Mechanics and Meaning: Plan Design at Saint-Urbain, Troyes and Saint-Ouen, Rouen

Abstract

This article presents case studies of the designs of Saint-Urbain, Troyes and Saint-Ouen, Rouen. Based on exacting surveys of the two churches, our research reveals the strategies by which Gothic master masons gave order and purpose to the building process. In proposing the operations used to lay out the plans on site, we find that Saint-Urbain and Saint-Ouen were generated using the same geometric procedures that were employed for other northern French edifices, for example, Amiens Cathedral and Saint-Maclou, Rouen, and those discussed in later German design booklets: progressive squaring, root 2 relationships, and golden section proportions. This remarkable consistency of method suggests that basic rules of plan and elevation design existed, that they were passed orally from master to apprentice, and that diversity was achieved by slight inflections and varied combinations of these operations dictated by the specific factors of site, size, and function. In addition to demonstrating the impressive economy and flexibility of Gothic design techniques, our analyses of the plans, reinforced by documentary evidence, reveals that symbolic considerations were integral to the processes of layout and construction. At both Saint-Urbain and Saint-Ouen, a significant number, encoded into the center of the plan at an initial stage of design, invested the building with meaning as the geometry unfolded. Thus, rather than being simply a skilled craft performance, Gothic ecclesiastical architecture arose from a calculated intercourse of practical planning and symbolic thought to produce material visions of the transcendental "tabernacles of the Lord."