Comments on: Okay, angry owls it is

Okay, angry owls it is

verstegan — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 03:59:42 -0800

One of the great things about medieval art and architecture is that people just went in and did things. They didn't build models and scale them up. Building great cathedrals and abbeys was a learning process as much as anything else. This means many of these apparently perfect aspirations to the Heavenly Jerusalem have some often quite comical mistakes, corrections and bodge-jobs that once you see, you can't unnotice. Great Mistakes in English Medieval Architecture.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:13:58 -0800

I am obviously not an architect, and it took me a while to figure out what was the problem with some of those, but I still don't know what he's on about with the diapers.

By: Thing

Thing — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:20:31 -0800

If you look at the patterned stones above the right hand arch you'll noticed they don't match up near the top.

By: andorphin

andorphin — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:29:57 -0800

And you thought your mistake had long lasting consequences...

By: Gordafarin

Gordafarin — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:31:59 -0800

Some guy has used a different sized diaper to everyone else on the presbytery spandrels I want to laugh, but this person is not speaking English.

By: Dr Dracator

Dr Dracator — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:37:02 -0800

If you look at the patterned stones above the right hand arch you'll noticed they don't match up near the top. Seems like not ripping it up to replace it was a good call: I keep staring at the photo even after this explanation, and I still can't figure out what is wrong.

By: Benny Andajetz

Benny Andajetz — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:40:51 -0800

Although you probably won't find glaring mistakes like this in modern construction (primarily because building techniques are so different), "compromises" are made almost constantly. Plan measurements turn out to be wrong, a previous trade did something wrong, etc. It happens so often that a set of plans called "as-built" drawings are released after completion to record the changes.

By: devinemissk

devinemissk — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:58:08 -0800

If by "angry owl" he means the scissor arches at Wells, well, I'm going to take issue with that. The scissor arches at Wells are quite remarkable and, even though they were not original to the plans, they were added in a harmonious way. Very different from the lopsided arches and misaligned vaults in the rest of the article.

By: fungible

fungible — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 05:10:31 -0800

This would be a great exercise for kids (and many adults) who get bored with cathedral tours: find the flaws.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 05:14:31 -0800

I love reading about old architecture, particularly cathedrals. Everything has a cool name. Everything now is just "wall", "another wall", "yet another wall". Maybe a bit of moulding if you're a fancy schmancy type. No diapering the pesbytery spandrels in our transepts.

By: Decani

Decani — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 06:07:37 -0800

I always have a problem with visual things (I'm terrible at remembering faces, etc). This confirms it. I'd say a good half of those I can't for the life of me see what the problem is.

By: Mayor Curley

Mayor Curley — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 06:19:03 -0800

If you look at the patterned stones above the right hand arch you'll noticed they don't match up near the top. Scandalous! Please send for the constabulary, and we shall get to the bottom of this at once.

By: flex

flex — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 06:33:52 -0800

This is one case where you should definitely read the comments at the link! He explains the use of "diaper":

Diaper just means covering (so I always think the Americanism is better than our silly "nappy"). It's the square ornament with a flower in the middle that covers the arches. If you look closely you can just about see the design changes slightly and the grid of squares doesn't line up.

...and gives some further explanations on his original commentary.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 07:36:19 -0800

Wandering around France I'm alarmed at how many cathedrals aren't square along the main axis. Often the transept isn't parallel to the back wall, or the choir is a bit crooked. I image this was trying to expand in the 15th century on top of the existing site, but with reconciling the street plan vs. the original church and/or an eastern alignment. But I like to think the 7° error is somehow mystically significant.

By: xingcat

xingcat — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 07:37:57 -0800

Years ago, when visiting Monticello, we realized that Thomas Jefferson had absolutely no business trying to build anything beyond a simple box, and he'd even probably screw that up. My favorite was the clock with a pendulum that also counted days of the week, but he had to cut a hole in the floor because he forgot Saturday, or something like that.

By: clvrmnky

clvrmnky — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 07:39:23 -0800

Shall I be the first to snark ironically about how nothing's changed, given how we still build websites from first principles, apparently? "What's going on there? Apparently the Normans have us a plan where horizontal rules are fixed and vertical space flows like embedded BRs." Hilarious copy, though.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 07:39:25 -0800

he had to cut a hole in the floor because he forgot Saturday, or something like that. I hate when that happens.

By: arcticseal

arcticseal — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 08:04:09 -0800

Look do you want to build this Cathedral yourselves No Well shut up then Can totally hear this conversation.

By: Segundus

Segundus — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 08:34:59 -0800

If Saturday was his holey day he musta been Jewish.

By: marienbad

marienbad — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 09:22:57 -0800

Oh be fair, these were built in like 1240 AD, what do you expect? They are older than America.

By: droro

droro — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 09:27:43 -0800

No diapering the pesbytery spandrels in our transepts. Emperor Justinian, why can't you just be happy with your big-ass dome supported by spherical triangular pendentives?

By: ovvl

ovvl — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 09:29:42 -0800

When my SO was teaching the history of cathedral art, I told her that she should write a guidebook and call it: 'Mind Your Narthex'.

By: feckless fecal fear mongering

feckless fecal fear mongering — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 09:32:03 -0800

That's an apse-olutely brilliant title.

By: etaoin

etaoin — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 09:36:01 -0800

Oh be fair, these were built in like 1240 AD, what do you expect? They are older than America. Yes, they've certainly lasted much longer than some more recent American houses of worship.

By: Foci for Analysis

Foci for Analysis — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 09:40:17 -0800

I totally missed the gorilla passing by!

