Minecraft Architecture: The Final Tour of the Cathedral

    On May 10, 2014, I posted the progress I had made on the cathedral, a giant survival build that would take over thirty hours to complete.  I finished it in late June, and it was the most enjoyable project I've ever worked on in Minecraft.  Today, I'll be showing the cathedral in its entirety, including the interior.  I feel like this one deserves a good wrap up here on my blog.  Last June I put the project to rest, posting the final cathedral video on my YouTube channel.  Let's get right into it!  (At the bottom of this post, I have included the world save download so that you can explore the cathedral in person!)

    First of all, let me point out that the pictures inherently do not capture the full scale of the cathedral, but aside from that, I hope these screenshots show a good perspective.   I tried to capture many different angles.

The Idea Behind the Design

    Like I mentioned in my post last May, I've always wanted to design a cathedral in Minecraft, but was set back by the complexities it brought with it.  

    I've been playing Minecraft since early 2011, and it's definitely been a learning process.  I have worked on many different projects, from the original Moonlight Space Needle, Minecraft Cruise Liner, Lionel, Lionel Temple, and the Cali Project / Cali Estate, to Alimar, Sidka, and the Stoa of Doric.  As with anything that you practice at for a long time, you will improve significantly.

    To try and get ideas for how to even start this behemoth, I searched for cathedral floor plans.  This really helped.  With inspiration from the floor plans, I was able to come up with a 2D layout that I liked.  Countless cathedrals are shaped in a cross, so that's what I decided to go with.  When I first started trying to come up with a cathedral design inside Minecraft without a floor plan created, it did not turn out well.  My prototypes just did not look the way I wanted them to.  I can't emphasize enough the importance of planning out your design before you start building.  It will save you much headache in the long run.

    I originally started building the cathedral with only the front two spires, but after adding the third one in the back, I decided to keep it.  It gives it much more character.

    The cathedral features a thick foundation, wooden framing, three spires, a nave, an apse in the back, three rose windows, a pulpit, and rows of seats.  We'll get to some of those in more detail.

The Beginning Stages...

    Before we dive into the details of the build itself, let's take a look at some pictures I took as I was building it.  In my opinion, these give a good perspective on how the build came together over time, starting at the foundation, and the wood framing, to the completion of the roof and walls.

Looking at the Details...

    The foundation of the build is very sturdy and was built so that all sides of the cathedral are easily accessible.  If I wanted to do maintenance on the roof or taller sides, I'd have to use scaffolding or ladders.  The sides of the foundation are reinforced with acacia wood pillars that have cobblestone around them.

    The wood framing was the second stage of building the cathedral.  This was probably the most difficult aspect of the build.  Remember that this was constructed in survival mode, so flying around was not an option.  Making scaffolding and ladders was the least of my worries.  I had to cut down about 200 spruce trees to get enough logs for the framing.

    The outside walls are very ornate.  These walls are decorated with wooden archways and stone reinforcement near the bottom.  The reinforcement was purely made for visual appeal, since Minecraft does not simulate the effects of stress and gravity on materials (except sand and gravel).  Besides, adding depth to walls in Minecraft is often a good move to make and is a great way to bring your build to life.

    The three spires are the most iconic aspect of the cathedral.  There are two identical ones in the front and a taller one in the back.  These were extremely fun to build!

    If you look closely, you can see that as the spires get taller, the wood framing moves in one block.  Doing this creates a nice spire look.  Instead of making them one width all the way to the top, the towers become tighter.

    According to Google, "The nave is the central part of a church building, intended to accommodate most of the congregation."  It's a cathedral, so this build definitely has one, with plenty of seats to accommodate the (non-existent) congregation.

    Like almost every cathedral, the transept creates the shape of the cross.  It's directly perpendicular to the nave and is the widest part of the build.  This is what a transept looks like from a floor plan.  (Seen as the shaded area.)  In my cathedral, the transept supports the third tower.

"Transept1" by User:Lusitana - This file was derived from: Transept.png. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    The build also includes an apse in the back.  This is usually separated from the rest of the church by the transept in most cathedrals.  An apse is the place where an altar or clergy would sit.  The back wall is mostly made out of stained glass and three colored cruciforms.  I could have left out the wood pillars separating the glass, but I think it gives it more structure.  The apse also includes the pulpit in the center.

    There really isn't a great technique for making small rose windows in Minecraft.  The glass panes are way too bright for that kind of window in my opinion, and using the regular glass blocks makes everything much more bulky.  I decided to go with the glass blocks, but I wanted the rose windows to have the classic rose window shape from both the inside and outside.  Because of this, these windows are three blocks thick.

    The trick of getting a cool shape is in the use of stair blocks.  Placing them upside down allows you to create something similar to a rose window.  It seems to trick the eyes in thinking that it's all one shape and one block thick.  But in reality, the stair blocks make it thicker, and part of the glass is actually covered up by the stairs.  (There are really a total of 21 glass blocks that make up a 5x5 area without the corners.)  When looking at the windows farther away or from the inside, you'll see a rough rose window!

    This picture below seems to show the rose window at its best.  I've noticed that they are much more distinct from the inside.  As for the colors, I mixed in mostly cool ones, a color scheme I stuck to throughout the cathedral, until I was happy with the way it looked.  I wound up adding a few, warm red glass blocks in there too.

The Cathedral at Night

    One of the most important parts of a build in Minecraft is the lighting.  In survival, it's important that you balance the lighting so that it retains the atmosphere you want, but also keeps away monsters from spawning in the dark places!

    For me, I love to use lighting to outline parts of the build.  By using lights, I can make certain areas I want stand out.  The cathedral's lighting scheme is based on the idea of outlining the roof and the spires.  In my opinion, it's one of the most important aspects of the cathedral.

    As for using blazing torches in real life to light up wooden roofs, that's obviously a no-no, but in Minecraft, you don't have to worry about torches setting objects on fire or having to relight them, so it's a win-win!

    That's all I have to show for my cathedral!  Like I've said before, it was the most enjoyable project that I've worked on in Minecraft and was very satisfying to finally finish.  Here's to the next one!

Download the cathedral to explore it yourself here:
Dropbox - Barbarossa Cathedral.zip

Cathedral Stats

   The cathedral stands at almost 70 blocks tall at its highest point, reaching above the normal Minecraft clouds.  Over 1,400 spruce wood logs were used to complete the framing, and thousands of stone blocks had to be mined by hand and smelted.  Sand from nearby lakes and oceans was collected and smelted to create the hundreds of pieces worth of glass.  Over thirty hours of work (confirmed by the in-game stats) was logged to construct the cathedral and complete the inside.

Download the cathedral world save to explore it yourself!

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References:

>> My Minecraft Architecture Series

>> Cathedrals