Cathedral of Our Lady
Begun in 1163 and largely completed by 1260, Notre-Dame exemplifies French Gothic architecture at its most ambitious. Its flying buttresses, rose windows, and ribbed vaults created an architecture of light—walls dissolved into stained glass, and stone seemed to defy gravity. The cathedral was both a spiritual space and a technological marvel.
Pioneered the Gothic aesthetic of 'dematerialized' architecture where structure serves light. This philosophy of making heavy materials appear weightless continues to inspire architects from Gaudí to Zaha Hadid.
Columban monks · 800
Murasaki Shikibu · 1000
Louis Le Vau, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, André Le Nôtre · 1661
Frank Lloyd Wright · 1935
Tadao Ando · 1989
Ictinus & Callicrates · 447 BC