Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction

By David Macaulay

“Marvelous . . . Recreates the building of a French Gothic cathedral from [hewing] half a forest to [placing] the last sheet of lead on the spire” (Time).
 
A Caldecott Honor Book
One of the New York Times’s Best Illustrated Books of the Year
 
From the author of The Way Things Work, whose books have won numerous awards and sold millions of copies—and delighted readers young and old alike—this is a lively, detailed, and lavishly illustrated account of the building of a cathedral, and the community around it, through many decades.
 
Caldecott Medal winner David Macaulay’s imaginary Cathedral of Chutreaux remains a touchstone for budding architects as well as those interested in medieval history. Journey back to a long-ago world and visit the fictional people of twelfth-, thirteenth-, and fourteenth-century Europe whose dreams, like Cathedral, stand the test of time.
 
“Fascinating detail.” —The New York Times
 
“David Macaulay is nothing less than America’s Explainer-in-Chief.” —Providence Journal
 
This title has been selected as a Common Core text exemplar (Grades 6–8, Informational Texts: Science, Mathematics, and Technical Studies)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 26, 1981
• ISBN: 9780547348223

David Macaulay

David Macaulay is an award-winning author and illustrator whose books have sold millions of copies in the United States alone, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. Macaulay has garnered numerous awards including the Caldecott Medal and Honor Awards, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Christopher Award, an American Institute of Architects Medal, and the Washington Post–Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award. In 2006, he was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, given “to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations.” Superb design, magnificent illustrations, and clearly presented information distinguish all of his books. David Macaulay lives with his family in Vermont.

Book preview

Text and illustration © 1973, 2010, and © renewed 2002 by David Macaulay

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file.

ISBN 918-0-544-10000-8

eISBN 978-0-547-34822-3

v1.0616

[Image]

Preface

Cathedral had been in print for more than thirty-five years and Castle for more than thirty when the vigilant people at HMH broached the subject of refreshing those old chestnuts. The most obvious way of breathing new life into the books was to add color to the more staid and I suppose slightly old-fashioned pen-and-ink drawings. I considered the proposal, but it felt wrong to layer color over cross-hatching, no matter how subtle the colors might be. Building up layers of line is what you do when you don’t have color to work with. And in 1973, when Cathedral was published, black and white was the only realistic way of producing such a large book by an unknown author/illustrator. Although I declined the colorization option, the possibility of seeing those two imposing structures and their builders in full color was just too intriguing. Almost overnight, a dubious proposition became an irresistible opportunity.

A year and a half later, I was finished with both books. More than half the illustrations in Castle display little or no resemblance to their predecessors. All of Cathedral’s illustrations had been reworked from scratch and everything was now in color.

In the original versions, cross sections were a useful shorthand when I had not yet worked out details I didn’t quite understand. As soon as I started work, I realized just how many cross sections I had included and replaced them with more fully realized

Reviews for Cathedral

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting! I do like Macaulay - he does a gorgeous job (as usual) of describing the structure of the cathedral from the concept and the foundations up to the arches of the roof, the spires, and the stained glass windows. And the illustrations are full of rich little bits - not just what the text is describing, but the birds in the roof, the way the houses change over the years, all the little details. Worth reading, worth rereading and spending some time examining each illustration in detail.

[momma2_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We really enjoy these books and the videos that are based on them as well. Even though the videos are older and aren't fabulous quality they are interesting stories that combine real footage of cathedrals with a fictional story. These are a wonderful way to look at history and math.

[dukefan86 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Facinatingly detailed illustrations of a cathedral in different phases of development and construction! The text was informative, but a little dry at times.

[paul_s-289480 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Same series as "City" and "Castle", the shortest one and therefore most abridged. The perspective is a bit out on the sketches on this one.