rt, p. 407]. The effect is to add structural strength and solidity to the building. The visual appearance of changes from the Early and Later or High Gothic are clear, as each cathedral became increasingly narrower and taller. For instance, compare the nave elevations of Notre-Dame to Amiens [Text, fig. 442, p. 333], the pointed arches of Amiens are significantly taller and narrower than the much earlier Notre Dame. The mastery of the flying buttress allowed medieval builders to construct taller and more elegant looking buildings with more complex ground plans. Encyclopedia Britannica ’97 describes the “flying” effect of this buttress of hiding the masonry supports of the structure: “a semi-detached curved pier connects with an arch to a wall and extends (or “flies”) to the ground or a pier some distance away. The delicate elegance of Gothic cathedrals is different from the “Heavy buttresses jutting out between the chapels” of Romanesque churches,. From the outside, aesthetic consideration of the flying buttresses was significant and “its shape could express support…according to the designer’s sense of style.” The flying buttress was first used on a monumental scale at Notre Dame From the outsider the flying buttresses create a seemingly bewildering mass of soaring props, struts, and buttresses, yet blend in with the rich sculpture and elaborate portals of the West faade, giving the appearance of a three-story layout. [Text. P. 325-326, fig. 429 ( This contrasts visually with the plans that show the buttresses “as massive blocks of masonry that stick out from the building like a row of teeth.” [Text. P. 325, Fig. 426].) At Chartres the flying buttress is more unique, the half arch is made of smaller arches that give more height to the already narrower and more vertical walls of the nave., as well as blending in with the colonnaded triforium wall of the n...
