The other important achievement of this period is the cathedral of Sens, the first large-
scale Gothic space. Detailed analysis of the north wall of the ambulatory at Sens permits
us to observe many small changes in the design made during construction, all of them
“responses” to Saint-Denis. Sens differs most from Saint-Denis in the large size and
ambitious scale of its volumes. The visual logic of the east end of Saint-Denis is explored
in varying degrees in other buildings started in the decade 1145–55, such as the
cathedrals of Senlis and Noyon, and the new chevet of the abbey church of Saint-
Germain-des-Prés in Paris.
The next decade is characterized by experiments in both size and scale, as well as
explorations in the creation and application of the system of visual logic that Bony terms
the “Gothic grid.” Chief among the surviving buildings are the cathedrals of Paris and
Laon, four-story elevations that achieve both real and apparent height, respectively.
Equally important were the two cathedrals of Cambrai and Arras, now destroyed, massive
buildings in which many novel effects of design were explored. The decade also
witnessed an increase in the adaptation of Romanesque structural features and solutions
to the Gothic vocabulary.
Advanced thinking in the decade ca. 1165–75 is characterized by daring experiments
in voiding the wall with
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 766