Architect Jong-Soung Kimm’s Romanesque Architecture

This volume is a photographic essay on Mozarabic, Asturian and Romanesque architecture on the Iberian Peninsula as seen through an architect’s eyes. It is meant to highlight and bring to life those elements of architectural design that are unique to Medieval architecture, rather than serve as an architectural history narrative. The texts describe the specific architectural design strategies of master builders, or spatial phenomena that are experienced by contemporary visitors.
A conscious decision was made early in the project not to be bound by the correct historiographical term “Romanesque” architecture, but to include a group of significant monuments of Medieval building art that have come down to us uniquely on the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, Mozarabic architectural monuments such as San Miguel de Escalada and San Pedro de la Nave, and the Asturian architecture of Santa Maria del Naranco are included here.
Mainstream Romanesque monument are given their due respect, culminating in Santiago de Compostela and including Catalonia, Navarre, and León. Se Velha of Coimbra, in spite of its physical location in present-day Portugal, was considered too significant a monument to be omitted in a volume dealing with Medieval architecture on the Iberian Peninsula.