A Global History of Architecture by Francis D. K. Ching & Mark M. Jarzombek & Vikramaditya Prakash

Author:Francis D. K. Ching & Mark M. Jarzombek & Vikramaditya Prakash [Ching, Francis D. K.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781118981603
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2017-03-23T04:00:00+00:00

12.67 Reconstruction: Basilica of St. Denis, France, at the time of Abbot Suger

Cathedral Design

12.68 Plan: Chartres Cathedral, France

In the 13th century, cathedral building was by far the largest construction enterprise ever attempted in Europe. Chartres Cathedral, for example, was able to hold more than eight thousand people. Technologically complex and often dangerous, construction frequently took many decades and sometimes hundreds of years. Unlike Carolingian churches, with their imposing westworks, and Ottonian monastic churches, which were associated with market towns and might not have had a facade at all, the facades on this new generation of cathedrals served as sacred thresholds to a mystic interior.

Among the various aspects of church design that changed during this period was the emergence of the interior elevation of the nave as an architectural unit in its own right, with architects seeking to balance the interplay of horizontal and vertical elements. At Notre-Dame in Paris (1163–1250), there are four discrete horizontal levels: the ground-level arcade, over which run two galleries—the tribune and the triforium—above which runs an upper, windowed story or clerestory. The windows of these cathedrals were not transparent but filled with stained glass, bringing into the interior a muted, shimmering light. To obtain the soaring height that the Gothic age aspired to, flying buttresses made their appearance. While they achieve the desired result on the inside, they tended to pose a problem on the exterior. At first the flying buttresses were purely structural supplements, as at St.-Germain-des-Prés, where they were added as reinforcements around 1180, but thereafter they were integrated into the plan from the start. Flying buttresses consist of a tower that supplies the necessary counterweight and an arch that transfers the lateral loads to the tower. Because of the flying buttresses, a church interior could become a spatial unit, although this occurred at the expense of the exterior’s legibility.

The epitome of the new style was Chartres Cathedral (1194–1220), where on the outside the nave is almost completely obscured behind an intimate tangle of buttresses. The interior, on the other hand, is almost canyonlike. The nave elevation has only three levels, permitting a strong vertical extension of the bays. To compensate for the added height, two flying buttresses, one over the other, bring the load to the tower. The vaults, another important Gothic element, were composed of stone ribs with thin brick vaults in between, stretched like taut skin. The east end, with its rounded ambulatory, is modeled on St. Denis but goes further, adding five semicircular chapels. The piers were also innovative. Earlier piers often were composed of a cylindrical core at the level of the arcade and thin colonettes above. Here a continual line from the vault to the ground reduces the visibility of the column at the arcade level. Proportion and geometry were used throughout to organize all of the elements, from the small to the large. The length of the church, for example, is related to the transept in a ratio of 2:3; the length and width of the transept is 1:2.

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