Reconstruction of the Vault in the Tower of St. Mary’s Church in Gdańsk in Light of Research on the Geometry of Vaults

ABSTRACT

The paper presents the reconstruction of the vault in the tower of the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Gdańsk. The issue was discussed in the context of research on the geometry of Gothic vaults. The research problem was to determine the spatial structure of the vault on the basis of small remnants and in the absence of unambiguous documentation. Historical and bibliographic sources as well as the technical documentation were analyzed. On this basis, several models of virtual vaults with various geometries were developed. Theoretical models were compared with the remnants of the vault (presented in the form of laser scanning documentation) to find the best solution. This allowed to confirm the validity of the approach based on strict reference to traces as opposed to prioritising idealised theoretical models. Moreover, the research on the geometry of Gothic vaults presented in this paper shows the necessity of continuous studies in this field, which may be used in conservation works.

KEYWORDS:

• Gdańsk
• geometry
• Gothic
• reconstruction
• vaults

Acknowledgments

1. The authors give thanks to the author of the vault reconstruction project, Tomasz Celewicz, for the information and shared materials used in the preparation of the article

2. A special thanks is also expressed to Paweł Dąbrowski from the Gdynia Maritime University for providing laser scans of the tower taken with the Trimble TX8 device in 2017

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).