Issue 30 / May

COMMUNITY NEWS

N OTRE DAME C ATHEDRAL

GOTHIC A RCHITECTURE

H ISTORY
Construction of the Notre Dame Cahtedral began
in 1163 after Pope Alexander III laid the corner-
stone for the new cathedral. By the time of Bishop
Maurice de Sully’s death in 1196, the apse, choir
and the new High Altar were all finished, while
the nave itself was nearing completion. In 1200,
work began on the western facade, including the
west rose window and the towers, all of which
were completed around 1250, along with a new
north rose window. Also during the 1250s, the
transepts were remodeled in the latest style of
Rayonnant Gothic architecture by architects
Jean de Chelles and Pierre de Montreuil, and
the clerestory windows were enlarged. The last
remaining elements were gradually completed
during the following century. (See also Flamboy-
ant Gothic architecture: 1375-1500.).

A RCHITECTURE Notre Dame Cathedral

The cathedral is roughly 128 metres (420 ft) in
length, and 12 metres (39 ft) wide in the nave. Its
cruciform plan, elevated nave, transept and tower
were borrowed from 11th-century Romanesque
architecture, but its pointed arches and rib vault-
ing were strictly Gothic. Indeed, it was one of the
first Gothic cathedrals to have arched exterior
supports known as “flying buttresses”. These
were not incorporated into the initial architecture
of the building, but were included when stress
fractures began to appear in the thin upper walls
as they cracked under the weight of the vault. In
addition to the flying buttresses, over a dozen
supporting piers were constructed to support the
exterior walls and counteract the lateral thrust
of the nave vaulting. Notre-Dame is also famous
for its external statues and gargoyles arranged
around the outside to serve as extra column
supports and drainage pipes. As Gothic building
designers hoped, the additional reinforcement
provided by the buttresses, piers and other stone
supports enabled the main walls of the cathedral
to become non-structural, and thus a greater wall
area was available for stained glass, in order to
inspire worshippers and illuminate the cathe-
dral’s interior. Indeed, Notre-Dame Cathedral
exemplifies the main contributions of Gothic art
to Christian architecture: churches soared higher
and were more awe-inspiring, while their stained
glass windows let in more light and provided
additional Biblical art for the congregation. Thus
the clerestory windows of Notre-Dame’s original
nave were enlarged in the 13th century, filling the
interior with light, thanks to the improvements
achieved in structural support.
Notre-Dame’s stern facade is decorated with a
mass of stone sculpture, notably around the cen-
tral portal, which is flanked by statues depicting
The Last Judgment. The facade design balances
the verticality of the twin towers (69 metres
in height) with the horizontal banding of the
decorated galleries. This produces a simple but
powerful western elevation, which dominates the
square in front.
The cathedral’s transept portals are also richly
decorated with architectural relief sculpture; the
south door features scenes from the lives of Saint
Stephen along with other local saints, while the
decorations around the north door depict the
infancy of Christ and the tale of Theophilus.
COMMUNITY NEWS

FALLINGWATER
A RCHITECTURE

H ISTORY
Fallingwater is Wright’s crowning achieve-
ment in organic architecture and the American
Institute of Architects’ “best all-time work of
American architecture.” Its owners, Edgar and
Liliane Kaufmann, were a prominent Pittsburgh
couple, reputed for their distinctive sense of style
and taste.

They met Wright in 1934, when their son, Edgar

Jr. spent six months in the Taliesin Fellowship.
Knowing that Wright shared their love of nature,
they commissioned him to build a summer home
for the family’s weekend retreat in Bear Run,
PA. Wright recognized that his clients wanted
something that would celebrate the landscape of
their favorite country hideaway in an innovative
way. Determined to build over the stream that
punctuated the property, Wright remarked that
rather than simply look out at it, he wanted the
Kaufmanns “to live with the waterfall…as an
integral part of [their] lives.”
A RCHITECTURE
In Fallingwater, Wright anchored a series of
reinforced concrete “trays” to the natural rock.
Cantilevered terraces of local sandstone blend
harmoniously with the rock formations, appear-
ing to float above the stream below. The first
floor entry, living room and dining room merge
to create one continuous space, while a hatch
door in the living room opens to a suspended
stairway that descends to the stream below. Glass
walls further open the rooms to the surrounding
landscape. In 1938, Wright designed addition-
al guest quarters set into the hillside directly
above the main house and linked by a covered
walkway. Fallingwater remained the family’s
Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright
beloved weekend home for 26 years. In 1963 the
Kaufmanns donated the property to the Western
Pennsylvania Conservancy, together with 1,543
acres of surrounding land. It opened its door as a
museum in 1964 and has since hosted more than
five million visitors.
“Great architecture, like any great art, ultimately
takes you somewhere that words cannot take you
at all. Fallingwater does that the way Chartres
Cathedral does that. There’s some experience
that gets you in your gut and you just feel it, and
you can’t quite even say it. My whole life is deal-
ing with architecture and words, and at the end
of the day, there is something that I can’t entirely
say when it comes to what Fallingwater feels
like.” — Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize-winning
architectural critic
The epitome of “organic architecture,” Falling-
water’s design symbolizes the harmony between
people and nature. Through thoughtful design
that is seamlessly integrated with its natural
setting, the building, its furnishings, and the
surroundings become cohesive parts of one
unified, interrelated composition. This, Wright
described, was “Where the whole is [to] the part
as the part is to the whole and where the nature
of the materials, the nature of the purpose, the
nature of the entire performance” are all equally
important to the resulting building.
COMMUNITY NEWS

ONE ANGEL SQUARE GREEN

A RCHITECTURE

A BOUT ONE A NGEL SQUARE

One Angel Square in Manchester is the Co-oper-
ative Group’s new headquarters building, where
more than 3,000 Co-op employees are co-locat-
ed in one office for the first time.

