Notre-Dame de Paris (Elevation) Paris, France — completed 1345 Built between 1163 and 1345, Notre-Dame’s west façade unfolds a harmonic, tripartite composition in which the vertical rhythm of buttresses and towers answers the horizontal registers of the portals, the Gallery of Kings, and the rose window. The two square towers, completed in 1240 and 1250 respectively, rise to 69 metres and were originally intended to carry spires that were never built. This drawing renders the façade’s exact balance of square and circle — a geometry Le Corbusier read as an expression of rational and spiritual order.