Proportions of the “Dynamic Square” in Temples of early medieval Georgia

Abstract

The brevity, modesty and monumentality characteristic of Georgian historical architecture are especially clear in early medieval monuments. If there were not used certain proportional systems, these buildings would even be defective. As a result of the research, it can be assumed that the dynamic rectangles, derived from the square, should be used while planning these temples. The ratio of length to width of certain parts, in most cases, are very close to the proportion of certain dynamic rectangle. There are small errors, However, in the case of several monuments, the systematicity of the errors, observed during the detailed measurement, makes us think that this might be a deliberate action of the architect. During the research, certain proportional features were revealed, which suggests that in some cases it is possible to deal with the proportions obtained from so-called "dynamic square" instead of a pure square. “Dynamic squares” were obtained by extending the pure square with its diagonals of a half, third, or quarter.