FRENCH GOTHIC

12th – 16th c. AD
FRANCE - GOTHIC PERIOD

MAP –
BRITTANY,
NORMANDY
FRANCE - GOTHIC PERIOD
ORIGIN OF THE GOTHIC STYLE WAS IN FRANCE
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture, which flourished in Europe during the high and
late medieval period. It was preceded by Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by
Renaissance architecture
The term Gothic was concocted during the Renaissance period. 'Gothic' is applied to pointed
styles of ecclesiastical architecture, known during the period as “The French Style“
GEOGRAPHICAL FACTORS
By the end of the 12th c. W.Europe formed into separate nations like ITALY, FRNCE, ENGLAND,
GERMANY, SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
RELIGIOUS FACTORS
•By the 12th c. the church was strong to determine matters of art and architecture
•A large part of the churches finances was invested in new buildings along with secular
sources
•Restorations and repairs to existing abbeys and cathedrals along with new foundations
•Spread through the Benedictines, Cistercians, Canons and the Orders of the Friars leading to
building of abbeys, priories and convents
SOCIAL FACTORS
•Integration of religion into the ordinary conduct of life with expression in the form of
buildings
•Every village had at least 1 parish church, every family had its own private chapel
•Every organization secular & ecclesiastical had its own religious life which required a chapel,
or church
•Established monarchies, royalty, upper strata of aristocracy founded chapels and added them
to palaces and castles
•Kings founded charterhouses
FRANCE - GOTHIC PERIOD
BLACK DEATH & HUNDRED YEAR WAR
•Need for secular and religious buildings- burgeoning urban expansion
•Investment in parish churches and those of mendicant orders with chapels for soul masses
•The principle focus of patronage was in churches followed by secular buildings in the Late
Gothic period – gentry and vernacular houses, country houses, commercial, industrial
ventures, city centres, colleges, hospitals etc. establishment of complete towns eg. Venice

GOTHIC CULTURE
•Fundamentally an ecclesiastical style, seldom fully realized in secular buildings
•Suited for vast vaulted halls and not small rooms as no. of storeys was costly and
difficult to adapt
•The development of Gothic architecture went hand in hand with Gothic sculpture, stained
glass and painting as symbols of the Heavenly Jerusalem
•The church was regarded as a monumental reliquary
•Hence Gothic was not just about structural engineering but also religious and aesthetic
considerations
•The aim was to project something visually exotic achieved by its craftsmen

GOTHIC RESOURCES/STYLE
•The flowering of the style and the refinement depended largely on the master masons and
on their ability to cut and shape stone. The essence of the style is in the stonework
•Use of hardwood and stone in England, brick in N Europe. Jurassic limestone from Bourges,
Champagne, England
•Red sandstone from Rhineland, Holland, Chalk and flint in Kent and Norfolk
•Granite from Brittany, Volcanic stone from Auvergne, Caen was transported by water
•As cathedrals and abbeys were the 1st large scale users of stone they had a vested
interest in acquiring quarries, the economics of church building was handled by the
ecclesiastical authorities
•Contracting was one way masons made money
•Buildings became more complex right down to the level of detail
gothic – architectural character
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture, particularly associated with cathedrals and
other churches, which flourished in Europe during the high and late medieval period.
The Gothic period is one which completely broke away from the architecture of Greece and
Rome. It was an antithesis of classical tradition
Gothic was the result of the constant brooding on the theme of a church with novel forms
and decoration to impress and edify the pious congregation

It emphasizes verticality and features almost skeletal stone structures with great expanses
of glass, ribbed vaults, clustered columns, sharply pointed spires, flying buttresses and
inventive sculptural detail such as gargoyles.

