Today’s Notre-Dame de Laon cathedral is the heir to an earlier edifice, built under the Carolingians and destroyed during the communal uprising of 1112. In the mid-XIIth century, a period of economic and urban expansion, work began on what will go down as one of the finest examples of so-called primitive Gothic… Indeed, the new building gives pride of place to light, with its four-level elevation (arcades, tribune, triforium, high windows) and its wide roses, a luminosity enhanced by the use of limestone for its construction. Completed around 1235, the cathedral was extensively restored in the 19th century and again in the 2000s.
Since 3/09/2021, the building has been home to a “Bleuet de la mémoire” (a work by artist Matt Seaward) donated by the Bishop of Durham (UK) in memory of the soldiers who fell in the First World War.
The cathedral is open daily from 8 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., and can be visited freely…