Gothic architecture

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See also Gothic art.

Gothic architecture is a style of European architecture, particularly associated with cathedrals and other churches, beginning in 12^th century France and in use during the high and late medieval period. It was succeeded by Renaissance architecture beginning in Florence in the 15^th century. A series of Gothic revivals began in mid-18^th century England, triumphed in 19^th century Europe and continued, largely for ecclesiastical and university structures, into the 20^th century. The term Gothic was originally intended as a stylistic insult by Reformation-era critics, then evolved into a neutral distinguisher between Northern European Architecture from Southern European Romanesque Architecture; the term has since matured into a simple description of style.

1 Origin
2 The Term "Gothic"
3 Characteristics
4 Brick Gothic
5 Sequence of Gothic Styles: France
6 Sequence of Gothic styles: England
7 Secular Gothic Architecture in England
8 Gothic revival
9 Gothic in the 20th Century
10 List of notable Gothic structures
11 Some famous Neo-Gothic structures
12 Further reading
13 See also

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Origin

The style originated at the abbey church of Saint-Denis in Saint-Denis, near Paris, where it exemplified the vision of Abbot Suger. Suger wanted to create a physical representation of the Heavenly Jerusalem, a building of a high degree of linearity that was suffused with light and color. The façade was actually designed by Suger, whereas the Gothic nave was added some hundred years later. He designed the façade of Saint-Denis to be an echo of the Roman Arch of Constantine with its three-part division. This division is also frequently found in the Romanesque style. The eastern "rose" window, which is credited to him as well, is a re-imagining of the Christian "circle-square" iconography. The first truly Gothic construction was the choir of the church, consecrated in 1144. With its thin columns, stained-glass windows, and a sense of verticality with an ethereal look, the choir of Saint-Denis established the elements that would later be elaborated upon during the Gothic period. This style was adopted first in northern France and by the English, and spread throughout France, the Low Countries and parts of Germany and also to Spain and northern Italy.

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The Term "Gothic"

Gothic architecture has nothing to do with the historical Goths. It was a pejorative term that came to be used as early as the 1530s to describe culture that was considered rude and barbaric. François Rabelais imagines an inscription over the door of his Utopian Abbey of Thélème, "Here enter no hypocrites, bigots..." slipping in a slighting reference to "Gotz" (rendered as "Huns" in Thomas Urquhart's English translation) and "Ostrogotz." In English 17^th century usage, "Goth" was an equivalent of "vandal," a savage despoiler with a Germanic heritage and so came to be applied to the architectural styles of northern Europe before the revival of classical types of architecture. "There can be no doubt that the term 'Gothic' as applied to pointed styles of ecclesiastical architecture was used at first contemptuously, and in derision, by those who were ambitious to imitate and revive the Grecian orders of architecture, after the revival of classical literature. Authorities such as Christopher Wren lent their aid in deprecating the old mediæval style, which they termed Gothic, as synonymous with every thing that was barbarous and rude.", according to a correspondent in Notes and Queries No. 9. December 29, 1849.

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Characteristics

The style emphasizes verticality and features almost skeletal stone structures with great expanses of glass, sharply pointed spires, cluster columns, flying buttresses, ribbed vaults, pointed arches using the ogive shape, and inventive sculptural detail. These features are all the consequence of a focus on large stained-glass windows that allowed more light to enter than was possible with older styles. To achieve this "light" style, flying buttresses were used as a means of support to enable higher ceilings and slender columns. Many of these features had already appeared, for example in Durham Cathedral, whose construction started in 1093.

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Gothic cathedrals could be highly decorated with statues on the outside and painting on the inside. Both usually told Biblical stories, emphasizing visual typological allegories between Old Testament prophecy and the New Testament.

