The King Bridge Monastery in the play is where this revolution took place. Although the place name Wangqiao really exists, it is not the Wangqiao in the play. The original author Ken Follett placed it near Winchester and Gloucester for the convenience of the novel's narrative. But even if the location of the story is fictional, we can still look back at the revolution that took place nine centuries ago and will have a profound impact.
In the first episode, the old Wangqiao Abbey Church before being burned is a typical Romanesque building. From the outside, the walls are thick and the windows are narrow, and the arches at the front and side corridors are simple Romanesque semicircular arches; The buttresses support the main chain arch, and there are semicircular climbing columns on the buttresses for auxiliary support. All in all, this church is very ordinary by medieval standards.
And in the second episode, we learn an important fact: the roof of this church is made of wood. Wooden beams were actually not uncommon in medieval church buildings, and this practice was more common in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire. In fact, using a wooden roof is the easiest way to solve the problem of lighting and load-bearing. The wooden roof is light in weight, and the upper wall can be made relatively thinner, and more lighting openings can be opened. But just like in the show, the biggest disadvantage of wooden roofs is that they are not fireproof. One of the main reasons why people in the Middle Ages went to great lengths to build stone cathedrals was that people were tired of their beloved churches being destroyed by fire again and again.
In the play, architect Tom gives three design sketches to Philip, the vice abbot of King Bridge Abbey: a floor plan, a side view, and a plan for the interior of the church, which is the easternmost wall of the church. Interestingly, the clearest shot in the play is the third picture. There is a large rose window on the arch in the middle of the picture, but this design only appears in the model in the later dramas, but never in the model. used in actual construction. The completed Wangqiao Cathedral has no large rose windows on the front, side or back. This may have been an oversight by the crew, and, of course, could also be explained by architect Tom modifying his original design.
In the play, Dean Philip says that he has never heard of pointed arches, which is indeed possible, but it would be wrong to assume that the British at that time did not know about pointed arches and did not use pointed arches in architecture. This time in the play is 1138, and Durham Cathedral, which was completed in 1133 (started in 1093), although still Romanesque as a whole, has begun to partially use pointed arches, and more importantly, Durham Cathedral The ribbed vault, a typical Gothic church building technique, was also used.
In fact, whether it is pointed arches or ribbed vaults, these architectural forms are not unique inventions of Gothic, they have already been used in various buildings, but these techniques are combined to present a purposeful The concept of architecture is the invention of Gothic architecture.
Tom told Dean Philip that "pointed arches can bear better weight". Indeed, because the pointed arch leads the main force-bearing parts to the corners of the vault, the result is that the pressure of the vault against the wall is relieved, and the wall can be opened for light. The pressure of the Roman-style barrel vault on the supporting walls on both sides is uniform, and it is not allowed to open windows at a relatively high position. The pressure of the rib vault developed from the pointed arch on the supporting walls on both sides is concentrated on the contact point between the rib and the wall, and the wall at the non-support point can be made very thin, or By opening the window, the weight of the wall is reduced, and the wall can be made higher.
In the fifth episode, Alfred, the son of architect Tom, shows us very clearly the construction of the rib vault. First build a wooden movable bracket, called the center bracket, then lay stones on the bracket to form a rib frame composed of stones, and then build a thin-shelled arch between the rib frames (this step is not demonstrated in the play ), and finally remove the center bracket. Because the force is concentrated on the rib, the arch surface can be made very thin, thus reducing the weight of the dome. In late Gothic architecture, people even hollowed out the arches and replaced them with stained glass windows.
The exterior of Kingsbridge Cathedral is similar to that of Salisbury Cathedral, according to plan and side views. They all have two armholes, large and small, the easternmost protruding slightly, forming a chapel, while the west outer wall has a strip of niches decorated with statues. These features are also the main features that distinguish English Gothic church architecture from French, German and Italian Gothic church architecture.
The architectural structure of the interior of the King's Bridge Cathedral is shown more clearly in the play. The nave of the cathedral has three floors, the first floor is the main chain arch, there are side corridors on both sides, and there are pointed windows on the walls of the side corridors. The second floor is an arcade, without windows (a common practice in many Gothic churches), with pointed arches towards the nave. The top floor is the skylight.
