Lausanne

The Cathedral of Lausanne

Both impressive and fragile, the Cathedral of the French-speaking city of Lausanne is commonly described as Switzerland's finest and most representative example of Gothic architecture. Without this magnificent building the city's skyline would undoubtedly be completely different. With timeless elegance, the Cathedral has watched over the city since the Middle Ages and, every year, this unique landmark attracts more than 300'000 visitors. The Cathedral is nowadays a place of worship and an impressive witness of the past. It is also regularly used for classical concerts and audiences enjoy both the hushed and dignified atmosphere of the place and the presence of its famous and impressive organ.

Covered wooden stairs lead up to the Cathedral from Place de La Palud, the most typical square of Lausanne. A walk around the well-proportioned exterior walls give a first impression of what an architectural jewel the building is, with its most distinctive feature, a giant Gothic stained glass rose, overlooking the lake on its south façade.

The building was consecrated in 1275 as a place of Catholic worship but its initial structure remains unfinished to this day. For centuries a large crowd of pilgrims flocked to its doors and came to kneel in front of a golden and reputedly miraculous statue of the Virgin that gave her name to Notre Dame de Lausanne.

In 1536, the Reformation, together with the Bernese conquest, brought major alterations to the Cathedral's interior. When it became protestant the Cathedral lost its screens and altars, it was stripped from its statues and paintings, and the Golden Virgin was melted into coins. Its treasure, a unique collection of liturgical vestments and tapestries, was taken over to Berne, where it is kept to this day. It is an interesting irony that Lausanne owes the survival and conservation of its treasure to this conquest.

The main entrance of the Cathedral is situated on the west façade and after having passed the Montfalcon portal (thus named after a sixteenth-century bishop) the visitor discovers an impressive interior made of large vaulted galleries and dizzying lines. On the far left the visitor can see the (rather surprisingly small) tomb of the much- celebrated medieval knight Otto de Grandson. On both sides the Cathedral is decorated with stained glass windows, the most important of them being the breathtaking thirteenth-century rose, the glowing colours of which are accentuated by the cool greyness of the interior walls.

The geometrical structure of the rose was often used in medieval times to represent the different constituents of the Universe. This structure is not an invention of Gothic architects but an earlier pattern. Medieval men liked to use this pattern to illustrate complex cosmological systems. The rose represents the medieval worldview as organised around a central piece. The central piece of the Lausanne Rose was lost and replaced by a later one. The fours seasons and elements, the twelve months and signs of the zodiac together with the winds and the four rivers of paradise are all represented in this circular structure.

But the Cathedral is also the site for the oldest, most authentic and distinctive tradition in the city. Like the vast majority of medieval towns, Lausanne suffered from a series of devastating fires. In medieval Lausanne, every night from 10pm to 2am, nightwatches were posted on the doors of the wall surrounding the town. Every hour they would call out to each other, ensuring that there were no fires and that no enemy was approaching. The Cathedral nightwatch, then the most important of all the town's nightwatches, is nowadays the last in Europe and probably in the world. Every night he walks up the 153 stairs to the top of the tower from where, every hour, he calls out to the four points of the compass: "C'est le guet; il a sonné l'heure" ('This is the nightwatch; the hour has struck') often startling sweethearts sitting on the benches around the cathedral, passers-by and drunken students stumbling home from the surrounding bars, his sonorous voice assuring them that all is well.

On a clear day, the southwest tower of the Cathedral offers a magnificent view over the city, the Alps and Lake Geneva. The beauty and peace of one of the most beautiful natural sceneries of Europe together with the unique spiritual energy of the place make Notre Dame de Lausanne one of the highlights of a visit to French-speaking Switzerland.