The Cathedral Unencumbered

It seems that every old building in Europe has scaffolding around it. I believe the European Union is pumping money in to the restoration of the monuments that attract tourists. Perhaps I am wrong. But whatever the reason, you rarely get to see an architectural masterpiece as it was built. Nearly all are encased in scaffolding. This has been the case with the Cathedral of Strasbourg. The bell tower has been undergoing maintenance since I first saw it some two years ago.

At the end of November, however, the scaffolding came down from the Cathedral. The spire now appears pretty much as it did when it was completed in 1439.You have to wonder how they did this. The architecture is an achievement but the engineering is a miracle. At the time the church was built, the ground surrounding Strasbourg was marsh and the water table on the island was much nearer to the surface than today. To lay the foundations, they first had to drive oak timber piling into the muck as supports. (Much like the way foundations were built in Venice) Then they piled stone after stone on top of that to build the platform. Then atop that they built the spire. All stones hoisted by ropes and pulleys and muscle.

At 142 meters, roughly 430 feet, the tower was the second tallest masonry structure built before advent of the machine age. The first tallest was the church at Beauvais, France which collapsed under its own weight 6 years after it was finished. Several other churches had taller towers built of wood. They burned. By virtue of better engineering, the Strasbourg Cathedral Tower survived to become the tallest building in the world from 1625 til 1847. To this day, it remains the tallest surviving structure from the middle ages.

In French, the word for a church spire is the same as for an arrow, "la flèche". I like that. The tower does look like an arrow piercing the sky.

The removal of the scaffolding was timed to finish before the start of the Strasbourg Christmas Markets. In the opening photo, you can just make out the Christmas lights strung across the street leading up to the Cathedral. In the photo below, you can see the first few booths set up in the Cathedral plaza.