Cathedral Architecture

Cathedral Architecture

by Nicholas Johnson

Cathedral Architecture

Caption

Abstract

The paragraph should give a three to five sentence abstract about your entire London HUA experience including 1) a summary of the aims of your project, 2) your prior experience with humanities and arts courses and disciplines, and 3) your major takeaways from the experience. This can and should be very similar to the paragraph you use to summarize this milestone on your Profile Page. It should contain your main Objective, so be sure to clearly state a one-sentence statement that summarizes your main objective for this milestone such as "a comparison of the text of Medieval English choral music to that of the Baroque" or it may be a question such as "to what extent did religion influence Christopher Wren's sense of design?"

Introduction

I suggest you save this section for last. Describe the essence of this project. Cover what the project is and who cares in the first two sentences. Then cover what others have done like it, how your project is different. Discuss the extent to which your strategy for completing this project was new to you, or an extension of previous HUA experiences.

As you continue to think about your project milestones, reread the "Goals" narrative on defining project milestones from the HU2900 syllabus. Remember: the idea is to have equip your milestone with a really solid background and then some sort of "thing that you do". You'll need to add in some narrative to describe why you did the "thing that you did", which you'd probably want to do anyway. You can make it easy for your advisors to give you a high grade by ensuring that your project milestone work reflects careful, considerate, and comprehensive thought and effort in terms of your background review, and insightful, cumulative, and methodical approaches toward the creative components of your project milestone deliverables.

Section 1: Background

Norman

Norman Architecture is a subcategory of the Romanesque style along with Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxon period came to an end in England when The Normans attacked in 1066 from western Europe. The key item that made both of these belong to Romanesque was the semi-circular arch. Norman Architecture began in approximately 1060 and roughly lasted through the year 1190. These years are an estimate that is widely accepted as there is always overlap in changing styles. The Norman style also took other cues from the Romans to include in their style. In addition to the semi-circular arches, some of the key characteristics included were large cylindrical pillars, thick walls, and small windows. As the year 1200 approached, the semi-circular arch gave way to the pointed arch which began the Gothic style and marked an end for the Romanesque style.

Notable Norman Style Cathedrals/Chapels

• Rochester Cathedral
• St. John's Chapel at The White Tower
• Gloucester Cathedral

Decorated Gothic

Decorated Gothic is a subcategory of the Gothic style along with Perpendicular and Early English. The Gothic style's key item that united them was the pointed arch. This large transformation from the semi-circular arch to the pointed arch began around 1200 but the Decorated Gothic style began in 1250 with the addition of several key changes and lasted until 1360. As Gothic Architecture evolved distinctive patterns began to emerge. Several of these distinctive elements that made up the Decorated Gothic style include windows with mullions, elegant tracery of the very large windows including trefoils and quatrefoils, and vault ribbing.

Notable Decorated Gothic Style Cathedrals/Chapels

• Lichfield Cathedral
• Exeter Cathedral
• Ely Cathedral

Perpendicular Gothic

Perpendicular Gothic, also known as the Rectilinear Period, began in 1360 and lasted into the middle 1500s. It was thought that the simplification introduce, compared to the Decorated Gothic style, was due to the Black Plague and its effects on the labor force in England. This idea was proven incorrect with Gloucester Abbey's south window and Old St. Paul's cloister remains. One idea as to why decorations were scaled back was that it was for cutting costs, but that is just a possible reason and there could be other reasons. This style, Perpendicular, belonged to the Gothic style and utilized pointed arches extensively. Perpendicular built upon the Decorated Gothic style in some aspects, and scaled back in others. A key area of scaling back occurred with the tracery of the windows. One of the main differences that was introduced was an emphasis on vertical lines, especially the mullions of the windows.

Notable Perpendicular Gothic Style Cathedrals/Chapels

• York Cathedral
• Westminster Cathedral
• Manchester Cathedral

Section 2: Deliverable

For my Deliverable I utilized my background information about Norman, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles to compare the key differences between the styles through a visual means. I traveled to several Cathedrals and Chapels to gather most of the photos as seen below, unfortunately there were some locations where photos were not allowed so the location's official photos were used.

Norman vs. Perpendicular

Window Size

Arch Style

Perpendicular vs. Decorated

Window style

• 

  Decorated

• 

  Perpendicular

Moldings

Norman vs. Decorated

Window Size

Arch style

Conclusion

In this section, provide a summary or recap of your work, as well as potential areas of further inquiry (for yourself, future students, or other researchers).

References

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The architecture of Norman England by Eric Fernie

The English decorated style Jean Bony

The perpendicular style by John Harvey

The Seven Periods of English Architecture Defined and Illustrated by Edmund Sharpe

External Links

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