1. TECHNIQUES:
• Extremely light and open in structure
• Use of fine materials with 2 rows of prominent, stained glass in ambulatory
chapels and clerestory
• Sumptuous altar
• Masonry reduced to minimum to define spatial components without disrupting
essential unity
2. PLANNING:
•Latin cross plan, with a long nave a
transverse arm called the transept and
beyond it, an extension which may be
called the choir, chancel or presbytery.
•The nave is generally flanked
on either side by aisles, usually
singly, but sometimes double,
having clerestorey windows
which light the central space.
S AMIENS CATHEDRAL
gothic – architectural character
3. POINTED ARCH:
The Pointed arch was the technological building unit of
Gothic construction
• The Gothic imposed an order and system in design of
arches
• The introduction of the pointed arch as a means of
covering a rectangular space
• Entire structures were conceived as frameworks of
arches
• Arches were organized into systems which reduced the
structural functions of walls to a minimum.
• Flexibility with relation to height and span led to other
forms than semicircular arches
• The pointed arch is one which has no fixed ratio between
height and span
• It has an advantage in its ability to carry heavy loads with
greater efficiency
• Semicircular arches were a feature of the Gothic ribbed
vaults till 13th c.
• Pointed arch was introduced for both visual and
structural reasons.
• Visually, the verticality suggests an aspiration to Heaven.
• Structurally, its use gives a greater flexibility to
Architectural form.
• The other advantage is that the pointed arch channels the
weight onto the bearing piers or columns at a steep angle.
• Used in every location where a vaulted shape is called for,
both structural and decorative. Gothic openings such as
doorways, windows, arcades and galleries have pointed
arches
gothic – architectural character

ADVANTAGES OF POINTED ARCH

FOR AN OBLONG BAY
gothic – architectural character
4. Vault:

Rib-Vaulting: vaulting above spaces both large and small

is usually supported by richly molded ribs.
• Use of quadripartire and sexpartite vaulting
• Suitable over a rectangular bay
• Introduction of the boss in the intersection of the
ribs
• Use of pointed arches for the structural bay
gothic – architectural character
5. Flying buttresses:

• Galleries were dispensed with

increase in size of cathedrals
was possible due to imaginative
use of these buttresses
• These provided the same support
as galleries but without walls
and roofs
• Organization of interior spaces
was simplified
• Possibility to enlarge clerestory
windows eg. Chartres cathedral,
Cologne, Amiens
gothic – architectural character
6. Decoration:

• Rows of arches upon delicate shafts form a typical

wall decoration known as blind arcading.
• Niches with pointed arches and containing statuary are
a major external feature
• The pointed arch leant itself to elaborate intersecting
shapes which developed within window spaces into
complex Gothic tracery forming the structural
support of the large windows that are characteristic
of the style.
gothic – architectural character
7. Verticality:
The Gothic style emphasizes verticality and features
almost skeletal stone structures with great
expanses of glass, ribbed vaults, clustered
columns, sharply pointed spires, flying buttresses
and inventive sculptural detail such as gargoyles.
8. Geometry:
Dimensions formed themselves into mechanically
related systems
Practical rationale

9. Styles:
French:
Early Gothic – S. Denis
High Gothic – Notre Dame, Bourges, Chartres
Rayonnant - Reims
Late Gothic/Flamboyant – Tower of Chartres,
Rose window -Amiens
England:
Early English –Westminster Abbey
Decorated - Exeter
Perpendicular –Kings college Chapel
The English Decorated style is similar to the French
Rayonnant ideas with respect to tracery, vaults
and polygons REIMS
German: Sondergotik
architectural character- french gothic
First experiments of Gothic architecture in 1140 as Paris became
the cultural cynosure for W Europe
The sequence of styles in French Gothic is as follows:
Early Gothic
High Gothic
Rayonnant
Late Gothic/Flamboyant

Early Gothic:
Influence of Romanesque evident in Early Gothic
S.Denis – vaults were added to thin walls culminating in
Suger’s Choir
Introduction of variety of wall passage arrangements

S.DENIS
architectural character- french gothic
High Gothic:
•Increase in scale of buildings – Bourges and Chartres,
followed by Riems and Amiens, Beauvais later
•Characterized by lightness and soaring spaces
•A system of flying buttresses made possible the
reduction of wall surfaces by relieving them of part of
their structural function.
•Great windows could be set into walls, admitting light
through vast expanses of stained glass.
•Wall surfaces of High Gothic churches thus have the
appearance of transparent and weightless curtains
BOURGES CATHEDRAL •Planning - traditional basilican form. It consisted of a
central nave flanked by aisles, with or without transept,
and was terminated by a choir surrounded by an
ambulatory with chapels. These elements were no longer
treated as single units but were formally integrated
within a unified spatial scheme
•The exterior view was frequently dominated by twin
towers.
•The facade was pierced by entrance portals often
lavishly decorated with sculpture, and at a higher level
appeared a central stained glass rose window.
•Additional towers frequently rose above the crossing
and the arms of the transept, which often had entrance
portals and sculpture of their own.
Around the upper part of the edifice was a profusion of
flying buttresses and pinnacles
architectural character- french gothic
Rayonnant style:
•A reduction of opaque wall surfaces
in favor of graceful screens of stone
tracery and glass led toward the
formation of the Gothic Rayonnant
style around the mid-13th cent.