The 15-storey building is a three-sided struc-

ture, with a fully glazed double skin façade that
curves both horizontally and vertically around the
building. There is a full-height atrium at the heart
of the triangular building, its three sides formed
from white-painted concrete balconies at each
floor level. Behind the balconies there are large,
column-free open-plan office floors.

THE CO-OPERATIVE GROUP WEBSITE

SAYS ‘By designing to the BREEAM standards
we aim to save 40-60% of our current energy
costs in the head office complex. Our new home
will create a benchmark for every other UK busi-
ness and showcase what can be achieved through
a socially responsible approach to design and
construction.’
A RCHITECTURE
The double-skinned facade and soaring open atri-
um are key to creating natural heating, cooling
and lighting. The atrium, for example, floods the
building’s interior with light, and the facade helps
to minimise heating and cooling loads.
In summer louvres at the top of the facade will
open to allow the warmed air trapped between
its inner and outer skins to rise up and out of the
building. In winter these louvres will close so the
facade can form an insulated blanket around the
building.
Notre Dame Cathedral
The building has its own source of heat and
power generation through a CHP (combined heat
and power) plant.
Other features include:
- heat recovery from the IT systems that will also
help to heat the building
- low energy LED lighting and IT equipment and
systems
- greywater and rainwater recycling systems for
toilet flushing and irrigation
- high-efficiency passenger and service lifts
The sustainable features incorporated into One
Angel Square help in achieving an 80% reduction
in carbon emissions and a 50% reduction in
energy consumption.
Energy requirements of the building are fulfilled
by a combined heat and power (CHP) system,
which is fuelled by waste cooking oil and rape-
seed oil. The rapeseed oil is produced at The
Co-operative’s own farms. The CHP units also
provide cooling through an absorption chiller.
The building features 300,000ft² of exposed
concrete, which acts as a thermal sponge. The
concrete absorbs the heat in the building,
reducing the amount of energy needed to cool
the building.
COMMUNITY NEWS

COLOSSEUM A RCHITECTURE
GREATEST ROMAN CREATION

H ISTORY
The Colosseum was built between 70 AD and
80 AD under Emperors Vespasian, Titus, and
Domitian, the Flavian Emperors. Hence its
original name, the Amphitheatrum Flavium – the
Flavian Amphitheater.

The Colosseum can be viewed as a populist

undertaking by Vespasian who, at least in part,
commissioned it as a means to regain the favor of
a citizenry that was restless and unhappy with the
imperial institution after Nero’s reign. Planning
began in 70 AD and construction in 72, on the
site of the artificial lake Nero had constructed as
part of the Domus Aurea.

Most of the labor for the construction of the

building was provided by Jewish slaves, who
had been taken as prisoners following the first
Jewish-Roman war.
The building was oval-shaped and set on a north-
west to south-east axis, with its main axis mea-
suring 189 meters and its shorter one 156 meters.
For reference, that is almost twice as long and 1.5
times as wide as a modern football field.
A RCHITECTURE
The Colosseum was conceived as a testament to
Rome’s might. At the time of its completion, it
was the most complex man-made structure in the
world and one of the largest.
The travertine stone used as the primary material
in its construction was white, and at nearly 50
meters in height (at a time when most buildings
were single-story) and with a footprint of 6 acres
it would have gleamed in the sun and inspired awe
in anyone who laid eyes upon it. Its effect on an
Notre Dame Cathedral
ancient Roman viewing it for the first time would
have been the same as standing at the foot of the
Empire State building today.
The ground floor columns were done in the
Tuscan style, a Roman variation on the austere
Greek Doric style.
The second floor featured slightly more elaborate
Ionic columns.
The third floor employed the more intricate and
decorated Corinthian style.
Therefore, from bottom to top, the Colosseum
went from lesser to greater stylistic complexity.
Each half-column was the centerpiece of an arch,
of which there were a total of 80 forming the ex-
ternal perimeter of the building on the first three
floors. These were largest on the ground floor, at
4.2 meters wide and 7.05 meters tall. On the two
upper floors they were the same width but slightly
shorter, 6.45 meter tall.
Unlike the first three, the fourth floor wall was
not made of arches and columns, but rather of flat
panels, which thanks to recent cleaning efforts we
know were decorated with carvings and insets of
azurite and bronze.
The Colosseum had two main entrances: the
northwestern Porta Triumphalis, which as its
name suggests was the gate used for triumphal
processions and through which gladiators
entered the arena, and the southeastern Porta
Libitinaria, named for the Roman goddess of
funerals and burial Libitina. This gate was used
to removed the bodies of those who perished on
the sands.