Butter Tower ( Tour de Beurre)

Located on the southern edge of the facade of the famous Rouen Cathedral, the Butter Tower, constructed between 1485 and 1506, is a masterpiece of Late Gothic Architecture. Gothic architecture came from the middle age (1140 A.D).

The most important element in gothic architecture is the pointed arch. It allows them to built Higher then ever. The pointed arch is key in building vaulted celling.

Gothic architecture is also recognizable by the flying buttresses, it help disperses the weight carried by the pointed arches. Gothic architecture tried to emphasize verticality. Web vaulted, transept etc. Gothic architecture favors big windows often telling a story about Christianity. 

 Where as some historians attribute its name to the unique color of stone used to construct it, which almost gives the illusion that it was sculpted out of butter. Others believe that butter is the reason for the tower.

Apparently, the construction of the butter tower was financed by the indulgences collected by the Church from the wealthy citizens who ate dairy products during Lent - despite the formal interdiction of the Church! Sadly there is no official record of the reason why the tower is named the butter tower. Is it because of the color of the rock? No one really knows, but it is clear that the Cathedral of Rouen is made out of two distinct types of stones. One of them gives the building a sense of heaviness. While the other one makes the tower almost eatable. The dialogue between the stone could almost suggest a divided society. The local stone represented the mass. The butter tower represents the clergy, the precious ridicule. Those,  above the law.  The Rouen is clearly a heterogenic mix. It also suggest two different period of construction. At the end of the middle Ages, the facade of the cathedral had only one tower. The canons asked Guillaume Pontiff who had distinguished himself with the fore-gate of the booksellers and the top floor of the tower of Saint-Roman, to build a tower to the south. The work began in 1485. In 1496, Jacques Le Roux became prime contractor and completed the work in 1506.

During this work, a slight subsidence of ground made the building towards the south. Though slightly accentuated, this decline brought about a complete reconstruction of the central portal of the cathedral.

At the base of the tower was the parish church of St. Stephen the Great Church.

It has the same vertical arrangement as the Saint-Roman tower of nearly four centuries its eldest. The top floor is dazzlingly virtuosic. It passes the tower from the square plane to the octagonal plane. It is one of the finest examples of flamboyant Gothic art. It seems that the prime contractor wanted to finish the tower with a stone arrow.

Over the years, the tower has served as a source of artistic inspiration for all sorts of creative minds: the impressionist painter Claude Monet featured the tower prominently in his legendary series of paintings of the church, completed over the course of the 1890s.  The tower also served as the inspiration for the Tribune Tower in Chicago, a Gothic Revival skyscraper built between 1923 and 1925.  

 Work Cited:
Verdier, François. "Le Beurre et la couronne."  In Stiu 2001. page 1-34. Print.