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 09:41:44 -0800

But I like to think the 7° error is somehow mystically significant. My parents have a relatively small knit piece from some prior generation, with some significant flaws in the symmetry. As described to me, it is because "only God is perfect," but that line of logic might have started with old religious buildings, where the builders botched things up, and said the same thing. Mystically significant, that was the plan all along.

By: Thing

Thing — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 09:53:17 -0800

Although all of the buildings in the link are post-Invasion, there's a widely held belief that Anglo-Saxons just didn't like right angles (or radial voussoirs), the church at Chickney in Essex being an extreme example.

By: IndigoJones

IndigoJones — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 10:04:32 -0800

As described to me, it is because "only God is perfect," but that line of logic might have started with old religious buildings, where the builders botched things up, and said the same thing. I've heard the same thing about insignificant flaws in Persian rugs. I've also heard that it's nonsense. I have no idea which claim is true.

By: feckless fecal fear mongering

feckless fecal fear mongering — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 10:05:54 -0800

I come down on the side of it being poetically true, without necessarily being factual. If that makes sense.

By: gottabefunky

gottabefunky — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 10:07:51 -0800

Real Navajo rugs often have a "mistake" in the weaving - a line connecting the main design to the edge, crossing the border, so the spirit of the design isn't trapped inside.

By: Benny Andajetz

Benny Andajetz — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 10:11:19 -0800

Don't forget, early cathedrals were, literally, the pinnacle of cutting edge construction. The whole concept was to build taller AND more open spaces to glorify God. Many took hundreds of years to build, and much was learned from trial and error. Lots of early flying buttresses failed, for example.

By: sbutler

sbutler — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 10:28:07 -0800

You guys think these are hilarious, let me show you some professional software projects sometime.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 10:30:13 -0800

Real Navajo rugs often have a "mistake" in the weaving - a line connecting the main design to the edge, crossing the border, so the spirit of the design isn't trapped inside. When I was a kid a Navajo weaver talking to our classroom gave the "only the Great Spirit is perfect" reason for this.

By: infinitelives

infinitelives — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 10:46:37 -0800

Not mistakes. It's... wabi-sabi. Yeah.... wabi-sabi. That's the ticket...

By: morganw

morganw — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 10:49:04 -0800

> spherical triangular pendentives an improvement, for sure, over squinches

By: Baby_Balrog

Baby_Balrog — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 11:29:32 -0800

I work in a cathedral setting that isn't exactly ancient - it was built in the early 1920s when cinder block construction was a relatively new concept. This year we have to begin the work of restoring it to some semblance of its original grandeur. When they built the walls, they used cinder blocks inside the walls and clay bricks on the outside. As it weathers, cinderblock shrinks while clay expands. I know this because a structural engineer explained that the reason we had water inside the walls was because the walls were literally pulling themselves apart. The sanctuary is 14 inches longer today than when it was constructed. I asked him, "why did they do this thing" and he kind of shrugged and said, "you're the pastor, ask them when you get to heaven."

By: thomas j wise

thomas j wise — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 11:30:13 -0800

UCLA's Royce Hall does this deliberately (scroll down for the image and the accompanying explanation). Something off here...hmmmm...what can it be...

By: emjaybee

emjaybee — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 11:50:21 -0800

By: Quinbus Flestrin

Quinbus Flestrin — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 12:03:53 -0800

Diaper just means covering (so I always think the Americanism is better than our silly "nappy"). If my dictionary is to believed, this is misleading. Diaper is a linen or cotton fabric woven in a repeating pattern of small diamonds, and. by extension, also a repeating geometric or floral pattern used to decorate a surface (from the Greek diaspros* — dia 'across' + aspros 'white,' by way of Latin and French.) So the diaper is the patterning not the covering, which makes sense in context [Nappy from napkin, i.e. small cloth (napkin from nappe, the French for tablecloth), so both nappy and diaper are just different ways of saying "cloth"] *Not to be confused with diaspora, from the Greek diaspeirein 'disperse,' from dia 'across'+ speirein 'scatter.'

By: jamjam

jamjam — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 13:08:20 -0800

Part of me is "haha, old cathedral builders regularly fucked up" and part of me is imagining the horrors of being a cathedral construction worker in a time without safety protocols of any kind. Every failed buttress or dropped block of masonry probably took out at least a few poor souls. This comment made me wonder whether these cathedrals might not have served a double purpose: Christianity faced a long, long struggle to displace paganism in England, but it was probably a little harder to worship trees after so many had gone for scaffolding.

By: sidereal

sidereal — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 16:44:33 -0800

The text reads like Kate Beaton wrote it. I love it. Now I'm imagining her drawing the people speaking.

By: Joakim Ziegler

Joakim Ziegler — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 19:17:05 -0800

sidereal: "The text reads like Kate Beaton wrote it. I love it. Now I'm imagining her drawing the people speaking" I don't know what to call this style, but yeah, it's also quite common over at The Toast, especially Mallory Ortberg's stuff, but also some others. It tickles my funnybone also.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 00:14:54 -0800

As to the amount of planning involved, relevant AskMe. I'm rather skeptical that they winged it very much; that kinda sounds like us 21st century people being overly impressed with ourselves, as usual. Maybe not in Europe, but scale architectural models appear to have been in use in China a thousand years before this, and per the links in that thread there are surviving European architectural drawings from Medieval times.

By: scose

scose — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 10:21:01 -0800

Dude do you know how to write dialog now How You write it like an AIM transcript but without the usernames Oh really Yeah Cool

By: clvrmnky

clvrmnky — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 05:57:14 -0800

Ha ha! You said "AIM".