Architecture (Jaedexian)

Jaedaxian Architecture

Introduction

There are three unique, individual styles of architecture in the Freeport of Jaedaxia, each considerably different from the other, with its own history and origins, and its own story of how it entered Jaedaxia. These three styles are: Imperial, Baroque, and Gothic.

Imperial

The Imperial style is based primarily on the use of concrete, which allows for a more superfluous use of material than wood and stone. Imperial architecture is characterized by the use of columns, colonnades, arcades, domes, and round arches. Tiles, marble, and concrete are the primary materials used in the construction of Imperial style buildings. In civic buildings, defensive constructs, and aristocratic palaces or residences, it aims to achieve a sense of grandiosity and immensity, being powerful, majestic, and opulent. Walls are often decorated with mosaics made of coloured stones and bricks.

Jaedaxia was originally constructed entirely in the Imperial style, with the hub-and-spoke pattern dictated in Imperial style urban planning. The government or civic centre was located in the heart of the city, with the rest of the city spanning outward in circular designs. Jaedaxia was founded by Emperor Constantine as a wedding present to his wife, High Queen Jaedah, and thus was constructed, originally, entirely by Imperial engineers. Thus, it was based off the metropolises of the Ioannolian lowlands, particularly the nation’s grand capital, Aelyria Prime.

Edifices in Jaedaxia’s civic centre were immense and imperious, focusing on verticality and profoundness. Surrounding the civic centre were Imperial style apartment complexes, or domiciliums, such as were to be found in Aelyria Prime, where hundreds of people were housed in suites built on top of each other. Lining the streets were arcades and gAelyrias, under which the city’s original marketplaces flourished. Marble fountains were the primary source of water in the city. This general appearance was also utilized in the West Harbour District, but elsewhere in Jaedaxia, lesser, wooden and stone buildings were hastily erected by the influx of settlers into the new Imperial city.

Most of Jaedaxia was destroyed following the MGanzi Hal and the Borthanists’ coup, the erection of the Wall of Weeping, the siege of Port Defiance, and the eventual fall of the Republic of Libertas. The civic centre, once the proudest and most impressive aspect of Jaedaxia, was ruined and razed, as was most of the eastern city and much of the western city as a result of the occupation of West Jaedaxia by the Imperial Legion to lay siege to Port Defiance in the east.

Only a few vestiges of the Imperial style remain in Jaedaxia aside from the ruins in the Cloison district. Most prominent of these remnants is the Socrates de Ambergois Universitie.

Gothic

The Gothic style is characterized by its utilization of spires, spikes, darker shades, menacing appearances, arches, steeples, rib-vaulting, and verticality. It uses towers, steeples, and spires to make buildings loom, making edifices seem taller than they actually are. The stones used as materials are black or dark grey, and rooftops are often made out of brass, and almost every Gothic roof is ornamented with gargoyles and grotesques. Walls and towers are often decorated with friezes. Iron or brass spikes, stone battlements, and other metallic ornaments adorn rooftops, balcony railings, and window frames. Arches are prominent, with most windows and doorframes using an arched pattern. The ultimate purpose of Gothic architecture is to create a sharp, jagged, and tall image.

Following the Fall of the Libertas Republic, the Freeport of Jaedaxia was widely considered a failed city in the Aelyrian Empire, founded by the Empire but doomed to obscurity by its early destruction. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of the city persevered, and commenced the Reconstruction effort. They rebuilt their city, replacing the Imperial architecture with the Gothic style, which many Jaedaxians knew and admired from the neighbouring city of Arkdün. During this time, much of the rural style of architecture that had been erected around the Imperial style centres was also replaced by the Gothic style, using stone quarried from the surrounding cliffs – consequently also leveling most of the terrain Jaedaxia was situated upon.

The Gothic style remains the dominant architectural style in Freeport, Defiance, and Ponts (eastern Jaedaxia), as well as portions of Tintamarre (north), and scattered remnants in Résidence and Mavloix. All of Jaedaxia’s government buildings, once made in the Imperial style in the centre of the city, were reconstructed in the Gothic in Defiance. Notable examples of the Gothic were Château Valerian, the Chambre of Commerce, and the Church of Borthanas.

Baroque

The Baroque style focuses on the void, symmetry, shade, and motion. In the way of materials it uses mostly stone, tiles, and cobblestones. The Baroque style is typified by its contrast shading, usually with bright façades and dark roofs, the symmetry and predictability of its patterns in the implementation of windows, doors, balconies, and other ornaments such as statues or buttresses, the illusion of space and emptiness, and broad, sweeping motion such as in the mirrored, sweeping staircases often found in parlours or galleries within Baroque buildings. The buildings focus more on width than height, creating space from side to side rather than from the ground up. Windows and portals are typically rectangular, taller than wide. Walls and towers are often decorated with friezes.

Following the Reconstruction of Jaedaxia, there came a huge influx of immigrants from the Charisme region in southwestern Enamoria. The Charismeans were responsible for bringing the Charismean language (called Jaedaxienne in Jaedaxia) and their unique culture to the city. They also brought the Baroque style of architecture which had originated in the Human kingdoms of Medonia and Daltina.

The Charismeans came in the tens of thousands, and they joined the Jaedaxians in the Reconstruction half-way through it, and continued to expand Jaedaxia a few decades after the Reconstruction was officially declared complete. They brought their wide apartment complexes, salons, and suites, as well as their spacious courtyards, street-side arcades, and balconies. The Charismeans concentrated in the Mavloix, Libertas, and Résidence districts, and thus that is where the Baroque is predominant. It also shares Tintamarre with the Gothic style.

The Château Mavloix Quandary

Château Mavloix, undisputedly the most renowned landmark in Jaedaxia, does not fall into any of the three architectural categories listed above. It is in truth a combination of both the Gothic and the Baroque, bearing influences and signs of both styles. While its façades, courtyards, and interior were undoubtedly of the Baroque, its towers, rooftop, and clock tower were Gothic. The faces had regular, rectangular window slits, built of a lighter shade of stone, created the illusion of void, and the castle was wider than it was tall. However, the slanted rooftop was made of brass – once golden, now tarnished to green – adorned with gargoyles and grotesques, with friezes all around its cylindrical towers. The clock tower itself was mostly Gothic, topped with a brass spire and spike, made of dark stone, and the clock itself bearing Gothic style numbers and hands, but there was also an open courtyard at the top, just beneath the clock itself, an arcade of the Baroque fashion.

The origins of Château Mavloix were just as uncertain as its architectural style. Some historians held that it had been built by the Richelieu de Mer family upon their arrival in Jaedaxia after emigrating from the Charisme region, bringing with them the Baroque but having gained an admiration for Arkdüni Gothic. The more widely accepted claim was that it predated the city of Jaedaxia, and the site of the city was chosen thanks to the proximity of the castle. The castle was said to have probably once been the stronghold of an Vagaran chieftain, possibly a lord of Arkdün who attempted to extend the power of the Barbari city – and the Richelieu de Mer family renovated it upon taking up residence to incorporate the Baroque from their native Charisme.

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