Editing Sainte-Chapelle (section)

===Exterior===
<gallery mode="packed" heights="200px">
File:Paris Sainte Chapelle East View 02.JPG|The church from the east 
File:Paris Sainte-Chapelle 8.jpg|The south side. The upper walls are strengthened by buttresses and iron bars, allowing larger windows 
File:Sainte-Chapelle extérieur10.JPG|[[Louis IX]] holding a fragment of the true cross
File:Paris IMG 7720 (42312132294).jpg|South facade 
</gallery>
The contemporary visitor entering the courtyard of the Royal Palace would have been met by the sight of a grand ceremonial staircase (the ''Grands Degres'') to their right and the north flank and eastern apse of the Sainte-Chapelle to their left. The chapel exterior shows many of the typical characteristics of Rayonnant architecture—deep buttresses surmounted by pinnacles, [[crocket]]ted [[gable]]s around the roof-line and vast windows subdivided by [[bar tracery]]. The internal division into upper and lower chapels is clearly marked on the outside by a string-course, the lower walls pierced by smaller windows with a distinctive [[Reuleaux triangle|spherical triangle]] shape. Despite its decoration, the exterior is relatively simple and austere, devoid of flying buttresses or major sculpture and giving little hint of the richness within.

No designer-builder is named in the archives concerned with the construction. In the 19th century it was assumed (as with so many buildings of medieval Paris) to be the work of the master mason [[Pierre de Montreuil]], who worked on the remodelling of the [[Saint Denis Basilica|Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis]] and completed the south transept façade of [[Notre-Dame de Paris|Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris]].<ref>[[Robert Suckale]], ''Pierre de Montreuil'' in ''Les Bâtisseurs des cathédrales gothiques'', Strasbourg, 1989, pp.181–85</ref> Modern scholarship rejects this attribution in favour of Jean de Chelles or Thomas de Cormont, while [[Robert Branner]] saw in the design the hand of an unidentified master mason from [[Amiens]].{{sfn|Branner|1966}}

The Sainte-Chapelle's most obvious architectural precursors include the apsidal chapels of [[Amiens Cathedral]], which it resembles in its general form, and the Bishop's Chapel (c. 1180s) of [[Noyon Cathedral]], from which it borrowed the two-story design. a major influence on its overall design may have come from contemporary metalwork, particularly the precious shrines and reliquaries made by [[Mosan art#Metal work|Mosan]] goldsmiths.{{sfn|Branner|1966}}

Though the buttresses are substantial, they are too close to the vault to counter its side thrust. Metal elements such as iron rods or chains, able to support tension, were used to replace the flying buttresses of previous structures.