Compare the Choir and Nave| Notre -Dame de Paris | Briefing

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Notre-Dame de Paris | Compare the Choir and Nave
Professor Murray

Comparison between the choir and the nave: the phenomenon of change. This last observation invites us to extend the comparison between choir and nave. In the nave, the gallery openings are divided into three; in the choir, two. In the choir the mural mass is greater—look at the divisions between the gallery openings.


France, Paris, Notre-Dame, choir elevation		France, Paris, Notre-Dame, nave elevation

The mass is articulated with grouped colonnettes; in the nave this equivalent form is reduced and prismatic. Similarly, the eastern crossing piers at the entrance of the choir have clustered colonnettes; the western piers (nave) have simple flat surfaces. The choir vaults are more domed up than the flatter nave vaults. What do such differences mean? Were they intended as part of a program to announce the different liturgical function of the choir? (1.)

Or do they express the on-going search for appropriate forms? Jean Bony defined the force lying behind Gothic creativity as "critical dissatisfaction with the immediate past." (2.) Was he right? Would a Gothic mason examine existing work with a critical eye and new questions that might lead him to innovate and to break the repetitive cycle of a complex building made up of many nearly-identical parts (supports, windows, vaults, buttresses etc)?

The above discussion leads to a consideration of sameness and difference and the phenomenon of change. A cathedral is a complex, multi-cell edifice. The massive amount of construction in "Gothic" led to a process of rationalization where units like the drums of the piers or the voussoirs of arches could be produced quickly with as little variation as possible, lending the edifice an almost-machine-made perfection—as if not made by human hands. Notre-Dame certainly has this kind of metallic look. Within this framework of repetition we need to question the need for change. In fact, of course, the forms themselves do not change—we perceive change only when our expectation of repetition is not met and a new form is encountered that does not match the memory images of its earlier counterparts. We can apply this way of looking to an individual building (compare the nave and choir of Notre-Dame) or we can test the forms of Notre-Dame by comparing it with contemporaneous buildings. We might discern a kind of common architectural language present in a number of buildings that share certain vital characteristics (the spacious gallery at Jumièges, Saint-Etienne of Caen, Noyon, Laon, Saint-Germer de Fly, and Senlis.)


France, Jumieges, Abbey Church of Notre-Dame, nave	France, Caen, Saint-Etienne	France, Noyon, Cathedral, view of the nave

France, Laon, Cathedral, view of the nave	France, Saint-Germer de Fly	France, Senlis, Cathedral, view of the nave

The similar forms in these edifices express a common set of ideas shared by masons practicing in a wide range of different kinds of environment. What does this tell us about the formation of the cultural unity that we call "France?" We could apply the same strategy of looking to sexpartite vaults (Caen, Laon, Sens, Bourges etc). On the other hand, Notre-Dame of Paris embodies some forms that are quite different from most contemporary buildings, especially the non-projecting transept and the double aisles.

Sens Cathedral provides a very nice foil for Notre-Dame—its continuous unbroken peripheral wall and its sexpartite vaults are like Notre-Dame—but its elevation is very different. Sens brings us to another twelfth-century edifice, like Notre-Dame of Paris, where careful detective work reveals that the clerestory was rebuilt in the following century with windows increased in size.

France, Sens, Cathedral, view of the nave looking east


1.		E. Fernie, "La fonction liturgiquedes piliers cantonnés dans la nef de Laon," Bulletin monumental, 145, 1987, 257–266. D. Kimpel and R. Suckale, Die gotische Architektur in Frankreich, 1130–1270, Paris, 1990.
2.		J. Bony, French Gothic Archtiecture

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