Carolingian architecture

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Lorsch monastery gatehouse

The Palatine Chapel in Aachen

Carolingian architecture is the style of North European architecture promoted by Charles the Great (Charlemagne), King of the Franks, who was crowned Imperator Augustus in Rome on Christmas Day, 800 by Pope Leo III. The period of architecture spans the late 8th and 9th centuries until the reign of Otto I in 936, and was a conscious attempt to create a Roman Renaissance, emulating Roman, Early Christian and Byzantine architecture, with its own innovation, resulting in having a unique character.

The gatehouse of the monastery at Lorsch, built around 800, exemplifies classical inspiration for Carolingian architecture, built as a triple arched hall, with the arched facade interspersed with attached classical columns and pilasters above.

The Palatine Chapel in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) constructed between 792 - 805 was inspired by the octagonal Justinian church of San Vitale in Ravenna, built in the 6th century, but at Aachen there is a tall monumental western entrance complex, as a whole called westwork - something initiated in Carolingian times.

Carolingian churches generally are basilican, like the Early Christian churches of Rome, and commonly incorporated westwork, which is arguably the precedent for the western facades of later medieval cathedrals. Original westwork survives today at the Abbey of Corvey, built in 885.

See Also: Medieval architecture and Carolingian Renaissance