Albi Cathedral: The Greatest Brick Building in the World

Send us a textThis week John and Clive are bowled over by Albi Cathedral, a towering, outwardly austere edifice of rosy brick which is ‘quite unlike any other medieval structure that you will see – a work of abstract modernism made in the 13th century’.  They discuss the background to its construction, in particular the merciless crusade against the Albigensian Heresy which takes its name from the city.  Externally the cathedral appears to be as much a fortress as a religious building, expressing the authority and power of the Roman Catholic Church.  It was a big influence on some late Victorian architects looking for a new direction for the Gothic Revival, as well as surely on Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Scholars have called it the largest brick building in the world.Unlike most cathedrals, which have doors at the West End, Albi is entered from a late Gothic porch that could be a gatehouse on the side.  The external walls are buttressed by semicircular drums of brick that go the full towering heights of the buildings. The interior is equally unexpected – a vast space whose roof is a single span of over 60ft.  There are no aisles but the walls are lined with chapels. In contrast to the exterior – ‘Brutalism in brick,’ as John calls it – they are decorated by Renaissance artists from Italy in a scheme that remains almost entirely complete.  Each one is composed of a geometrical scheme.  There is a terrifying fresco of the Last Judgement at the West End.  The choir is separated from the nave by a wedding cake-like screen of stone filigree, which miraculously escaped destruction during the French Revolution.   Why was Albi constructed as it is?  That’s something to talk about – as  John and Clive do!

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