Amiens: real counterthrust, imagined universal irregularity
In a Gothic cathedral the columns were all different, but they were all necessary.
The flying buttress makes the argument visible: an arch outside the main vessel braces the high vault through an external upright. Columbia University's Life of a Cathedral distinguishes Amiens's nave flyers from the later, lighter construction around its eastern end. Different supports can therefore cooperate without looking alike; apparent eccentricity can perform essential work. Exterior model, sections ‘Nave’ and concluding construction history.
But the claim that Gothic columns were ‘all different’ should not become an architectural fact. Stephen Murray describes Amiens's nave as an exercise in centralized production, with repeated piers, windows, vaults and flyers; diversification followed in the upper transept and choir in the mid-1240s. Gothic construction combines repetition with change. Chesterton selects its differentiated supports to picture a society in which unlike vocations sustain one another. His contrast with the Parthenon is a judgment about kinds of interest, explicitly not a ranking of artistic excellence. Murray, ‘The Portals, Access to Redemption,’ concluding discussion.
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