Gloucester Cathedral (Rupert Cordeux) mit Innenraum (Eigenkonstruktion) 1:240

Die Kathedrale von Gloucester ist eine der berühmtesten Kathedralen Englands, allerdings aus einem eher ungewöhnlichen Grund. Ihre Kreuzgänge dienten als Kulisse für drei der acht Harry-Potter-Filme. Jeder Harry-Potter-Fan erkennt die Fächergewölbe als die Korridore von Hogwarts. Architekturbegeisterte kennen das Gebäude jedoch wahrscheinlich als Geburtsstätte des Perpendicular-Stils. Als die Abtei von Gloucester durch die Pilgerfahrten zum Grab von König Edward II. reich wurde, beschloss man, die alten romanischen Chorwände mit prächtigen Steinschranken zu verkleiden. Damit entstand eine neue Variante der Gotik, die sich rasch in Großbritannien verbreitete und vielen Kathedralen und Kirchen (darunter dem berühmten King’s College in Cambridge) ihr unverwechselbares, einzigartiges Aussehen verlieh – völlig anders als der „internationale gotische Stil“ oder andere lokale Varianten auf dem Kontinent.

Dieses prachtvolle Interieur sollte man beim Bau eines Papiermodells der Kathedrale nicht außer Acht lassen. Ich gehe vom großartigen Modell von Rupert Chicken/Cordeux (erste Version) aus und ergänze es mit meinen eigenen Fenstern und Wänden. Ich bin nicht der Erste in diesem Forum, der sein Modell vorstellt. Als Kurt/Spitfire die Kathedrale so wunderschön gebaut hatte, wurde in einem Kommentar der Wunsch geäußert, auch das Interieur nachgebaut zu sehen. Ich hoffe, mein Beitrag erfüllt diesen Wunsch ein wenig. Für mich ist es jedenfalls ein großes Unterfangen, die Gewölbe und Mauern zu bauen und sie in die Außenmauern einzufügen.

Erlauben Sie mir bitte, den Baubericht auf Englisch zu verfassen. Ich denke, die Bilder sprechen ohnehin größtenteils für sich.

Gloucester cathedral is one of the most famous cathedrals in England, but arguably for the wrong reason. The cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral were used as a setting in three of the eight Harry Potter films. Every HP fan will recognize the fan vaults as the corridors of Hogwarts. But architecture fans will probably know the building as the birth place of the Perpendicular style. When Gloucester abbey became rich because of the pilgrimage to king Edward II’s tomb, they decided to cover the old Romanesque choir walls with spectacular stone screens, starting a new version of the Gothic style that quickly spread Britain and gave many cathedrals and churches (including famous King’s college Cambridge) its distinctive unique outlook, completely different from the “international gothic style” or any other local version at the continent.

This magnificent interior should not be overlooked if one builds a paper model of the cathedral. I start from the great model by Rupert Chicken/Cordeux (first version) and add my own construction of windows and walls. I am not the first in this forum to present his model. When Kurt/Spitfire so beautifully built the cathedral, a comment mentioned the wish to also see the interior built. Hopefully my contribution satisfies in some way this wish. In any case for me it is a great endeavor to build the vaults and walls and fit it into Cordeux's model.

Best,

Sjak

The building campaign starts with the Lady Chapel of the cathedral. Consider this as a test case to see if it is possible to recreate the splendid interior from some sheets of plain paper and a bit of paint.

First I cut out the windows and replace them by transparent plastic with the window tracery drawn with a correction pen. Walls are made thicker.

Then the inner walls are drawn and cut out.

The mounting board is cut out, so that later on one will be able to peek through the floor into the interior.

The vault is one of the nicest challenges. The quick approach is to make a frame first and then simply fold some paper in it. This rather imprecise method works for now – this is a test case only – but I expect to need a more precise method for the bigger vaults in the choir and transepts.

Next job: getting some color on the vault ribs.

Best,

Sjak

The Lady Chapel's lierne vault gets some color,....

and luck is with me: it fits in the interior walls

The portal between entrance and nave of the chapel has its own vault. Above this entrance there is a separate chapel which requires its own inner walls.

Adjacent to the Lady Chapel are two chantry chapels, which I decide to leave without interior and with the original Cordeux windows. This saves some time, but might turn out to be a bit unsatisfactory later on. Well, this is just the test case...

Time to conclude: the overall appearance of the Lady Chapel is good enough for me to continue this project.

Best,

Sjak

After the Lady Chapel, the building of the Choir with aisles starts. Not quite the same building order as in medieval time... and not quite the same size - the small scale poses already quite some challenges to get enough precision.

