Space and Sound in the Studenica Church

Founded in 1183 by Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja and fully finished and covered in frescoes by 1208/09, the major church of the Studenica Monastery remains well preserved. Studenica is also enlisted as a UNESCO Heritage Site because of its exceptional beauty. A non-invasive and highly accurate computer-generated model of the Studenica church has already helped better understand the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of church illumination during daylight and night services. These analyses elucidated how atmospheric light was foundational to the church design and the iconicity of its space. This paper asks questions about atmospheric sound and investigates the iconic qualities of the architecture of the Studenica church by highlighting its sonic dimensions. The focus is on reverberation: the time that sound enters and occupies space before its ultimate waning, resembling the philosophical concept of chora. Using the Studenica church as a case study of the church from the Middle-Byzantine period, the paper presents iconic qualities of saturated sound in Byzantine-rite churches designed on the principles of the domed canopy, inseparable from the immaterial space it frames. The iconicity of sound in the dome and upper parts of the church nave and the role of iconostasis that separates the church nave from the sanctuary will be examined in greater detail and contrasted with the iconicity of light in these two essential segments of the Studenica church, asking questions about the multisensorial aspects of architectural design and the ultimate role of the Byzantine-rite church as a spatial icon of the sacred.