The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals: A Study of Medieval Vault Erection

As far as gothic architecture books go, this is one of the more technical ones. Since a lot of the secrets of building medieval cathedrals have been lost, I give this author high marks for the lengths he went to discover these topics.I feel the book is incomplete because it does address many important topics considered highly essential in the 11th - 13th century. Topics such as sacred geometry used in designing these structures and proportions used in the old testament of the bible. Since these were all places of worship, I feel that touching on these topics would have added more value to this book. This author does deserve credit for his research on the technical aspects of medieval cathedral design which are not found in other similar books.

The earlier review by J Reese Is right on the money, he covered all of the key points. I am an Engineer and I cannot fully understand much of the book because it lacks explanation of key nomenclature necessary to understand the illustrations and descriptions which are somewhat vague. I do find the book interesting; at least the parts that I can understand. I would like to see the book revised to make it easier to read. I would probably purchase it.

Helps to understand how they built amazing structures.

As mentioned in another review I am a full time furniture designer and maker and am using this book to help me with the design of a desk Iv'e been commissioned to build for a client. If you like learning how things were built and are amazed at the number of these huge buildings that have surviced you really ought to take a look at this book!

The book started out to be interesting, and parts of it were. However, it rapidly became dull and did not explain well a device called a circe used to build arches. I had hoped for more, but I understand there is little written on this subject. Mostly it is conjecture. This book aided my understanding of complexities involved in building Gothic cathedrals but did little to satisfy my curiosity and left much still a mystery.

Chock full of enlightening information and details on how Gothic churches were constructed

If you want to know about the details of building a Gothic Cathedral this is IT! I only wish the type front was a little bigger and some of the drawings were enlarged. Some of the construction details are pretty much what we are still doing today.

I haven't finished this book yet, but it looks to be an in-depth accounting of the methods used in constructing Gothic Cathedrals.

I purchased this book as I am interested in how medieval people managed to build enormous cathedrals using very simple technology.This book discusses the methods used to construct Gothic vaulting in cathedrals concentrating on the wooden structures, scaffolding, centering etc, used to support the vaulting while under construction. However there is very little written evidence on how these wooden structures were built and much of the book is supposition on how the structures were probably built. Lots of diagrams but only two photos so sometimes its hard to understand what the author is trying to describe.Its rather heavy going too and I get the impression that the book was probably written either as a doctorial thesis or as a text book for Professor Fitchen's students. In particular he often refers to photos which are not in this book but in book referenced in the bibliography to which most of us don't have access.

This book will tell you all you need to know about vault erection. The problem is that the author uses highly technical language throught (presumably in the interests of accuracy), which makes it more suitable to the advanced reader than the layman.

汚れあり、とのコメントがありましたが、全くきにならない程度のものでまた利用したいと思いました。