St Laurent, a church with a very long history, is in north east Paris near the East train station. It's location is interesting as it faces the same paved north/south road that the Romans constructed way back in mid 1st century BC. There is record of a basilica and monastery on the site by 511 AD, but it was sacked by the Normands in 885.
This round arch is all that can be seen of the church erected in 1180. This church was used as a parish church until about 1429 when it was deemed too small and most of it demolished for a new, bigger church built in the flamboyant gothic style. (For Gothic think pointed arches, larger windows, and flying buttresses.)(For flamboyant think of more carvings and "decorations.)
Buttresses and then flying buttresses became necessary as the churches became larger in size....especially when they wanted larger windows in these churches. Buttresses are large support walls that are on the outside of the regular church walls to help support the heavy roof and keep the walls from buckling and consequently crashing down. This used a lot of extra stone and was expensive to build. So, someone thought of flying buttresses. To give you an idea of this...think of a person standing outside of a building with their arm/hand out at a angle holding up the wall...then think of stone doing this.
As you can imagine on a church built back in 1429 the flying buttresses were beginning to deteriorate. Their life had been extended with a concrete bath years ago, but that was only a stopgap. So, the church raised the money for a new roof, releading and cleaning the old stained glass windows and rebuilding the flying buttresses. Alex, a young man active at ACP, who is working on the project asked for permission to take a church group up there on Sunday afternoon, and we jumped (or climbed!!) at the chance, even though we had to wear a hard hat!
We climbed up about 6 landings of scaffolding to a rather large working area.
He showed us how the new buttress is shaped around a wooden frame.
After the stone is fitted together and mortared a cap of even harder stone is put on the top to help protect the butress against the weather.
Builders have a chance to add a personal touch to the buildings that cannot be seen from below. In this case when the building was originally build, there were carvings put around a lot of the building just under the roof line. Some of the carvings are just nice....leaves, vines, grapes. Others are funny....like snails on the leaves, mermaids, men looking out from between the bed sheets. There are a few questionable carvings....a man with his pants down, an animal with a human head, a man killing an animal with his knife....but, most were just amusing.
The carvings at the end of the flying buttress were so deterioted that only a few shapes could be discerned. The masons decided to put something modern in these slots. The young stone mason who took us on the tour is one of the carvers for this project. After tossing around a lot of ideas, including Darth Vader (which was vetoed!!) they will instead carve a modern roofer, window repairman, stoneworker and architect at the computer.
Alex first develops his "cartoon", then draws it on the stone, and then carves it on site.
I asked someone why they would spend the money for these carvings, that won't be seen, when the project is so expensive. He replied "if this is what has traditionally been done, then the French like to continue the traditions, no matter the cost!!" So be it!!!
P.S. For a good read on the building of churches during this time, check out Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth."
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