•The most striking achievements of

Rayonnant design, the Sainte-Chapelle
in Paris and the Church of St. Urban in
Troyes, have walls almost entirely of
glass, held in place by only a thin
skeletal frame of masonry.

•Less massive in scale

•Intimate in decoration

•Covered in tracery and rich details

•Spread to all provinces

•Private patronage

•Archetypal building was the chapel

architectural character- french gothic
DEVELOPMENTS
•By 13th c. the enormous economic expansion
was lost and massive cathedrals of High
Gothic became too expensive

•Shift in patronage. While early churches were

built by the towns themselves, later
professional guilds paid for their work
representing the patron saint of its craft

•Cathedrals were the expression of communal

pride

•After the Black Death in the 14th c.a cast

amount of re building had to be done

•This led to the new style – Flamboyant

Flamboyant style:
•Rich decorative repertory of tracery
patterns

•Regional quality of early Gothic

•Grand scale of high gothic with emphasis

on spacious plans and orders – S.Eustache
French gothic –
cathedral of notre dame paris, 1163 – 1250 ad

Begun by Bishop Maurice de Sully in 1163 and completed with the addition of the west
towers in 1250
PLANNING:

•The interior of Notre Dame measures 130 m x 48 m x 35 m high.

•The Plan comprises of double aisles and ambulatories
•Bent axial line
•Transept did not project beyond the aisle wall
•Transept which divides the interior into a nave and a
chevet(altar) of nearly equal proportion, with a tripartite
division of nave and chevet which is reflected in the
articulation of the facade, became the prototype for all the
great gothic structures which came after it.

Interiors:
•Originally consisted of 4 levels
•An arcade of columnar piers
•A Triforium gallery originally
covered with transverse barrel
vaults and lit by round windows
•Decorative oculi opening into
tribune roof spaces
•Small clerestory windows
French gothic –
cathedral of notre dame paris, 1163 – 1250 ad
French gothic –
cathedral of notre dame paris, 1163 – 1250 ad
French gothic –
cathedral of notre dame paris, 1163 – 1250 ad

Clerestory:
•The clerestory is the space, lit by
colored glass, where elevation and
vaulting meet.
•The bundle of slender columns
which flank each stained glass
window supports the ribs of the
vault.
STAINED GLASS
•These ribs, used in both transverse
and diagonal arches, reinforce the
stone canopy, in effect holding the
entire structure together.

Altar:
•The chevet of the cathedral is
composted of a choir, which
separates the high altar from the
nave, and a double ambulatory
flanked by chapels.
•The choir was isolated by a rood
screen, a partition often ornamented
with openwork

CHOIR
French gothic –
cathedral of notre dame paris, 1163 – 1250 ad
Vaulting:
•Sexpartite vault covering double bays
•30m high
•Thin wall supporting it articulated by
slender face bedded(en délit) shafts

Flying buttresses:
Double span flying
buttresses support the
nave
These flying buttresses
appeared in the 13th
century with the
addition of chapels
located between the
buttresses of the nave.
Of a single thrust, they
permit greater natural
light in the chapels by
transferring
structural support to
the outside walls, thus
leaving more interior
space and allowing
larger windows.
French gothic –
cathedral of notre dame paris, 1163 – 1250 ad

Façade:
•The facade is divided into nine equal portions -
vertically by the buttresses, which indicate the
interior divisions of the nave, and horizontally by a
row of statuary and a series of arcades.
•The former marks the transition between the
portals and the rose, the latter frames the rose
and separates it from the towers.
•This triple stratification also reflects the
divisions of the elevation into grand arcade,
triforium gallery, and clerestory.

Tower:
The south tower houses the great bell, which
weighs 13 tons

Principal modifications of the 13th and 14th

centuries:
•The windows of the nave, which were enlarged,
and the numerous chapels added between the
buttresses.
•In the 13th c. clerestory windows were expanded
downwards swallowing the decorative oculi of the
3rd storey
•Tribunes built later with larger windows and
ordinary quadripartite vaults
French gothic –
cathedral of notre dame paris, 1163 – 1250 ad
French gothic –
cathedral of notre dame paris, 1163 – 1250 ad
French gothic

COMPARISON BETWEEN ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC CHURCH PLANS

Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, Romanesque Pilgrimage Church, c. 1080-1120

Notre-Dame, Amiens, French Gothic Cathedral, begun 1220