15 - Dynamic Unfolding and the Conventions of Procedure: Geometric Proportioning Strategies in Gothic Architectural Design

Summary

Discussion of proportion has a curiously vexed status in the literature on Gothic architecture. On the one hand, it is obvious to even the most casual observer that the proportions of Gothic buildings and their constituent parts, which are often very tall and slender, contribute significantly to their visual impact by suggesting upward movement and transcendence. On the other hand, though, its has proven difficult to explain exactly how these proportions arose in the design process. Indeed, the shockingly non-classical proportions of Gothic buildings famously led Renaissance writers like Vasari to conclude that this maniera tedesca was inherently wayward and disorderly. In the five subsequent centuries, many more sympathetic authors have attempted to analyze and describe the logic of Gothic architectural proportions. However, while some valuable work has been done in this direction, the overall state of the field remains strikingly primitive even today. All too often such work has been flawed by imprecision, ambiguity, and wishful thinking. Many scrupulous scholars, therefore, have become skeptical about all such research, concluding that it reveals more about the pet theories and preoccupations of the researchers than it does about medieval design practice.

Fortunately, recent developments in the study of drawings, the surveying of buildings, and the use of computer-aided design (CAD) systems now allow the proportions of historic monuments to be studied with new rigor. It is finally becoming possible, therefore, to speak with reasonable certainty about the working methods of Gothic designers. To show this, the present essay presents two groups of CADbased case studies: the first considers medieval drawings related to the design of the great spired towers at Ulm and Freiburg-im-Breisgau; the second considers the cross sections of the cathedrals of Reims, Clermont-Ferrand, and Prague. These case studies will demonstrate that Gothic design methods involved the dynamic unfolding of geometrical constructions. This approach to design produced proportional relationships qualitatively different than those seen in the more static and modulebased formal order of classicism. In a sense, therefore, Vasari was right to say that Gothic buildings lacked “every familiar idea of order” (“ogni lor cosa di ordine”), although this comment says more about his own limitations than it does about the Gothic builders he sought to criticize.

The complex and procedurally based formal order of Gothic architecture, in fact, offers a highly sophisticated alternative to the classical tradition, one with real relevance for present-day architectural practice.