Customer Reviews

Experiments in Gothic Structure

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A look at the structure of Gothic cathedrals, mostly the flying buttresses and the ribbed vaulting, analyzing where the forces go and where the stresses are. Mostly done through a photoelastic modeling technique of Mark's own invention, involving heating epoxy frames--it does make for some very pretty pictures. He thinks Bourges was a magnificent oddball, and rather regrets that its style wasn't copied more widely; he thinks Viollet-le-Duc had all the details wrong, but was right to create the study of Gothic architecture.

I certainly don't have the engineering knowledge to fully appreciate the structural analysis parts, but they're kept to a low enough level that this educated layman can (barely) follow along and manage to learn something about what makes Gothic cathedrals stand up (or not, in the case of Beauvais). Advances in computer modeling since 1982 have made Mark's photoelastic technique obsolete, so the book will probably be of little interest now to the audience that's technical enough they could have kept up with it.

Subject interesting, content good, style technical but still accessible, method unfortunately dated.

If you enjoy studying Gothic churches this book will take you to a another level and you will be amazed at the understanding the designer/builders had in that era. Kudos to the author.