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Hagia Sophia Capacity

designBandit

Does anyone know the seating capacity of Hagia Sophia? I know there's no pews in there now, but does anyone have an idea of the capacity based upon its size? I'm doing some comparison studies of church sizes....

 
Jul 27, 08 7:35 pm
Living in Gin

I don't know the capacity, but I have a book that lists the area and volume of several famous churches throughout the world. Unfortunately, that book is locked away in storage at the moment...

Jul 27, 08 7:57 pm  · 
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Carl Douglas (agfa8x)

more importantly, how long would it take the niagara falls to fill it?

Jul 28, 08 12:01 am  · 
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jhooper

If you're doing a compairson of church sizes, make sure to note it was originally built as a mosque, which doesn't have the same type of 'seating' needs as a church.

Jul 28, 08 1:12 pm  · 
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Living in Gin

Actually, it was originally built as a church and then later converted to a mosque. I don't think it ever had fixed seating, though, as most large cathedrals and Eastern Orthodox churches don't.

Jul 28, 08 1:50 pm  · 
1  · 
holz.box

the falls dump about 100,000 cubic feet of water per second (both american and canadian falls).

i dunno the volume, but i would guess it wouldn't take more than a few seconds.

Jul 28, 08 3:49 pm  · 
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jhooper

oh man, thanks for setting me straight on that one LIG. Not sure how I got the cronology so botched on that one.

Jul 28, 08 4:03 pm  · 
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Janosh

With loose chairs and tables, the building department will set maximum occupancy based on 15 SF per person. They'll probably also want a furniture plan to verify exit widths.

Jul 28, 08 4:10 pm  · 
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quizzical

This article (Hagia Sophia) says the building occupies 7,500 square meters ... this page (Interactive Floor Plan) shows the floor plan.

while I recognize that all of the floor area is not worship space, perhaps by using a reasonable estimate of how much space one person occupies and how much of the total floor area is worship space, you can estimate the capacity of the space to accommodate worshipers.

Jul 28, 08 4:13 pm  · 
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weem_of_crete

Are you including megachurches in your survey? Some of those places are huge.

Jul 28, 08 4:38 pm  · 
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designBandit

Thanks for the comments everyone. Its not a mega church study, weem. Actually the goal is to show churches of varying capacity as examples of what a "x-seat" church looks like.

What I need the most I realize now is examples of recognizable churches (to non-architects) in the 700-900 seat range. If anyone has any ideas please throw them this way...gently. Don't want to get poked in the eye by a spire, wocka wocka.

Jul 29, 08 11:28 am  · 
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