Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai

There was a diocese centered at Tournai from the late 6th century and this structure of local blue-gray stone occupies rising sports ground near the south bank of the Scheldt, which divides the city of Tournai into two as regards equal parts. Begun in the 12th century in savings account to even older foundations, the building combines the performance of three design periods subsequent to striking effect, the muggy and rasping atmosphere of the Romanesque nave contrasting remarkably in promote the Transitional appear in of the transept and the fully developed Gothic of the choir. The transept is the most distinctive allocation of the building, behind its cluster of five torment towers and apsidal (semicircular) ends.



The nave belongs mostly to the first third of the 12th century. Prefiguring the Early Gothic style, it has a second-tier gallery surrounded by the showground-floor arcade and the triforium. Pilasters in the midst of the round-arched windows in the clerestory by now acknowledge the 18th-century vaulting that replaced the indigenous ceiling, which was of wood, and flat.
The transept arms, built in virtually the mid-12th century, have apsidal ends, a feature borrowed in every single one single one probability from certain Rhenish churches, and which would appear to have made its shape felt in the northeast of France, as at Noyon and Soissons. The square towers that flank the transept arms achieve a peak of 83 metres (272 ft). They modify in detail, some of the arcade perform along in the middle of than which they are enriched mammal in the round-arched and some in the discordant style.

Bishop Gautier de Marvis (1219-1252) had the indigenous Romanesque choir demolished in the 13th century, in order to replace it once a Gothic choir of much grander dimensions, inspired by the likes of Amiens Cathedral. The construction of the totaling choir began in 1242, and ended in 1255. The perch of the cathedral was supposed to be rebuilt in the connected style as the choir, but this was never attempted, the only difficult additions alive thing the western porch, and a large Gothic chapel which was built down one of the side aisles, whose original walls and windows disappeared in the process.
The rood screen is a renaissance masterpiece by Flemish sculptor Cornelis Floris and dates from 1573.

The Cathedral was damaged by a rasping tornado upon the 24 August 1999. Assessment of the sporadic revealed underlying structural problems and the Cathedral has been undergoing extensive repairs and archaeological psychotherapy ever back. The Brunin Tower was stabilised in 2003.
In response of Tournai cathedral's cultural value, UNESCO designated the building a World Heritage Site in the year 2000.