The vault of the King's Bridge Cathedral is a quarter vault, that is, a rectangular area between a span is divided into four parts by two diagonal ribs. Correspondingly, there is also a six-point vault, that is, adding a horizontal line to the intersection of the two diagonal lines to divide the span into six parts. The actual examples are Canterbury Cathedral and Notre Dame de Paris. And so on, you can also build radial rib vaults to cover circular areas.
There is also a place inside the King's Bridge Cathedral that is very British. That is, the spandrel wall of the main chain arch is blank, and the climbing wall columns attached to the buttresses are only halfway to the arcade. Unlike French cathedrals, almost all have climbing columns that extend from the bottom to the top of the vault. As can be seen from this, English cathedrals place more emphasis on horizontal lines, while French cathedrals place more emphasis on vertical lines.
In the sixth episode, the already-built King's Bridge Cathedral collapsed, causing heavy casualties. After that, Jack, who returned from his French studies, completed the cathedral. This passage deals with another important technique of Gothic architecture: flying buttresses.
As long as it is a vault, whether it is a Roman-style barrel vault or a Gothic-style ribbed vault, there is always downward pressure and outward thrust to the sides on the walls or pillars supporting the vault. The construction of the vault must address these two forces. Downforce is easier to solve, as long as there is a solid support column and foundation. But the external thrust is a little more troublesome. Making the walls and columns bigger and thicker would of course solve this problem, but it would seriously affect the daylighting.
The method of Romanesque architecture to solve the external thrust is to thicken the walls, such as the Roman Pantheon; the other is to build a cylindrical vault or a semi-cylindrical vault on the outside of the vault of the nave, so as to disperse the external thrust. , but it is still difficult to solve the lighting problem.
For Gothic architecture, the thrust can of course also be solved by adding a vault outside the nave vault. But the Gothic church uses a ribbed vault, and this kind of vault transfers the pressure to several points. As long as the support of these points is strengthened, the entire vault structure is stable. The first thought of the builders was to extend the buttress columns supporting the vault out of the church to form a buttress wall, throwing part of the weight of the vault out of the building. In the episode, when Tom showed the blueprint to Dean Philip, he also mentioned adding buttresses to reinforce the vault.
The problem seemed to be solved, but as the church got taller and larger, so did the flaws in the buttresses. As high as the vault is, the buttresses have to be made as high as possible, and the buttress walls have to be made longer. Abutments that are too long and too high are not aesthetically pleasing and affect lighting. Thus, the technology of flying buttresses came into being. It is generally accepted that Notre Dame de Paris is the first Gothic cathedral to use flying buttresses, which are like 'crutches', supporting the nave in pairs on both sides of the church. One end of the flying buttress is connected to the buttress, and the other end is connected to the position where the rib vault meets the wall on the side wall of the nave. If the outer shell of the cathedral is removed, you will see that the flying buttress is tightly connected to the rib. One of the advantages of flying buttresses is that it does not affect lighting.
In the eighth episode of "Temple Autumn", Jack said that the pressure of the wind caused the collapse of the previous cathedral, without mentioning the external thrust of the vault. I personally think that the wind pressure should not have such a big impact on the large stone buildings, at least the impact will not be greater than the pressure of the vault. Of course, whether this is the case may require a professional to answer.
At this point, the support system of the Gothic cathedral has been transferred to the outside of the building like the exoskeleton of an insect, while the internal support has been reduced. Gothic buildings became stone frames, and the original stone walls were replaced with stained glass. In this way, a building like the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris can appear almost entirely composed of glass and thin lines of stone.
In the play, from Tom, to Alfred, to Jack, the construction and gradual improvement of the King's Bridge Cathedral by three people is basically the process of the rise of the Gothic cathedral. Initially, the architects simply wanted to build taller and brighter, then stone ribbed vaults were used, and finally flying buttresses were invented to support the vaults. And this gradual improvement process has resulted in the most brilliant and magnificent works of art in the history of human architecture.
Finally, a little bit about something less related to architecture. The background of the series is a medieval monastery, so religious music appeared in many places, and most of the monks sang monophonic chants, that is, plain songs. But there is one scene, when Dean Philip leads the monks to retake the quarry, and the monks sing the two-voice Organon. Considering that the first polyphonic music appeared in British monasteries, there was nothing wrong with this setup. Probably the monks also felt that Organon was more imposing than Su Ge.
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