn to be around Jesus’ statue are meant to remind us that he gives and provides us all the essential we need in this word. Pantheon and Cathedral of Brasilia were built to be bigger than human scale to create a spiritual experience.
Pantheon’s height is 142 feet, while the Catheral of Brasilia’s height is 131 feet. In religions, God always creates humans. Through the size of the buildings, it is to emphasize the hierarchy of humans and God. God’s house is meant to be bigger than a regular or human scale houses. Pantheon and Cathedral of Brasilia, both has statues that are way bigger than human scale too.
The reason why they are bigger is to make humans are not even on the same level as the angels or the God’s helpers. To create that feeling of going into God’s house, the Cathedral of Brasilia and Pantheon’s height are gigantic size although it’s not a high rise building. In the end, Pantheon and Cathedral of Brasilia are two different churches from two different eras that achieve what they want through their architectural elements. They were built in different eras, thus they have different way of approaching the problems due to the technology that was available. However, They both were designed to achieve power, spirituality, attraction, and new experience to the people.
