[HN Gopher] The collapse of 1284 at Beauvais Cathedral [pdf]
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The collapse of 1284 at Beauvais Cathedral [pdf]
Author : Phithagoras
Score : 36 points
Date : 2022-01-12 21:33 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cultus.hk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cultus.hk)
| dmix wrote:
| Some basic background from Wikipedia to save you the time:
|
| > The Cathedral of Saint Peter of Beauvais is a Roman Catholic
| church in the northern town of Beauvais, Oise, France.
|
| > From 1569 to 1573 the cathedral of Beauvais was, with its tower
| of 153 meters, the highest human construction of the world. Its
| designers had the ambition to make it the largest gothic
| cathedral in France ahead of Amiens.
|
| > Victim of two collapses, one in the 13th century, the other in
| the 16th century, it remains unfinished today, only the choir and
| the transept have been built.
|
| https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Beauvais_Cathedral
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I wonder if they even measured the height in 1569. I'm sure
| that they could, but I don't know whether they cared about
| whether one building was a meter or two taller than some other
| building. I think they cared more about grandeur and the
| perceived awe rather than guinness-style records. Certainly
| many would have advertised themselves as being the tallest. To
| my knowledge there was no central book of such records. I
| wonder in which year was it determined that this cathedral held
| the record. Was it only centuries later when some architect
| student did a thesis?
| dmix wrote:
| The important thing is it's 2021 and we're still doing the
| pissing contest of tallest building.
| jfengel wrote:
| They were certainly capable of measuring the height. The
| tools have been known since antiquity. They couldn't build
| something like this without them.
|
| And they were definitely competing with each other to build
| the tallest and most spectacular cathedral. There wasn't an
| official record book, but the architects were always aware of
| who was claiming to be tallest. If they didn't want to take
| the claim for granted, it was easy enough to go measure it
| yourself.
|
| Just for one example: Ulm Minster was specifically designed
| to be taller than the one at Cologne:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulm_Minster
|
| It's actually a little ungainly-looking for that. The tower
| is out of proportion to the rest of it.
|
| It wasn't just cathedrals. They were doing the same things
| with bell towers. The Leaning Tower of Pisa doesn't need to
| be that tall -- and if they'd built a more reasonably-sized
| tower, it would have been more stable.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Hmm it ended ubruptly. It would be nice to continue reading the
| rest of the article or section.
| dmix wrote:
| Seems to be the 10th chapter out of
| https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/97813152399...
| pettycashstash2 wrote:
| Hi there, curious about the subject however I am not willing to
| download a pdf, as per recent revelations that adobe pdf has
| become a hacking vector. Any ability to add a url for web based
| content?
| ogogmad wrote:
| Have you looked into different PDF readers? There's more than
| just Adobe Acrobat. Your browser might have its own PDF reader.
| pettycashstash2 wrote:
| Not aware of other more secure readers. Suggestions welcome.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Firefox has included a viewer based on PDF.js since 2013:
|
| https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js#online-demo
|
| No need to download to anything other than localstorage.
|
| There have been a half dozen vulnerabilities found in the
| Firefox extension code exploitable through PDF.js over the
| years, but this is a far better record than the hundreds of
| vulnerabilities identified in Acrobat Reader.
|
| PDF.js does a lot less than Acrobat. It's much more focused on
| just displaying articles, and less about rich media
| interactions like embedding 3D models, Flash, videos, etc. in
| the PDF.
| pettycashstash2 wrote:
| Very much appreciate you pointing this out. Do you know if I
| can use this to embed a pdf in a personal website. a resume
| for example?
| bombcar wrote:
| This PDF is simply a compilation of scanned images, and didn't
| hack me hardly at all.
| lqet wrote:
| Here is a fascinating picture of Beauvais Cathedral which
| captures just _how_ unfinished it is and which also shows (like a
| time-freeze) how these gothic cathedrals typically replaced older
| romanic churches:
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Ca...
|
| If you are interested in the architecture and engineering of
| gothic cathedrals, I _highly_ recommend the 2010 arte documentary
| "Cathedrals" - unfortunately, I was only able to find a German
| version:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Wh_-02MaI
|
| If I remember correctly, it discusses the structural weaknesses
| of several cathedrals (including Beauvais).
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I would also recommend "Britain's Great Cathedrals with Tony
| Robinson".
|
| https://www.channel5.com/show/britain-s-great-cathedrals-wit...
|
| And anyone into church architecture should also watch
| "Churches: How to Read them", which I believe is on youtube.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tnp8f
| dmix wrote:
| Also PBS released "Building the great cathedrals"
|
| https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/building-the-great-
| cathe...
|
| Full-video: https://watchdocumentaries.com/building-the-
| great-cathedrals...
|
| Too bad I wasn't able to find the english version of the OPs
| link in German. Looks good.
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