Notre-Dame Cathedral of Amiens - The Power of Change in Gothic

Notre-Dame, Cathedral of Amiens - The Power of Change in Gothic is a comprehensive study of one of the most ambitious building programmes of the high middle ages. Offering a new approach to the traditional building monograph, Stephen Murray critically re-examines the documentary, archaeological, and historiographical evidence and contemporary theological debates, as well as the social, political and economic contexts in which Amiens was conceived and erected. By reintegrating these various data, Murray proposes a new chronology for the cathedral and, moreover, reconceptualises our understanding of the nature of medieval building campaigns, emphasising the dynamics of change that occurred during the course of construction. This revisionist study includes a newly-surveyed plan of Amiens, transcripts of key documents, and 195 black and white illustrations, many made especially for this edition.

• Comprehensive treatment of entire cathedral, including sculpture
• Includes a wide-range of documentary sources such as transcripts of key texts and an accurate ground-plan
• Construction of a critically self-conscious framework for the location of our understanding of the cathedral

Stephen Murray is Professor of Architecture at Columbia University. He is the author of Building Troyes Cathedral: The Late Gothic Campaigns and Beauvais Cathedral: Architecture of Trascendence, as well as a variety of journal articles on aspects of Gothic architecture.