The choir of Beauvais Cathedral collapsed in 1284.
Beauvais was designed to surpass the height of rival French Gothic cathedrals. Construction of the present cathedral began in 1225, and its choir was completed in 1272. The vaults reached approximately 47.5 metres, making them higher than the 42.3-metre nave vaults at Amiens.
That extreme height placed enormous demands on the stone vaults, piers and buttresses. In 1284, only about twelve years after the choir’s completion, part of the vaulting failed. The choir was rebuilt with additional columns and a modified vaulting arrangement, but the collapse exposed the structural limits of Gothic builders’ pursuit of vertical grandeur.
Beauvais’s story did not end with the disaster. Its transept was eventually completed in 1548, and a huge tower was finished in 1569. That tower collapsed, along with parts of the crossing, in 1573. Work on the nave was restarted in 1600 but stopped after only one bay, leaving Beauvais famously incomplete. This is why its choir can hold the height record while Amiens remains the standard answer for the highest nave of a completed French Gothic cathedral.