the supports were removed in 1878 and the building resisted, it meant that the original Gothic balance system had been restored. Madrazo's successors, Demetrio de los Ríos and Juan Bautista Lázaro, kept removing alien elements, like the plateresque gable in the Western façade, and replacing them with Neo-Gothic designs. The stained glass windows, that had been dismantled and stored for years, were restored after 1895. Finally, the cathedral was reopened in 1901, after one of the most complex and extensive restoration projects in nineteenth-century Europe. Smaller restoration works were undertaken during the twentieth century. A fire caused by lightning consumed the rooftop on May 27, 1966, but the structure suffered no serious damage (thanks, partly, to the decision of not using too much water to put out the blaze). A general project to restore the stained glass started in 2009. General characteristics Generalities of Gothic architecture In Gothic architecture, the use of pointed arches (or ogival arches) and the rib vault is generalized, thus concentrating the pressure on certain points and not on the entire wall, which allows for the making of slender cathedrals (on the one hand, the arch can be lengthened without expanding its width as it was in the Romanesque period which reduces pressure by making lighter roofs, allowing the walls to be opened.) The Romanesque tribune disappears and the lateral thrusts that it resolves are sent to the flying buttresses, arches that transmit the thrust of the roof to the exterior buttresses, which were previously topped with pinnacles. The large stained-glass windows are a representation of Gothic interest in connecting with the people. For example, the sensation of verticality corresponds to the idea of the heavenly Jerusalem, in comparison to the sensation of hospitality and security for the faithful in the Romanesque. This type of construction used to have an odd number of naves (three or five) supported by quadripartite, sexpartite, tercelet, fan, or star rib vault. The main façade is generally structures in three flared openings, consisting of archivolts, jambs, and framed in a gable, a gallery of Old Testament kings, a large rose window (in the central nave), an andito (space through which the façade is accessed to perform possible reforms), and by two towers of different characteristics (roofed or not with an arrow-shaped pinnacle). Architectural plan The plan is almost a replica of the Reims Cathedral, although in a somewhat smaller format. It