I first need to find out the dimensions and design of the inner walls of the choir that Rupers Cordeux's model does not provide.

For the window tracery a gloss paint marker is used, which allows reasonable precision. The test case is the great famous east window, which will determine much of the character of the choir interior.

The pictures show the inner of the inner walls. Most will be covered in further stages, so that irregularities will be probably invisible.

The Romanesque aisle vaults and pilars are also prepared. The aisles will be visible from the choir and from the floor holes, so this is a nice chance to shape the vaults out of small snips of flat paper.

Sjak

Hello forum members,

The two aisles of the choir have thick Romanesque walls, so cutting out the windows is not sufficient and deep window jambs need to be added. The side chapels get their inner walls. It is still hard to predict how much detail is needed, given that most likely they will hardly be visible. Nevertheless fun to work on!

The inner walls of the aisle get more attention. For the screens at the entrances of the side chapels, I experience my first exercise in "sticheln".

Fixing the the choir walls on the base. The aisles will be mainly visible from the holes in the base.

The vaults on lower floor level are completed with ribs and responds.

Next job: covering the choir walls with the perpendicular-style stone screens.

Best,

Sjak

Hello Forum members,

If you want to restyle your house, you might redecorate the walls in your living room. Or your kids grow up and with the change of age they want to change their rooms. Or you decide to enlarge your roof top windows to make better use of the attic. The monks of Gloucester abbey were in the same mood in 1331. They gave the east arm of their church (the choir/presbytery) a complete restyling. The roof was raised on the Norman (i.e. Romanesque) structure to allow a third story of large windows. Below the windows the old North and South walls still stand on the old crypt, but they are covered with stone panelling which changed the view dramatically. On closer inspection, much of the original Norman building can be seen behind the screen of vertical panelling.

Rupert Cordeux's carefully drawn outer walls allow a perfect match with the new inner choir walls, as can be worked out from the ground plan. After all the measurements, calculations, and drawing work, a new "stichel exercise" starts, scattering my desk with tiny medieval stone fragments, not unlike what happened in the 14th century when the Norman walls where cut down and shaped.

For the panelling, I chose 225 gr/m² paper and cut out the perpendicular styles and ornaments, as far as my skills allowed. The fascinating mix of Norman and Perpendicular work effect was the result of linking open screens to blind parts with the same screens, which I tried to imitate in paper.

At the ground level, in the arcs, several chantry chapels are located, each with their own screen. At the North side, they house the tombs one king and of two bishops.

Total view of the North wall, with at the left the western part that is located under the tower at the crossing:

Best,

Sjak

@Harald, Gottfried, Peter, Zaphod, and Ulrich: thanks for the kind and encouraging comments!

Today I would like to show a (literally) small addition I made to the north wall of the choir. Beneath the arches rests the tomb of King Edward II, deliberately positioned so that pilgrims could approach it from the north ambulatory. After rumours spread that the king had been murdered, his grave became a place of devotion. Miracles were reported and the steady stream of pilgrims who came to pray at his tomb brought the monks of Gloucester a handsome income.

The tomb is surrounded by a canopy consisting of two stages of arches, with many pinnacles.

When the North choir wall is erected, King Edward's monument is hardly visible from the choir.

Yet the model would not be complete without this tangible relic of a medieval story of murder, monks, and money.

Next step: the choir vault.

Best,

Sjak

Indeed, Zaphod, the murder on Edward would definitely not be a suitable topic for a diorama at this forum...

It's more peaceful to focus the "bastel" work on the vault of the choir, with sculpture at the intersections of its hundreds of ribs. Some of them depict angels playing heavenly music... quite a contrast to the murder story.

Best,

Sjak

Dear forum members,

The design of the choir vault took some thinking, but once done it looks simple. The "lierne vault" is simplified to one large tunnel running East-West, crossing with small tunnels for each window at the North and South wall. I figure out that these amounts to 15 parts, that should look like this:

The choir vault is a dense network of ribs, with hundreds of bosses at the intersections, many depicting figures, symbols, and intricate patterns. Maybe a bit against the style of Rupert Cordeux’s model, I want to show some of the magnificent colors of the vault (which by the way go back only to Victorian times).

The main parts are drawn on 225 grams paper, so that they keep their shape even before being glued together.

To fit everything together, I use klebestreifen glued at the back (as I learned from other projects in this forum).

Inside view, with ribbing and coloring in progress:

Before the vault is installed, I place the big East window.

The vault fixed to the North wall:

Best,

Sjak

The South Choir wall has been installed. And since our Christmas lights are no longer needed for decoration, the cathedral can be shown by night...

As predicted by Peter, the interior is visible through the cut out windows.

