west-work

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west-work. Westwerk in German, i.e. massive, wide, tower-like west front of an early Romanesque or Carolingian church containing an entrance-vestibule with a chapel and other rooms over it opening to the upper part of the nave. A good surviving example is the Abbey Church of Corvey-on-the-Weser, Germany (873–5), with its low entrance-hall with massive piers and circular columns carrying the vaults over which is a two-storey upper church surrounded by arcades and aisles.

Bibliography

Conant (1979);
Cruickshank (ed.) (1996);
Jane Turner (1996);
D Watkin (1986)