Towards the Gothic: Design and Construction of the 12th Century Vaults in Notre-Dame in Paris, and Possible Origins

The vaults over the choir and nave of Notre-Dame in Paris play a key role in the development of Gothic vaults-regarding their sheer height and span, and in particular their complex stone structure. A considerable dynamic in the development of new construction details can be seen in solutions that in some cases are still quite distinct from the well-known constructions of the great Gothic vaults, and that in other cases, although innovative, remain more or less singular. The design of the sexpartite vaults follows a scheme established in the early Gothic and at the same time displays groundbreaking conceptions in geometry and construction. The fire of the roof that in 2019 damaged part of the vaults, but also showed their remarkable structural performance, brought up the necessity of better understanding these structures while also giving deep insight into construction details. The ongoing research presented here correlates geometric analyses based on 3D-scanning, carried out on the vaults in Notre-Dame and on comparable structures, observations on construction details on site, and sources such as historical drawings, with large-scale experiments reproducing the processes of construction, fabrication of building elements, as well as planning and information transfer from design to building. The approach that refers to the built object as its principal source can be characterized as reverse engineering.