ABSTRACT
Mercantile and ecclesiastical centers vied with one another to attain extreme building height in church construction—unlike the competition between American cities in lofty steel-framed office buildings some seven centuries later. While a stylistic explanation has generally been offered for the transition, far more compelling grounds are provided by examining the forces involved in supporting the high vaults during their construction. For example, the recommended height of the central-aisle vault keystone is given as one and one-half or two times the span of the central aisle. Moreover, with the currents of fashion running northward from Italy carrying the 'new' Renaissance architectural ideals, concepts of classical style generally displaced the more pragmatic interest in devising elegant structure. The reliance on observation of failure by the builders is evident also from an examination of the modes of High Gothic vaulting. A wider window on design technique opens near the end of the fourteenth century with the preservation of several architects’ notebooks.
