The purpose of the flying buttress was to help
support them from the outside. If there were no flying buttress, then the walls would
begin to lean outwards from the pressure of the vaults and the cathedral would eventually
collapse.
To build the flying buttress, it was first necessary to construct
temporary wooden frames which are called centering. The centering would support the weight
of the stones and help maintain the shape of the arch until the mortar was dry. The
centering were first built on the ground by the carpenters. Once that was done, they would
be hoisted into place and fastened to the piers at the end of one buttress and at the
other. These acted as temporary flying buttresses until the actual stone arch was
complete.
Bibliography:
1. Maculay, David. Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction, Boston, Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1973
2. Perdrizet, Marie-Pierre, and Eddy Krahenbuhl. People of the Past: The Cathedral
Builders. Brookfield, The Millbrook Press, Inc. 1990
3. Watson, Percy. Building the Medival Cathedral, Minneapolis, Lerner Publications
Company, 1976
Photographs of the Washington National Cathedral are provided by Alex Lee and his father.
