King's College Chapel, Cambridge: 'A gravity-defying hall of light'

In the first of seven films celebrating the best British buildings, Andrew Dickson visits King's College Chapel in Cambridge, a powerful example of gothic architecture -- covered in Tudor propaganda and topped by the world's largest fan-vault ceiling

[@donallen3240]

This building is an amazing feat of engineering considering the years it was built. It’s a great place to sit down in a pew or chair and think of the people who walked its grounds.

[@tony8074]

I was there and saw the explanation of how it works. It’s the same form as a inverted water droplet. Absolutely fascinating how is is all locked together.

[@ineedamirroroferised2844]

If my ears didn't pop and hurt on the plane I would have visited Cambridge, especially KCC, at least twice by now. I've been an Anglophile for 30 years.

[@meekthegreek1623]

Wow, Wow, Wow, Phenomenal..would 💓 to visit myself..ironically I was in Cambridge in "73, as a teenager, but never heard of this..I just remember the college and having tea with Welsh rabbit.🤣

[@ds1868]

I disagree with Andrew Dickson with regard to the Rubens. It provides a stunning focus to the Altar space, and its subject is entirely appropriate for a Christian building. We need to move on from the stale controversies and appreciate not only the tremendous gift it represents to the College, but also acknowledge the magnificence of this work of art in its own right.

[@AntPDC]

Dickson never explains why he and others think it shouldn't be there.

[@worldnotworld]

There's no doubt that the Rubens in a tremendous gift to the College, but the controversy surrounding its presence in the chapel is not stale. Tremendous, irreparable alterations were made to the chapel to accommodate it. The controversy, and in my view drastic mistake, of that decision must be acknowledged and remembered.

[@sofanr3]

King's chapel, another thing you really can't talk about - at least not if you have been there

[@Toledo1940]

The buttresses on the exterior are not "flying buttresses."

[@AntPDC]

+ Toledo Exactly - I mean c'mon Dickson, if you can't get the basics right you aren't qualified to make such programmes.

[@adamjolley62]

Peterborough Cathedral is so beautiful soke of peterborough peterboroughshire

[@harshaweeraratne5806]

can not hear.

[@maciekczumaj7147]

I was there

[@DCI-Frank-Burnside]

I saw a bloke trying to flog copies of Socialist Worker outside King's College. Good luck there mate, half the hooray Henrys and Henriettas going in and out of that building think that feudalism should be reinstated.

[@marvinc999]

Woody Hutton - "think that feudalism should be reinstated." What makes you think that it ever went away ? Oh yes, I forgot: 'Democracy'.............................

[@will8805]

Just so you know, there was a Soviet flag hung in the King’s bar until 2018 and it’s considered the most left wing Cambridge college.

[@golgumbazguide...4113]

Explore Golgumbaz Deccan india

[@Jenny-ud1fe]

Is it located in Aberdeen ? Thank you .

[@grassytramtracks]

It's in the title that it's in Cambridge

[@hummingpylon]

The forest is a place of god, the chapel is a monument to arrogance, a predecessor to modern shopping malls.

[@sofanr3]

Have you been inside?

[@bentownsend4017]

To be fair I agree with ennuied here. The chapel is lovely, and the timescale is humbling but our best attempts at grandeur don't come close to nature's.

[@nanashi7779]

@@bentownsend4017 Do you think that they attempt to? Not sarcastic I'm genuinely interested

[@bentownsend4017]

I agree the building is one of the prettiest buildings around but would rank natural environments as more beautiful. They may not have built it and thought that it is prettier than a huge mountain, or they might have done, idk, I'm just agreeing partially with the comment

[@paulscott6116]

pure kak