On the west slope of Mt. Helikon, below the acropolis of ancient Steirion, atop an ancient temple to Demeter2 lies the monastery of Hosios Loukas (See Fig. 1). It is enclosed by a wall and comprises two- and three-story blocks of cells, a bell-tower at the South West corner, the Refectory on the South side and the two adjoining churches at the center of the enclosure. The monastery was founded by the hermit Loucas Stereiotis, who lived in the area from 945 CE until the day of his death, in 953CE. The church of the Theotocos, around which the monastery was established, was built while Loukas was alive. He was declared a Hosios of the Orthodox Church where his relics were kept and were later moved to the crypt below the Catholicon when it was
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This unique design revolves around the construction and arrangement of external and internal openings. The upper sections of the building’s windows are filled with ceramic screens punctured by multiple, small, round apertures, and the bottom sections by thin, carved slabs of white marble. The relationship of these elements, however, differs between the windows on the ground level and those on the gallery level. On the ground level, the screen and the slab are directly adjacent to one another, but on the gallery level these elements are separated by large rectangular openings, referred to as gap windows. These gap windows, today filled with casement steel frames and glazed, cannot be seen from the floor of the naos but serve as the primary source of light entering the gallery spaces and make those rooms appear as if they were unexpectedly glowing from within. Based on the work of Robert Schutz and Sidney Barnsley, it appears that this manipulation of daylight was perhaps even more nuanced in the past, when the gap windows were designed to operate as exclusive sources of unfiltered light. When Schultz and Barnsley studied the Monastery of Hosios Loukas in 1901, before major restorations had taken place, they suggested that the gap windows may have been operable by a set of shutters made of very thin slabs of marble. They also described finding a few remaining pieces of strongly colored glass in shades such as blue, red, and orange that had earlier filled the apertures in the perforated screens.8 Such information is crucial for understanding the original design of light phenomena. When the small apertures of the window screens were glazed with pieces of intensely colored and thus semi-transparent glass and the larger gap windows were either completely open or closed by thin slabs of stone, the
This unique design revolves around the construction and arrangement of external and internal openings. The upper sections of the building’s windows are filled with ceramic screens punctured by multiple, small, round apertures, and the bottom sections by thin, carved slabs of white marble. The relationship of these elements, however, differs between the windows on the ground level and those on the gallery level. On the ground level, the screen and the slab are directly adjacent to one another, but on the gallery level these elements are separated by large rectangular openings, referred to as gap windows. These gap windows, today filled with casement steel frames and glazed, cannot be seen from the floor of the naos but serve as the primary source of light entering the gallery spaces and make those rooms appear as if they were unexpectedly glowing from within. Based on the work of Robert Schutz and Sidney Barnsley, it appears that this manipulation of daylight was perhaps even more nuanced in the past, when the gap windows were designed to operate as exclusive sources of unfiltered light. When Schultz and Barnsley studied the Monastery of Hosios Loukas in 1901, before major restorations had taken place, they suggested that the gap windows may have been operable by a set of shutters made of very thin slabs of marble. They also described finding a few remaining pieces of strongly colored glass in shades such as blue, red, and orange that had earlier filled the apertures in the perforated screens.8 Such information is crucial for understanding the original design of light phenomena. When the small apertures of the window screens were glazed with pieces of intensely colored and thus semi-transparent glass and the larger gap windows were either completely open or closed by thin slabs of stone, the