TY - BOOK AU - Crow,Jason TI - A New Material Interpretation of Twelfth-Century Architecture: Reconstructing the Abbey of Saint-Denis T2 - Knowledge Communities SN - 9789048532162 AV - NA5551.S2 C76 2024 U1 - 726.50944/362 23/eng/20240610 PY - 2024///] CY - Amsterdam PB - Amsterdam University Press KW - Architecture, Gothic KW - France KW - Saint-Denis KW - Church buildings KW - Reconstruction KW - AUP Wetenschappelijk KW - Amsterdam University Press KW - Architecture and the Built Environment KW - Art and Material Culture KW - History, Art History, and Archaeology KW - Religion and Theology KW - ARCHITECTURE / History / Medieval KW - bisacsh KW - architecture, craft, tropology, stone, mysticism N1 - Frontmatter --; Table of Contents --; Acknowledgments --; Introduction --; 1 Materializing the Way --; 2 Crafting Prayer --; 3 The Everflowing Fountain --; 4 Embodying Heaven on Earth --; Postface: Dematerializing Architecture --; Bibliography --; Index; restricted access N2 - Today, we perceive Gothic cathedrals as light-filled forms representing the sacred. The colored light projected from brightly-colored stained glass windows onto the walls and floors of these buildings suggests the presence of divinity. Suger (1081–1151CE), the abbot of the monastery of Saint-Denis, is credited with originating Gothic architecture. However, focus on form and structure has elided attention to the material out of which medieval churches were made. When Suger describes the early church he was replacing, he says that the gold and gems it contained beamed outwardly with a gleaming light that filled the eye. When he restored his church and filled it with the shining souls of his ecclesia, he repeated God’s divine act of creation. His restored church imitated the precious stones that could be shaped and polished to reveal divine light. By crafting stone, Suger fulfilled the divine plan to make heaven on earth UR - https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048532162?locatt=mode:legacy UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9789048532162 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9789048532162/original ER -