The Sainte Chapelle

The Sainte Chapelle Interior

The Sainte Chapelle is located in Paris, France and was built around 13^th Century by the order of Saint Louis the 9^th. The Sainte Chapelle is a good example of religious architecture and also gothic architecture. The Chapelle was also an example “to the gate to heaven” because of the amazing ambience it presents to the viewer. Another example of what the Sainte Chapelle gives is the strong connections of social life that is built around it. The church believes that sociality should work together and help one another during the Mid-ages. This idea was made so that society can become an organic society (dependent) instead of today’s mechanistic society (independent) to help the sanctification of men. Religion played an important part of the church’s form creation. The building is mostly made up of stain ornate glass with illustration of Christ story; this feature also allows light to first penetrate the glass and than bring in light in variant different colors. The reason why they focus on bring in light and color into the interior space is to give an impression of glory, to make humans feel the art or you can say holiness of the ambience and leaving them speechless.

The Sainte Chapelle Upper Chapel

The church consists of two chapels that were similar, but used differently. Usually folks like kings, queens, and military men or important people in the area used the Upper Chapel. Looking from the exterior the chapel portal is protected by a porch and pushed inwards where it form a tympanum. With in the tympanum there is an embedded sculpture of the Last Judgment where Christ is surround by his Angels. Inside the chapel there are four bays and seven-section choir and the walls are taller than the 15 stained glass windows (15.4 m height) that lets in light. It is made up of 1,113 pieces of glass. The stained glass is considered to be a master pieced of the 13^th century.

Heading to the other chapel, the Lower Chapel is just as beautiful as the upper but has less light since the employees used this Chapel. Sources indicate that this Chapel was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. You can see this being represented in the tympanum above the entrance to the outside. In the embedded you can see Mary hold her baby, Christ. The entrance is located under a porch and the ceiling resembles a cloister mostly common in Christian churches.

The Sainte Chapelle Bays

The nave has four bays with small columns supporting the side of the nave because the height (6.6 m) of the space was to small compared to the width (10.7 m). The vaults are decorated with golden stars show a divine symbols. It’s also note that the upper Chapel’s vault are decorated with fleur de lys (flower of the lily) to so the difference between the two Chapels in which the upper Chapel decoration mean royalty.

[1]http://architecture.relig.free.fr/chapelle_en.htm

[2]http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Cathedrals/Paris/Sainte-Chapelle.shtml

[3]Hanser, David A. Architecture of France. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006. Print.