Cathedrals
Cathedrals Cathedrals means chair and was the seat of the local bishop Cathedrals were built to take the worshipper to heaven.
The Gothic period lasted from the late 1100's to the 1500's. Most Romanesque cathedrals had been built to replace Early Christian or Carolingian predecessors. Many Gothic cathedrals resulted from additions to a Romanesque church. The desire to enrich an earlier church was a strong motivation behind Gothic cathedral building. Many Romanesque churches were demolished to make way for a cathedral in the new style. As a result, the majority of cathedrals in Europe are Gothic. The main difference between Romanesque and Gothic styles is the way in which space is conceived. Space in Romanesque buildings is achieved by adding bays, unit by unit, to create a total space. A Gothic building is conceived as a total space divided into units. In about 1175, French cathedral builders developed the flying buttress, a brick or stone arched support built against the outside walls. Because it allowed the major supports for the vault to be taken outside the building, architects were able to construct thin-walled churches with fully vaulted roofs. For the first time, builders were able to substitute beautifully coloured stained glass windows for large areas of wall. Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris (1163-1250) was one of the first buildings to have flying buttresses. The exciting combination of Gothic features--pointed arches, ribbed vaults, stained glass, lateral spaciousness, and an interior patterned with a grid of fine lines--was adopted throughout Europe.
There are two types of cathedrals This is Gothic Notre Dame Cathedral Two types of a architecture emerged: Romanesque from the 10 th to the 12 th centuries. Gothic from the 12 th to the 15 th Originally called the French style. Later, it is renamed gothic meaning barbaric by the renaissance builders
Romanesque Features: Large rectangle surrounded by thick walls of brick or stone. A wooden roof supported by outside walls and a row of interior columns Heavy rounded arches and towers Very plain and simple in terms of details on the exterior and interior
Gothic Features: Features: pointed arches, slender columns, soaring roofs, ornate stone carvings, and large stain glass windows a lighter style in compared to Romanesque
What lead to the large construction of cathedrals? In the early Middle Ages little construction was done in western Europe aside from castles and basic religious buildings. By the 12 th century improvements in the economy and the return of crusaders for eastern Europe/western Asia brought with it a desire to transform their drab buildings into spectacular structures displaying the wealth of the people.
Building materials To make these massive buildings, the builders obviously needed a lot of building material. Most of the cathedrals made back then were made up of stone, mainly limestone. The citizens had to build a huge rock quarry in order to meet the needs of the builders.
Bricks were not used widely for some reason, but can be found in cathedrals only in northern and eastern Germany and southern France. These countries also used bricks to make their churches, castles, and palaces. The material that was used to bind the stones together is called mortar. This is a material which was helped to bind the bricks and other building materials together. It was sort of like a very primitive form of cement. Some people might not think that wood is an intricate part of the cathedral.however, wood is the building material which holds up the roofs, flying buttresses, as well as, the doors. Many different kinds of wood were used because they only used the type of wood which was easily available, as well as, which was in great supply. Furthermore, wood was used to help make some of the vaults which will be explained later on.
The Basic Design Cathedrals took the general shape of a cross or crucifix. Buildings of this shape are called cruciform' after the cross that Christ was hung on Generally, the main entrance into the cathedral is through the west into the nave. The nave is the place of the people, where they may meet, see the church's artwork and attend services. Each arm of the cruciform is called a transept. They are separate sections, the north and south transepts.
Basic design continued The chapter-house, here to the north of the north transept, was used for the more formal gatherings of the "chapter", the group of monks that lived in the cathedral and formed its governing body. Among its other chapels and around the perimeter of the choir, and frequently the nave, every cathedral also had a Lady Chapel, where the Virgin Mary was worshiped. It contained an altar to her and was usually at the eastern-most point of the cathedral.
Features There are certain classic ingredients of Gothic architecture which not only added aesthetically to the cathedrals, but were great structural innovations as well. Every small detail, even a small flower at the top of an arch served a purpose, perhaps placing extra weight to support a weak point in the structure.
Pointed Arch This is the point at which the top of the columns meet, shown here above the window in the center of the photo. Having them meet at an angle rather than a curve added strength because of the more efficient way the weight carried by the columns was distributed. Thus, fewer columns would be needed to support a building of the same size or larger.
To build the flying buttress, it was first necessary to construct temporary wooden frames which are called centering. The centering would support the weight of the stones and help maintain the shape of the arch until the mortar was dry. The centering were first built on the ground by the carpenters. Once that was done, they would be hoisted into place and fastened to the piers at the end of one buttress and at the other. These acted as temporary flying buttresses until the actual stone arch was complete.
Buttresses A significant characteristic of gothic architecture is height. However, the higher the wall, the more force there is pushing in a outwardly direction. Buttresses allowed builders to go higher with their walls as it allowed more support. In this photo you can see the buttresses jutting perpendicular from the wall.
Arches, columns, and weight distribution
Verticality One of the characteristics of gothic architecture is verticality. Medieval builders refined the simple arch into a vaulted arch and improved on many of the accepted building techniques. In this picture, with the use of successive vaults, delicate ribs on the arches, and colonnades on the columns actual height is created along with the illusion of height.
Vaults Vaulting was very important for structural as well as design reasons. This picture shows sexpartite vaulting -- six ribs fan out from the center of the vault. This allows finish work and decoration to be done on the ribs creating a light, delicate look. Notice, however, that while the six ribs may provide a more delicate look, they force the stained-glass windows to be narrower and more numerous.
Vaults cont The reasons that the cathedrals had so many of these vaulted roofs is because the medieval builders thought that they helped reduce the risk of fire. That was really good because fires often spread and there were no fire fighters to help extinguish the fire. Also, it made the inside of the cathedral have a finished look. The cons to having these vaults, however, is that they have a tremendous amount of weight and exert a lot of pressure upon the foundation. The builders had a way to help spread out the weight and pressure. They used piers or columns to help support them.
Stain Glass or Walls of Glass So with the aid of the pointed arch and the flying buttress, cathedral walls were strengthened to such a degree that spaces could be cut away for larger window casements - and thereby meet the terms of Gothic's prime directive: MORE light. The high reaches of Gothic construction came when the architect, stonecutter, ironworker and glazier pooled their skills to create the luminous rose windows of the era. In painting, light is reflected off the surface whereas in stained glass, light is transmitted through the surface. For this reason, the art of making stained glass is known as painting with light. In the hands of medieval glaziers, glass took on a jewel-like quality that was all the more impressive for the ancient simplicity of its technique: sand transformed by fire... Rose Windows