NZ Visual Diary - entry 453

light & shadow - St Patrick’s Cathedral | Auckland

I am an easy mark for any scene bathed in dappled light. So, too, for Gothic Revival church architecture.

To have found, while on an urban walk with my grandson, the St Patrick’s Cathedral awash with light & shadow from late afternoon illumination was a splendid circumstance. What I could not have expected was to also find a holographic-like effect on the church’s gabled roof.

Let’s unpack the visual effect. The roof line is bedecked with six gabled dormer windows. I believe the architectural term for the window on this Gothic Revival building is a lucarne. A properly trained architectural historian will prove me wrong, again.

Over the years hard rains have weathered the roof tiles unevenly in perfectly vertical trails downward from either edge of each diminutive window. As a consequence, the sharply angled light of late afternoon may create the ephemeral effect of pairs of the columns — faux pilasters— superimposed underneath each of the six gabled dormer windows, as illustrated in today’s image.

The overall visual effect was intoxicating.