Apse, Beauvais Cathedral
Beauvais cathedral represents medieval architecture at it's most ambitious, it's vaulted ceilings are the highest ever built.
This ambition came at a price, with the choir vault collapsing soon after it was constructed, so considerable reinforcement in the form of extra columns accompanied their reconstruction.
As a result of such traumas work on the cathedral was slow, and by the late Middle Ages the transepts had only just been completed with their impressive, late Gothic facades. The nave awaited construction, but rather than focus on this an act of pure folly led to priority being given to an enormous steeple over the crossing instead, giving this already loftiest of cathedrals one of the tallest, most elaborate spires ever concieved.
It all ended in disaster after only three years; the already overburdened columns couldn't support such a load for long, especially given the absence of a nave to reinforce the west side of the crossing, and the whole steeple came crashing down in 1573, never to be rebuilt.
The damage caused by the fall of the spire was repaired but all hopes of completing the cathedral were abandoned and the west end boarded up in 'temporary' fashion as it remains to this day. Bizarrely the remaining section of the Romanesque church that preceeded the cathedral was left in place as a result, and being such a modest building is utterly dwarfed by the soaring gothic structure towering over it.
Sadly it was too late in the day to get inside the cathedral, and our hopes of doing so at the start of the trip had been scuppered by our being burdened with luggage (having just arrived from Beauvais airport) and there being no left luggage facility at the local station!
Apse, Beauvais Cathedral
Beauvais cathedral represents medieval architecture at it's most ambitious, it's vaulted ceilings are the highest ever built.
This ambition came at a price, with the choir vault collapsing soon after it was constructed, so considerable reinforcement in the form of extra columns accompanied their reconstruction.
As a result of such traumas work on the cathedral was slow, and by the late Middle Ages the transepts had only just been completed with their impressive, late Gothic facades. The nave awaited construction, but rather than focus on this an act of pure folly led to priority being given to an enormous steeple over the crossing instead, giving this already loftiest of cathedrals one of the tallest, most elaborate spires ever concieved.
It all ended in disaster after only three years; the already overburdened columns couldn't support such a load for long, especially given the absence of a nave to reinforce the west side of the crossing, and the whole steeple came crashing down in 1573, never to be rebuilt.
The damage caused by the fall of the spire was repaired but all hopes of completing the cathedral were abandoned and the west end boarded up in 'temporary' fashion as it remains to this day. Bizarrely the remaining section of the Romanesque church that preceeded the cathedral was left in place as a result, and being such a modest building is utterly dwarfed by the soaring gothic structure towering over it.
Sadly it was too late in the day to get inside the cathedral, and our hopes of doing so at the start of the trip had been scuppered by our being burdened with luggage (having just arrived from Beauvais airport) and there being no left luggage facility at the local station!