Spire spires were an astounding architectural innovation, beginning with the early fourteenth-century spire at Freiburg Minster, in which the pierced stonework was held together by iron cramps. The openwork spire, according to Robert Bork, represents a "radical but logical extension of the Gothic tendency towards skeletal structure." The organic skeleton of Antoni Gaudi's phenomenal spires at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona represent an outgrowth of this Gothic tendency. Designed and begun by Gaudi in 1884, they were not completed until the 20th century. In England, "spire" immediately brings to mind Salisbury Cathedral. Its 403-foot (123-m) spire, built between 1320 and 1380,
Spire light Spire light Spire light (Fr. "lucarne"), the term given to the windows in a spire which are found in all periods of English Gothic architecture, and in French spires form a very important feature in the composition. There is an early example in the spire of the cathedral at Oxford; they are not glazed, and have occasionally, if of large size, transoms to strengthen the mullions. The term lucarne is used in France to mean "dormer window". They take many different forms which distinguishes the form of small roof above the window. "à chevalet" (straight lucarne), lucarne avec saillie and