“Light has always played an essential role in art and architecture, affecting meaning and purpose. And the purpose in the Gothic era was for the interior of the cathedral to be a reflection on earth of the kingdom of heaven. So, innovative architectural means were created to facilitate this “new light,” this lux nova, that invisibly filtered its way into the cathedral’s nave, transept, and choir, illuminating the eyes and the minds of viewers.” -Allan Greenberg
It was a sunny spring day in May 1959 when I entered the nave of Notre-Dame de Paris for the very first time. As I looked up into the seemingly weightless vaults, and then down the colonnade to the distant apse, the sheer beauty of the architecture took my breath away. Robust round stone columns defined the lower nave and supported the intricate curved shapes of the shafts, which rose up and framed the magnificent stained-glass windows. The entire interior was modulated by an extraordinary, diffused light.
Here was formal beauty that grew out of the complex symbolism of the Catholic Church. The structure of vaults and columns, as well as huge stained-glass windows and sculpture, created a reflection of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Naive as I was, confronted by the overwhelming magnificence of this interior, I wondered whether I had died and gone to heaven.
I was a nineteen-year-old, Jewish, South African architectural student, in the third year of a five-and-a-half-year course of study. Nothing in my education had prepared me to confront a space such as this. Yes, I could draw the plans and cross-sections of the cathedral to scale, and from memory. I was able to describe the program of sculpture that framed the three generous entry portals at the west front. And I understood the role of the cathedral as a liber pauperum, a “poor people’s book,” because the sculpture and stained glass illustrated biblical stories to the largely illiterate congregation.
This glorious interior had to have been touched by the finger of God. I sat down on a chair in the nave in an attempt to still my mind. It was then that I realized what I was witnessing—that Notre-Dame de Paris, constructed between 1163 and 1345, was a perfect rendition of France’s Gothic cathedrals, characterized by an intense drive to achieve greater interior height in order to accommodate ever-larger decorative glass windows. The goal was to bathe the entire interior in light. But this was not just any light. Instead, it was transformed, as it passed through the many different colors in the huge stained-glass windows, into a divine light.
Light has always played an essential role in art and architecture, affecting meaning and purpose. And the purpose in the Gothic era was for the interior of the cathedral to be a reflection on earth of the kingdom of heaven. So, innovative architectural means were created to facilitate this “new light,” this lux nova, that invisibly filtered its way into the cathedral’s nave, transept, and choir, illuminating the eyes and the minds of viewers.
It was French statesman Abbot Suger, one of the earliest patrons of Gothic architecture, who conceived of the idea of lux nova. He described the light as “wonderful and uninterrupted,” with the stained glass replacing walls and creating a new, colorful way to tell the Christian story. Later, very thin bar tracery was used to filter even more light through Notre-Dame’s exquisitely designed rose windows, resulting in enormous openings filled almost entirely with glass.
To this end, Gothic master masons and their clients were prepared to push their structural system of thin ribs and walls, stone vaults, pointed arches, and flying buttresses to the edge of their effective strength. Only when part of the choir vault of Saint-Pierre de Beauvais Cathedral collapsed in 1284 did they gain a better understanding of the limits of their innovative structural system. The builders concluded that “resonant vibrations due to high winds caused the structural failure,” and proceeded to reconstruct with additional support columns.
No wonder Beauvais became known as Icarus Cathedral, due to the lofty ambitions that led to the collapse. To this day, its astounding interior choir stands at 159 feet high—the tallest Gothic choir in the world; Amiens’s is 20 feet lower at 139 feet; Reims’s is another 35 feet lower at 124.5 feet high; Chartres’s interior is even lower at 121 feet high; and Notre-Dame de Paris’s lower still at 115 feet. For the sake of comparison, Ely Cathedral in England is only 105 feet high, in part because English master masons were not as consumed by light and height as their French brethren. Instead, while lower, their cathedrals were longer, with complex vaulting systems and more drama at the crossing.
As is true of all of the world’s great cathedrals, Notre-Dame was erected as a labor of love—built to thrive for centuries. The roof trusses, for example, were made from heavy air-dried oak timbers that were meant to last a thousand years or more. These were taken from trees planted in the eighth or ninth century.
Knowing this made it all the more painful to watch fire devour the roof and cause the subsequent collapse of the crossing and spire in April 2019. I was stunned to learn that the roof structure, this miracle of Gothic design, had not been protected by any form of fire suppressant. That was understandable for the twelfth century, but none of the restorations in later decades included fire breaks or sprinkler systems.
Fortunately, the passing of time can bring wisdom, as well as new techniques. The current restoration includes firewalls and a misting sprinkler system, making the cathedral far more resilient and less reliant on human intervention in the face of potential hazards.
On that May day in 1959, entering Notre-Dame marked one of my earliest awe-struck moments as an architect, but my curiosity around the intricacies of creating a structure started when I was just a young boy. I learned about the various crafts on the site of a house that my father was building for our family in the late 1940s. I would head to the site nearly every day on my way home from school. I pestered the bricklayers and then the plasterers. I made such a nuisance of my eleven-year-old self that the workers eventually came to realize that I was genuinely interested in learning about their craft. At that point, they decided the only way to get rid of me was to teach me what they were doing.
They showed me how to set a string line, so that the new row of bricks would be level and the wall would be absolutely perpendicular. They demonstrated the importance of avoiding vertical joints, staggering the bricks instead, to prevent cracks and enhance strength. They taught me how to mix mortar and how to create brick patterns—running bond, English bond, and more—and how to build strong corners. By the end of the construction process, I had learned how to lay bricks, plaster a wall, and nail roof trusses together. I could put slate on a roof and build a chimney.
Once construction was complete, the personal connection I had developed with the craftsmen and their crafts changed my experience of living in that house. I felt a unique sort of connection and a reverence for the work. The cabinet makers, bricklayers, plasterers, roof tilers, waterproofers—they were embedded in my consciousness and there they would remain.
From that time on, I have been interested, to the point of obsession, in how a building is put together. As illogical as it seems, this is typically outside the sphere of most architects, especially today. Though there are many gaps in an architect’s drawings, the details are laid out and resolved in the shop drawings, and shop drawings are almost always the purview of the builder. This division of duties never made sense to me, and I have been known to immerse myself in the details, start to finish. As a classical architect, these details—from the profile of the moldings to the flooring patterns—are the heart and soul of the work.
Notre-Dame and the great cathedrals of the world were created with this idea in mind—that the craft and the structure are inextricably linked. And this has remained a cornerstone of classical architecture in the centuries since. How do you put contrasting materials together to fashion a harmonious whole? What are the implications of wood, brick, and stone versus metal and glass? Will the walls be plaster or drywall? The window frames, wood or steel? The decorative elements, murals or mosaics?
I have made these decisions countless times over the course of my career, and mostly my choices have been right. I have considered beauty and light, the character of the building, and the needs of its inhabitants, focusing my attention on both the big picture and the tiniest details.
Which brings me back to Notre-Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité in the 4th arrondissement. In almost every French Gothic cathedral, at the end of the workday, the stonemasons carved their initials into the surface at the place where they stopped for the day. They would know where to pick up the next morning, and we would know which mason was responsible for which wall—a reflection of deep pride and ownership and an homage to the craft.
Before the fire of 2019, some 12 million people visited Notre-Dame in any given year. It is my hope that, with the great cathedral’s reopening yesterday, they will return with new eyes and an appreciation of its divine message. I am no longer young, but I hope to return there one day too. The architecture of Notre-Dame has woven itself into the fibers of my soul with a strength I feel as intensely today as I did so many decades ago.