Conclusions| Notre-Dame de Paris | Briefing

Click images to enlarge.

Notre-Dame de Paris | Conclusions
Professor Murray

What we have re-gained for Notre-Dame of Paris is the status that Viollet-le-Duc had already suggested a century and a half ago—this was a revolutionary building—one where the exterior walls had, as it were, been broken into segments and turned through ninety degrees to form massive struts which, projected upwards, provided the rigid space frame capable of performing technological "magic."

Thus masonry canopies could hang one hundred feet above the pavement and yet the architectural forms of the interior (columns, shafts and walls) could remain thin. The arcade, with its cylindrical supports, could refer to the venerable monuments of the past, whereas the superstructure, with its unprecedented oculi and lofty vaults could elicit a gasp of surprise from the visitor who had never seen the like.

The exterior bristled with the broken and faceted forms of multiple flat-sided external supports that exploded what had, in previous churches like Saint-Germer de Fly, been a self-contained mass. What an extraordinary anticipation of the role of a city which was poised to become the capital of France and the most populous city of the North!


France, Paris, Notre-Dame, south flank	France, Paris, Notre-Dame, nave elevation looking west	France, Paris, Notre-Dame, exterior view looking west

France, St. Germer-de-Fly, Sainte Chapelle, Exterior View

back to Notre-Dame main

back to briefing main