Cathedral of Bourges and Its Place in Gothic Architecture

Since its original publication in 1963 in French, no work has challenged the authority of Robert Branner's classic study of the Bourges Cathedral. Branner explains and illustrates the importance of this grand cathedral to the development of High Gothic architecture from 1195 to the middle of the 13th century. The present edition retains the author's original, 14 meticulous plans and sections - the only accurate ones available for the cathedral - and adds many new photographs from his own personal archive. Branner's brilliant analysis of Bourges demonstrates its position and importance in High Gothic architecture and replaces previous classifications of Bourges, as an isolated exception, which obscured its provenance, contribution, and meaning to the medieval world. Comparing Chartres and Bourges as examples of the two kinds of High Gothic, Branner demonstrates that the interpenetration of spaces, structure, and light at Bourges were the work of a great visionary, the Bourges master, whose work influenced Gothic architecture of the period. The French edition received the 1963 Alice Davis Hitchcock award given by the Society of Architectural Historians for the most distinguished work of scholarship in the history of architecture, This edition is based on Branner's original English text, edited to reflect his later thinking. It includes an updated bibliography by Anne Prache, UniversitT de Paris Sorbonne. An Architectural History Foundation Book.Branner, Robert is the author of 'Cathedral of Bourges and Its Place in Gothic Architecture', published 1989 under ISBN 9780262022767 and ISBN 0262022761.