The Portal Stones

Chapter House, Santa Maria de Ovila

Cistercian Architecture in the 12th century.

The Portals stones reassembled horizontally, to retrieve the dimensions of the arch radius span and height. From the portal layout, we could calculate the pier settings and interior vault dimensions

From a maze of stones, stored on pallet's in two big barns, we sorted stones to location in the structure.

We began with locating the neighboring stones.

Here are the side portal arches emerging. They would be very important to determine the span of the portal arches.

With templates, we filled in the missing oculus and the portal height emerged. We began now, to set the portal arch stones

The portal arch stones, we set on wooden benches, to extrude the third dimension. Finding the neighboring stones for the right location, was a challenge. Sometimes chisel marks and carving variations helped us to find the correct stones.

Some mistakes and corrections during construction 900 years ago, left further signs of the stones position in the layout

All dimensions are dividable by three and reflect the holy trinity,as a vital influence in many aspects of medieval live.

Engineering was still based on geometry, and probably proportions where linked to acoustic studies. This knowledge has been lost for centuries.