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Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai
| Site number: | 1009 |
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| Type of site: | Cultural | |
| Date: | 12th century | |
| Date of Inscription: | 2000 | |
| Location: | Europe, Belgium, Wallonia Region, Province of Hainaut | |
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| Description: | Built in the first half of the 12th century, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Tournai is especially eminent by the extraordinary dimensions of its Romanesque nave, its wealth of capital sculptures, and its transept crowned by five towers; antecedents of Gothic style. Rebuilt in the 13th century, the cathedral choir's designs are pure Gothic. --WHMNet paraphrase from the description at WHC Site, where additional information is available. For 360 degree imaging of this site, click here. | |
| This structure of local blue-gray stone occupies rising ground near the south bank of the Scheldt, which divides the city of Tournai into two roughly equal parts. Begun in the 12th century on even older foundations, the building combines the work of three design periods with striking effect, the heavy and severe character of the Romanesque nave contrasting remarkably with the Transitional work of the transept and the fully developed Gothic of the choir. The transept is the most distinctive part of the building, with its cluster of five bell towers and apsidal (semicircular) ends. The nave belongs mostly to the first third of the 12th century. Prefiguring the Early Gothic style, it has a second-tier gallery between the ground-floor arcade and the triforium. Pilasters between the round-arched windows in the clerestory help support the 18th-century vaulting that replaced the original ceiling, which was of wood, and flat. The transept arms, built in about the mid-12th century, have apsidal ends, a feature borrowed in all probability from certain Rhenish churches, and which would appear to have made its influence felt in the northeast of France, as at Noyon and Soissons. The square towers that flank the transept arms reach a height of 83 meters. They vary in detail, some of the arcade work with which they are enriched being in the round-arched and some in the pointed style. Bishop Gautier de Marvis (1219-1252) had the original Romanesque choir demolished in the 13th Century, in order to replace it with a Gothic choir of much grander dimensions, inspired by the likes of Amiens Cathedral. The construction of the new choir began in 1242, and ended in 1255. The rest of the cathedral was supposed to be rebuilt in the same style as the choir, but this was never attempted, the only later additions being the western porch, and a large Gothic chapel which was built alongside one of the side aisles, whose original walls and windows disappeared in the process. In recognition of the Tournai cathedral's cultural value, UNESCO designated the building a World Heritage Site in the year 2000. --Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. For 360 degree imaging of this site, click here. | ||
| Source: | http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1009 | |
| Reference: | 1. UNESCO World Heritage Center, Site Page. | |