transept (of a cathedral)

자료: Wikipedia, http://www.answers.com/topic/transept

The transept is the area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian churcharchitecture. The transept separates the nave from the sanctuary, whether apse,choir, chevet, presbytery or chancel. The transepts cross the nave at the crossing, which belongs equally to the main nave axis and to the transept. Upon its four piers, the crossing may support a spire, a central tower(see Gloucester Cathedral) or a crossingdome. Since the altar is usually located at the east end of a church, a transept extends to the north and south. The north and south end walls often hold decorated windows of stained glass, such as rose windows, in stone tracery.

Occasionally, the basilicas and the church and cathedralplanning that descended from them were built without transepts; sometimes the transepts were reduced to matched chapels. More often the transepts extended well beyond the sides of the rest of the building, forming the shape of a cross. This design is called a "Latin cross" ground plan and these extensions are known as the arms of the transept. A "Greek cross" ground plan, with all four extensions the same length, produces a central-plan structure with consequences for theliturgy.^{[clarification needed]}

When churches have only one transept, as at Pershore Abbey, there is generally a historical disaster, fire, war or funding problem, to explain the anomaly. At Beauvais only the chevet and transepts stand; the nave of the cathedral was never completed after a collapse of the daring high vaulting in 1284. At St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, only the choir and part of a southern transept were completed until a renewed building campaign in the 19th century.

Size of this preview: 800 × 438 pixels
Full resolution‎ (1,600 × 875 pixels, file size: 106 KB, MIME type: image/png)

Cathedral ground plan
Shaded area: nave
Darker shading: crossing

Modified from Transept.png at Wikipedia Commons.

Original author: Lusitania Date: 2005

Note: This is not an exact representation of the proportions or technical elements