The Vaults of Notre-Dame de Paris and the quest for height in Gothic Architecture in France, 12th-13th centuries – ALTIOR

The ALTIOR project (from the Latin altior, "higher") aims to achieve a better understanding of how Gothic architects succeeded in building ever higher cathedrals, from 24m under the vaults of the cathedral of Sens, undertaken c. 1130, to 46m at the cathedral of Beauvais, completed c. 1270. The investigation will focus on the case of Notre-Dame de Paris, which, with its vaults raised for the first time to 32 m, is a key building in this process of the quest for height in the 12th and 13th centuries. Seizing the opportunities for access and the unprecedented possibilities for study offered by the restoration work opened after the fire of April 15, 2019, the aim is to establish an identity card of the vaults of Notre-Dame, to characterize their morphology (thickness, curvature...), the construction materials, the building techniques, and to determine, through efficient numerical modelling, a hypothesis of reconstitution of the initial equilibrium system of the cathedral and a series of building scenarios. The conclusions will then be confronted, in a comparative perspective, to a series of representative buildings of the period 1130-1270 in northern France, including the cathedrals of Sens, Chartres, Bourges and Amiens. Led by a team of researchers already at work within the Chantier scientifique pour la restauration de Notre-Dame de Paris (Scientific Workshop for the Restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris) under the aegis of the CNRS and French Ministère de la Culture, the project is strongly interdisciplinary in nature, combining human and social sciences (history of Gothic architecture, building archaeology, archaeometry), engineering sciences (civil engineering, materials science, ground penetrating radar, structural calculation) and computer science. It proposes to renew our knowledge of a highly visible Gothic cathedral and, with it, of a significant part of the adventure of the cathedrals of the 12th and 13th centuries in France.