Early Gothic Architecture

Timeline

1. 1140–1150Abbey Church of Saint-Denis · Saint-DenisUnder Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, the choir reconstruction concentrated experiments in pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and large-scale stained-glass lighting, later regarded as the key experimental site where the Gothic style transformed Romanesque building into a new kind of religious space.
2. 1151–1160Sens Cathedral · SensCathedrals at Sens, Noyon, and Laon began construction or advanced during the 1150s; the combination of pointed-arch facades, three-tier window levels, and ribbed vaults stabilized, marking the crystallization of early Gothic formal language in northern France and its outward diffusion.
3. c. 1160–1180Canterbury Cathedral · CanterburyThrough Norman political and cultural ties, the early Gothic structural vocabulary reached England; the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, rebuilt after the fire of 1174, introduced French-style ribbed vaults and flying buttresses, forming an Anglo-Norman variant of early Gothic.
4. c. 1180–1200Notre-Dame de Paris · ParisProjects such as Notre-Dame de Paris (begun 1163) pushed early Gothic proportions, the tripartite facade, and structural systems to larger scales and more complex geometry, paving the way for the great cathedral-building wave of thirteenth-century High Gothic in Champagne and Île-de-France.