Strasbourg Cathedral: Exterior

We were sure we'd visited the great re/brown/pinkish cathedral before, and subsequent archival research confirmed that we were there, with the girls, on August 4, 1989, during our first European Family Vacation. This was long before our current appreciation of such buildings, but we were taken with it anyway. Strasbourg's cathedral is a fine Rayonnant, built entirely in the Middle Ages, with some Romanesque vestiges, and a great (if modern) astronomical clock. Its most impressive feature, I think, is its exterior sculptural program: fine high and later Medieval sculpture, miraculously well-preserved considering all the trouble this church has seen...the wars of religion, its Protestant era, Louis XIV's returning it to the Catholics, the Revolution, when it became a Temple of Reason, and, finally, WWII, when Hitler wanted to turn it into a monument to the unknown German soldier, and subsequent Allied bombs. Some of it is protected now in the museum, but the replacements are quite impressive.

West facade; they were going to do two towers, but,

for all the usual reasons, never got around to it; plus,

after the first several hundred years, people came to

like the asymmetry (Google photo); personally, I think

they should follow what their compatriots are doing in

Saint-Denis...

Usual helpful model

Only from the square on the south side can you see the full extent

West facade, north door

Main central door

Central tympanum detail, various martyrs

More archivolt detail

South door

Now on the south side, appreciating the buttresses

Exterior clock on the south transept

The great tower

Famous synagogue sculpture (sad because the
synagogue has been replaced)

The Foolish Virgins always look so happy...

Back on the west side, a nice, if smallish, Judgement,
with kings, popes, and all the rest lined up to enter the
Jaws of Hell

Central tympanum: Passion

Last Supper

Medieval lap-tops were quite large

Famous ornament by the door; replicas available in
the excellent gift shoppe