Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Strasbourg

The red sandstone makes all the difference. Most Gothic cathedrals are built in gray or cream limestone, but Strasbourg used Vosges sandstone, and the result is a building that blushes. In morning light, the facade is salmon pink. At sunset, it turns deep rust. At night, under floodlights, it glows amber. The west front is a screen of tracery so dense and intricate that Victor Hugo called it a giant piece of lace. Only the north spire was completed, rising 142 meters — for over two hundred years, from 1647 to 1874, it was the tallest building in the world. The south spire was never built, giving the cathedral an asymmetrical silhouette. Inside, the nave is tall and narrow, with stained glass windows dating from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. The rose window in the west front is a wheel of deep blues and reds. The astronomical clock in the south transept is a Renaissance marvel — a tower of painted dials, automata, and mechanical figures that puts on a show daily at half past noon, with apostles parading before a crowing rooster and a figure of Death striking the hours. The Pillar of Angels, a freestanding sculpted column nearby, shows the Last Judgment in tiers. Strasbourg has changed hands between France and Germany multiple times, and the cathedral carries both traditions — French Gothic structure, German sculptural sensibility.