MONT SAINT MICHEL

CATHEDRAL, FRANCE

HISTORY – IIGothic

Architecture

HISTORY Le Mont Saint Michel’s large Benedictine abbey built in

a combination of Carolingian, Roman and Gothic styles. Saint Aubert, the bishop of a town nearby, constructed

the first church on the mount in 708 on the order of Archangel Michael.

Saint Aubert originally ignored the angel’s orders until the Archangel burned a hole in his skull! In 966, a community of Benedictine monks was established on the mount and a pre-Romanesque style church would be completed before the year 1000.

Designed by : William de Volpiano. Area: 100 hectares. Height : 600 meters. The island has held strategic fortifications

since ancient times. Since the 8th century AD has been the seat

of the monastery from which it draws its name

ARCHITECTURE

In the 11th century, William of Volpiano, the Italian architect who had built Fécamp Abbey, he designed the Romanesque church of the abbey.

Daringly placing the transept crossing at the top of the mount.

Many underground crypts and chapels had to be built to compensate for this weight.

These formed the basis for the supportive upward structure that can be seen today.

Today Mont Saint-Michel is seen as a building of Romanesque and mainly a gothic architecture.

FORMATION Material :leuco-granite, limestone. Leucogranite which is solidified from an underground

intrusion of molten magma about 525 million years ago.

• During the Cambrian period, as one of the younger parts of the Mancellian granitic batholith (Early studies of Mont Saint-Michel by French geologists sometimes describe the leucogranite of the Mont as "granulite", but this granitic meaning of granulite is now obsolete).

The Mont has a circumference of about 960 metres (3,150 ft) and its highest point is 92 metres (302 ft) above sea level.

The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it.

On top, God, the abbey and monastery. Below, the great halls; then stores and

housing. At the bottom, outside the walls, houses for

fishermen and farmers.

STRUCTURAL COMPOSITION

SITE PLAN

PLAN

SECTION

SECTIONAL DETAILS

ARCHITECTURAL STYLE-GOTHIC

FEATURES

POINTES ARCHES & WIDE OPENINGS FLYING BUTTRESS

TALL SPIRES LONG NAVE

BARREL AND RIBBED VAULTS

LARGE PAINTED, TALL WINDOWS ON NAVE AND CHOIR , AND ROSE WINDOW IN FRONT FAÇADE.

Cross Plan, Single Nave

RICH DECORATIVE TRACES ON WINDOWS

Sculptural composition