Gothic architecture
Pointed arches and flying buttresses turn walls into glass.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 260 years
- Known to
- ± 20 years
- Era
- Post-Classical, Holocene
Beginning at Saint-Denis around 1140, the combination of pointed arch, ribbed vault and flying buttress moves the thrust of the roof outward to external supports, so walls no longer bear the load and can be opened into vast windows. Chartres, Amiens and Beauvais push the technique to its limits — Beauvais's choir collapsed. The result is a deliberate theology of light, and the tallest buildings in Europe for four hundred years.