2/ Loan Cathedral

2/ Laon Cathedral - France.

The first piece of architecture that stood out to me was the colour of the stone. Most cathedrals have white or off white coloured stone which leads me to my first point of how the architecture can help create sacred space.

To me the colour white portrays purity, I think in this case the colour of the stone omits a sense of remembering that your slate is clean after repenting in the cathedral. Although if it was black, you would get a feeling of darkness and evil and guilt.

There is a gate in the cathedral which reminds me of the tabernacle. It separates the holy place with the most holy place. Only the high priests can go in there. So inside the cathedral you get an image of the two separate worlds of the cosmos and the chaos.

The height of the cathedral also adds to finding sacred space. It acts as an axis mundi, something reaching out towards the chaos. The whole cathedral is huge, It's so much bigger than we are which could be a reflection of how big God is compared to us.

The interior/exterior of the cathedral looks like a cross from a birds eye view, it has two wings and a long corridor which make up the cross. It has a West tower and a Southwest tower.

The profane objects in the cathedral are: the pews, the floor, the gate and the stain glass window. Even though the window may be telling a religious story the window itself is not sacred.