Best,

Sjak

Zaphod: thanks for the good suggestion to make the lights permanent -- I am going to work on this!

This is how the choir interior looks towards the East window by night...

... from the church floor on a sunny day...

... and from a mole perspective

Best,

Sjak

Hello,

Zaphod, Helmut B.  Pitje: thanks -- glad you liked things so far!

Isn't it amazing that one can build the full walls and roof of a cathedral and only then start thinking about the floors? This is the magic of papercraft. And yet, in the history of Gloucester Cathedral, something similar happened: the current magnificent floor of the choir was added only in the 19th century and the Victorian architect must have been inspired by Siena's cathedral floor.

Here is the paper version of the floor:

The contrast between 19th century part and (at the east end) medieval part worked out. Not all biblical details in the marble are visible, but the steps, geometry, and colors try to capture atmosphere.

It became clear to me that a more experienced builder would have thought about the floors earlier: the symmetry of the floor was slightly abandoned to ensure the walls fit. The holes in the floor are prepared to let the led light in later. All floors are fit on a base, with spacing such that the walls can be "clicked" onto it:

Now we have a floor, we can place some furniture. The reredos at the end of the choir catches the eye on all pictures of the choir, especially because of its gold and bright colors in Victorian style. So even it is tiny when scaled 1:240, it cannot be left out.

And the pulpit is even tinier...

Reredos and pulpit are installed and the "click system" for the walls is tested:

Tonight after sunset the lights can be tested - happy to keep you posted!

Have a nice evening,

Best,

Sjak

First test with lights, last night:

It is surprising how much brightness and contrast these small lights generate, even when most lights are shining only from behind paper. This is the choice now: is it nicer to evoke candles in a medieval English abbey,... or advanced led-lighting as in the recently reopened Notre Dame in Paris? My preference is the former. What adjustments will work towards this? Suggestions welcome!

Best,

Sjak

After the test with the lights, I started building the transept. The interesting part of the building process is to see how vaults, walls, and windows of different styles, ages, and dimensions are combined. So the staircase-tower of the original Cordeux model needs to be combined with new inner walls and chapel interiors.

In the South transept, the St. Andrew chapel shows bright Victorian frescoes, while the walls still follow the Romanesque shapes of the 11^th century abbey.

This time I don’t forget to make some pictures before the chapel will be mostly covered by the East wall of the transept.

Oktavian: Thanks for the praise, Stefan.

Over the weekend I added the simple chapel at the gallery. Ideally I had shaped the vault over the chapel with proper "planimetry" (compare stefan's question). But little of the vault will remain visible anyway, so that a few suggestive curled strips should do for now.

In the chapel below I add the Victorian altar. I found that the gold marker is effective in hiding my lack of drawing skills for this scale.

The result in situ:

And with the help of a simple table lamp, the result is seen as if in the evening light...

...or in the morning light, reaching Gloucester from the south east:

Good evening and a good week to all of you.

Best,

Sjak

The North Transept is the next part to build. First the walls from the Cordeux model are cut out and strengthened.

The upper chapel gets a floor with medieval red tiles floor.

Like its counterpart at the South Transept (the St Andrew's chapel presented last week), the lower chapel is accessed through many stairs, because the crypt extends to the area below it. The altar in this chapel is Victorian but without the polychromy that makes the St Andrew chapel so distinct.

The Romanesque walls are, like in the choir, covered by perpendicular-style stone screens. At the North end, an early-English stone screen marks the entrance to the treasury.

Walls installed:

View into the North transept from the North:

View into the North transept from the South transept, before and after finishing the wall:

Now it is time to close the holes in the floor of the nave. Will keep you posted.

Best,

Sjak

Oktavian Thanks!

Indeed, I plan to leave the floors open, i.e. the walls can be separated from the floors (partly visible in this post already). This then allows for a presentation of the whole cathedral on a glass plate.

Furthermore, I want to keep the choir+transepts+crossing separate from the nave+aisles so that one can look into the interior from eye-height (so this view remains available).

I did not think everything through yet and I am changing my plans every week, so let's see if it works out. In the worst case, one has to peek through the windows or hire a mini drone .

Best,

Sjak

In the crossing, the cathedral choir sings from the partly medieval choir stalls.

Of course, the organ is close. It sits on a tribune that separates the choir from the nave. This big instrument shrinks to a paper snippet: the longest pipe of this part of the organ is 8 foot, which translates to 11 mm.

Some of the seats, with the tiled floor in between:

The high parts of the choir stalls and the organ tribune are fixed to the walls.

The seats are fixed to the floor.

View from the organ tribune, after walls are "clicked on" the floor:

Best,

Sjak