The Gothic Cathedral

Christopher Wilson | Littérature et Arts | Thames & Hudson | Date de parution: 2004 | ISBN-13: 9780500276815 | Couverture: Souple | Anglais

Awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain for an outstanding contribution to architectural history

The Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages are among the world's supreme architectural achievements. Hundreds of great churches were built between c. 1130 and c. 1530, all of them representing an investment of money and effort so immense that it is difficult to find a modern parallel. Their architecture ranges through a whole spectrum of styles, including meticulously articulated French Early Gothic, brittle glass-walled Rayonnant, eclectic and densely inventive English Decorated, jaggedly fantastical German late Gothic, and blandly decorous Tuscan.

The Gothic Cathedral focuses on the interaction between design and the requirements of patrons, following the creative processes of architects by reconstructing the problems and opportunities which faced them. Christopher Wilson presents the essential facts on such aspects as chronology, structural techniques and stylistic developments; and then goes further, seeing the story as a sequence of choices from which new solutions arose, which, in their turn, gave rise to still more challenges.

Illustrated with carefully chosen photographs and specially drawn diagrams, this fresh, perceptive and provocative book has already established itself as a definitive introduction to the subject. For this paperback edition, the author has incorporated the results of the most recent research and added new bibliographical material.

CHRISTOPHER WILSON, a graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art, is Professor of Architectural History at University College, London. He is the author of many publications on medieval architecture.

With 221 illustrations

"Meticulous scholarship and exceptional grasp of detail... a wealth of new insights... Wilson's book is the most original and important general account of Gothic architecture to appear in English since 1962... reads exceptionally well... Thames and Hudson have served the author handsomely with a reasonably-priced, beautifully designed product" Burlington Magazine

"There has long been need for an adequate synthesis... It is this that Christopher Wilson has now produced in his well-written and finely illustrated book" The Times Literary Supplement

"A fine, austere, scholarly book, handsomely produced and illustrated... thoroughly recommended... always illuminating" Architects' Journal

"Everyone who wants to understand the how and why of great Gothic churches will find it the best account of the subject... Dr Wilson writes exceptionally well... this fresh, feisty book" Country Life

"Most stimulating... displays remarkable erudition over an exceptionally wide geographical and chronological range... acute stylistic analysis" Apollo

"Superb photographs and crisp line drawings with extensive captions that are often as illuminating as the text itself" Architectural Review

"The author's incorporation of current scholarship, his relentless interpretation of received opinion, his awareness of structural pragmatics, and ability to capture the transcendental spatial poetry of these monuments make this a book of continuously unfolding insight and challenge" Speculum

On the cover, the choir of Sées Cathedral, Normandy, begun c. 1270. Photo Christopher Wilson