Customer Reviews

Building the Great Cathedrals

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When people discover I'm a veteran of the stone carving trade, they sometimes ask for the behind-the-scenes story. "Building the Great Cathedrals" tells it. The tools, the trades, the intrigues, the budget concerns, and the people are all present and accounted for; along with immersion into the dizzy, circus atmosphere of a cathedral construction site. If you wonder why so much passion was invested in completion - by those who would never live to see it - here's the answer. With hundreds of lush, full-color photos and medieval illuminations of the period. If you're building a personal collection of Gothic architecture books, make room.

I've just finished re-reading Follett's _Pillars of the Earth,_ in preparation for the sequel, and that got me interested again in the process of erecting the great Gothic cathedrals. I was looking mostly for good illustrations and architectural plans and drawings, and while this oversized volume has some of that, it's really not what I expected, based on the title. Icher is apparently a leading French authority on medieval crafts guilds, and much of the book is given over to describing how the stonemasons were organized, how one became a master, and so on. There's considerably less about the actual planning and construction of the buildings, and almost nothing on the evolution of the Gothic style from the Romanesque. A nice book, but far from being the best.

This is THE book to read on cathedrals and I couldn't agree more with the previous reviewer. Lavish illustrations, detailed and in full color, appear on every page, along with incredible artwork and sketches from teh times. Side columns with primary source material offer first-hand accounts of what it was like to work on the site of such a grand project, and what impact they had on the surrounding communities. It's all here! From the origins of the bishop's throne (cathedra) to the culmination in the flying buttresses of Chatres, this is the story of Western Europe.

I would also highly recommend the VHS by David Macauly, "Cathedral", which is a charming documentary/story-telling of why cathedrals have held the imaginations of millions, from their inception to the present. It is especially great for kids, since it uses some high quality cartooning in parts that really capure the personal impact the churches had on those living during their construction.

Also, the DVD, "Chatres Cathedral: A Sacred Geometry" is a wonderful companion to any study of the meaning and methods of cathedral architecture. It is simply amazing how much of a mystical component is present in the plans.

Enjoy!

For those who wonder how in the world medieval people could have constructed giant , berautiful and graceful cathedrals with the technology they had, this book is terrific! Warren Hunt III M.D.