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The cathedral was the great corporate enterprise of the
Gothic
period. Architects, masons, sculptors, glaziers,
metalworkers,
and other artisans were employed to create structures that
were
meant to symbolize the eternal, the Heavenly City on earth.
Gothic
architects were able to build to unprecedented heights by
employing
three major structural principles/elements -- the pointed
arch,
the rib vault, and the flying buttress-creating a
seemingly weightless,
transparent architecture in which nearly every line is a
vertical
one, and light, space, and stone interact in complex ways.
Light
was associated with divinity in medieval theology, and
the
Gothic
cathedral provided a framework for hundreds of stained glass
windows
containing imagery from the Old and New Testament or the
lives of
the saints.
The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine was begun
according
to a design based on Byzantine and Romanesque architecture
by the
firm of Heins and LaFarge. When Ralph Adams Cram took over
the project,
he transformed the Cathedral into a Gothic structure. Work
continues
on the cathedral today, notably on the portal, whose
sculpture is
Gothic in style and symbolism but with the addition of
imagery reflecting
the church's urban New York setting.
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