Customer Reviews

The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals: A Study of Medieval Vault Erection

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In this book, originally published in 1961, John Fitchen describes and explains the falsework (i.e. scaffolding) that was used to build Gothic Cathedrals. The main focus is on the construction and use of the centering (which is the formwork used to build arcs and vaults). The chapters: 1. Sources of information - 2. Constructional means - 3. Medieval types of vaulting - 4. Gothic formwork - 5. Gothic centering - 6. Erection of rib vaulting without formwork. The text is clearly written and accompanied by excellent drawings, a very good glossary and an extensive bibliography. For everyone interested in medieval building techniques this book is a must.

Good introduction to medieval building techniques. Being a devoted admirer of Gothic cathedrals, this was one of the first books I red about the subject and it served well. If you wish to know why was pointed arch so important, or procedures used to erect butresses or types of scaffoldings used at that times... you will find the answers here. There is one drawback - it seems to me that author was repeating some ideas from the first half of the book in the second one, but still, it deserves 5 stars. Kind regards, Mario.

I've read about a third of this book so far, and I'm finding myself wishing the author had included more figures, sketches, and diagrams. There are already quite a few figures, sketches, and diagrams in it, but they lack callouts and arrows pointing to specific items of interest with a description, and they feel very disconnected from the text. The main reason I wish he had used even more sketches is that the author seems to assume the reader knows what all the parts of a cathedral are called. He randomly tosses out references to "triformiums" and "diaphragm wall" (there are lots of walls, which one is he considering the diaphragm wall?). The glossary at the back offers a written description of SOME of these confusing terms, but architecture and structural engineering are by nature graphical and visual fields... he needs an overall plan and section of a typical cathedral with each area and piece identified... a visual glossary. I've been so distracted trying to figure out what he is referring to that I haven't had a chance to evaluate anything else about his book.

The only book written on how to build a cathedral. Very informative and helpful to a novice.

Chock full of enlightening information and details on how Gothic churches were constructed

If you want to know about the details of building a Gothic Cathedral this is IT! I only wish the type front was a little bigger and some of the drawings were enlarged. Some of the construction details are pretty much what we are still doing today.

The builders of Gothic vaults left few clues (written or pictorial) about their actual construction methods. John Fitchen employs induction as well as the skills of a detective to figure out how the vaults were designed and built. Nevertheless, he fails the inquisitive reader at one critical point.

Fitchen states that the stone ribs supporting the Gothic vaults conform to a curve called, in mathematics, a catenary. The mathematics of catenary curves was first described by Robert Hooke in the late 1600s. This was no less than 150 years *after* the Gothic builders completed their last work.

In the absence of a knowledge of the mathematics of catenaries, how did the Gothic builders discover the *only* rib curvature that was self-supporting?

(It's not good enough to say the Gothic builders arrived at the correct catenary curve empirically, that is, by trial and error. There was simply no room for error. All would have come tumbling down.)

How did they do it?