The last of these church pictures… The damaged state of the plaster ceiling, combined with Ellen’s vantage point on scaffold high up inside the sanctuary space, gives the kind of view of how the top of the church was built that you don’t normally see:
The dark area at the top of the photo is the underside of the roof, and we’re seeing the straight sloped rafters. The light area is the plaster ceiling hung off the roof trusses; the wood caught in the flash at the top is part of the ceiling framing where the plaster is missing. A gable-end wall is visible in the distance on the right.
The roof framing is straight lines and structural; the ceiling framing is curves and decorative. The roof is almost all wood, with only the exterior sheathing being a different material; the ceiling is mostly plaster, with just as much wood as was necessary to support it. The roof, under ordinary circumstances, would be invisible at the interior; the ceiling exists almost entirely for its visibility. Just about the only place that there’s an obvious relationship between the two is that the intersecting vaults of the ceiling align with the intersecting gables of the roof.
A view further to the right:
A view further to the left:
I’ll argue that form is following function here: the function of the ceiling is visual-aesthetic from the inside and acoustic, and to a smaller degree control of airflow within the space. The barrel-vaulted plaster ceiling works fine for that. The function of the roof is visual-aesthetic from the outside, structural for wind loading, and waterproofing, and a gable supported on trusses works fine for that. The fact that there is no particularly relation inherent between the two is only a problem if you let it bother you. Of course, in an actual gothic church (as opposed to this gothic revival church) the interior ceiling might have been masonry vaulting supporting a less-structural wood gable for waterproofing.
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