Summer 2005

Research Profile:
Re-examining the Flying Butress
Andrew Tallon Art History & Archeology

" The flying buttress has been represented as the most visible sign of the startling developments in building technology that took place in twelfth-century France. Generations of scholars have puzzled over the invention and evolution of this device. Yet the story of the flying buttress remains elusive," writes Andrew Tallon, PhD Candidate in Art History and Archaeology. Using the latest techniques in structural modeling he proposes to undertake a new study of the flying buttress, especially those critical first experiments of Gothic style. Until recently it was thought that Notre Dame of Paris exemplified the first evidence of this structure, but it may be that it was used earlier in France. It is time for a new study, says Tallon. Encoded in the geometry of each flying buttress is the skill of its builder; each represents a specific solution to the problem of support in a new era of great height and refined construction. This structural know-how, which is unavailable to the naked eye, and for which we possess no literary evidence, can be accessed by new technology. Whereas in the past, scaffolding would have been necessary to acquire measurements, new three-dimensional modeling software based on triangulation now allows this information to be obtained from digital photographs. Geometrical models assembled from these photos can then be tested structurally and compared using new computer-based limit analysis currently in development at MIT by John Ochsendorf, with whom Tallon and Professor Stephen Murray are collaborating.



Tallon received the BA from Princeton in 1991 Summa Cum Laude, the MA in 1992 from the University of Paris, Sorbonne, and plans to complete his Columbia PhD in 2007. He received a Kress Travel Fellowship, Georges Lurcy Fellowship, a Katherine Langwill Fellowship, a Columbia Teaching Fellowship, and was a Columbia Fellow of the Faculty. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Tallon was also the Field Director for a six-week Columbia University Program in Romanesque Architecture taught by Professor Murray in the Bourbonnais region of France.