Gothic Architecture and Its Rose Windows
Gothic architecture originated in France during the twelfth century, dominating the architecture for the next four hundred years in Western Europe. Gothic architecture spread throughout the entire continent, reaching places like Scandinavia to the Byzantine provinces of Central Europe. By 1400, Gothic had become the universal style of building in the Western world, and included many types of structures. Gothic architects designed town halls, royal palaces, courthouses and hospitals. It was in the service of the Church that the Gothic style attained its most meaningful expression, for the Church was the most inexhaustible builder of the Middle Ages, providing the widest scope for the development of architectural ideas and calling forth the best talents.
Traditional cathedrals like Norte-Dame, Paris contain the conventional elements of Gothic. On the exterior, there are triumphal arch doorways, clerestory, flying buttresses, spire, pinnacles, gargoyles, transept, apse, and rose windows. On the interior, there are side aisles, ribbed vaults, pointed arches, three-story elevation, gallery, triforium, ambulatory, narthex, crossing apse, and a nave. A vast majority of the well-known cathedrals

drals like Durham Cathedral and St. Peters in Rome and others around Europe contain most of the noted Gothic elements.

The making of a rose window is rather elaborate. According to Theophilus, a medieval monk who knew of the glass-making secrets, stated in his journal the three different kinds of furnaces required for the making of the glass. One furnace melted and shaped the glass. The second furnace required a cooling effect for the glass to set. The last furnace was used for spreading the glass sheets. Twelfth century glass-makers used fifty percent silica in comparison to today’s seventy-five percent. The use of sand and beechwood ashes allowed Theophilus to develop white, saffron-yellow, multiple shades of red, and purple colored glass. Utilizing other types of ash and various metals would have produce additional colors. A window maker would construct a smooth flat wooden board dusted with chalk, watered and rubbed with a cloth to fill the gaps provided a light-colored work surface. With compasses that contained lead or tin tips were used to draw the window section on the board. The borders would be drawn in with red or black pigment on the board creating a sketch. The sketch would then be transferred onto the glass itself. A hot iron cutting tool shapes the glass. The glass is later trimmed with a grozing iron. Pigments were applied to attain specific colors, shadowing, and highlighting. Lettering was created by covering the surface with an opaque pigment, and then etching of the pigment with the handle of the brush. Afterwards, the glass is fired in the kiln to combine the pigment. Then, the fired glass returns to the sketch and is laid out in accordance to the plan. The lead is then inserted between pieces of glass and fused together. The tracery framing the window can enhance the beauty of the glass. The expertise of the stonemason and hues of the glass matched appropriately emits the light that represents Christ and the story the mandala is telling.

5. the pentacle, man, magic, Christ’s wounds

Grace Cathedral has French and Spanish influences. The block on which Grace Cathedral sits on was a gift