Important Gothic churches could also be severely simple. At the Basilica of Mary Magdalene in Saint-Maximin, Provence (illustration, right), the local traditions of the sober, massive, Romanesque architecture were still strong. The basilica, begun in the 13^th century under the patronage of Charles of Anjou, was laid out on an ambitious scale (it was never completed all the way to the western entrance front) to accommodate pilgrims that came to venerate relics. Building in the Gothic style continued at the basilica until 1532.

In Gothic architecture new technology stands behind the new building style. The Gothic cathedral was supposed to be a microcosm representing the world, and each architectural concept, mainly the loftiness and huge dimensions of the structure, were intended to pass a theological message: the great glory of God versus the smallness and insignificance of the mortal being.

The defining feature of Gothic Architecture is the pointed or ogive arch.

This characteristic has two origins and both probably came to bear simultaneously.

1. Arches of this shape were employed by Islamic Architects before they were introduced to Western Europe and the idea may have been imported.

2. Arches of this shape can be adapted to fit any space. A space that has a square plan can be vaulted on either side by semi-circular arcs or ribs, as employed in Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque or Norman buildings. But a space of rectangular plan cannot be vaulted like this as the narrower arches will be much lower than the wider ones if they spring at the same height. The use of the pointed arch permits a space of any shape to be contained by arches of the same height, not just rectangles but also trapezoid and polygonal spaces. The angle at which the arc rises is simply adjusted to suit. One of the earliest examples of pointed arches utilised for purely functional reasons is in the aisles of the Norman Nave at Durham in England.

There is also a structural reason for the use and popularity of the pointed arch. It allowed great height to be achieved, an impressive feature in a religious building, while channelling the weight onto the bearing piers or columns and foundations at a steep angle.

Use of pointed Arches

In Gothic Architecture the pointed arch is utilised in every position where an arched shape is called for, both structural and decorative. Gothic openings such as doorways, windows arcades and galleries have pointed arches. Gothic vaulting over spaces both large and small is constructed of pointed arches, usually with supporting, richly moulded ribs. Rows of arches upon delicate shafts form a typical wall decoration known as blind arcading which is found both internally and externally on Gothic buildings. Niches with pointed arches and containing statuary are a major external feature of many Gothic buildings. The pointed arch, being a more flexible design feature than the circle and semicircle, leant itself to elaborate intersecting forms which developed within window spaces into complex Gothic tracery.

The Basic Shapes of Gothic Arches and stylistic character.

1. The simplest shape is the long opening with a pointed arch known as the lancet. Lancet openings are often grouped, usually as a cluster of three or five. Lancet openings may be very narrow and steeply pointed. Salisbury Cathedral is famous for the beauty and simplicity of its Lancet Gothic, known in England as the Early English Style. York Cathedral has a group of lancet windows each fifty feet hight and still containing ancient glass. They are known as the Five Sisters.

2. Many Gothic openings are based upon the equilateral form. In other words, when the arch is draughted, the radius is exactly the width of the opening and the centre of each arch coincides with the point from which the opposite arch springs. This makes the arch exactly as high as it is wide, unlike a semi-circular arch which is exactly half as high as it is wide. The Equilateral Arch gives a nice wide opening of satisfying proportion useful for doorways, decorative arcades and big windows. The structural beauty of the Gothic arch means, however, that no set proportion had to be rigidly maintained. The Equilateral Arch was employed as a useful tool, not as a Principle of Design. This meant that narrower or wider arches were introduced into a building plan wherever necessity dictated. (In the architecture of some Italian cities, notably Venice, semi-circular arches are interspersed with pointed ones with what seems, to the British or French eye, to be a strange disregard for style.) The Equilateral Arch lends itself to filling with tracery of simple equilateral, circular and semi-circular forms. The type of tracery that evolved to fill these spaces is known as Geometric Decorated Gothic and can be seen to splendid effect at many English and French Cathedrals, notably Lincoln and Notre Dame in Paris.

3. The Flamboyant Arch is one that is draughted from four points, the upper part of each main arc turning upwards into a smaller arc and meeting at a sharp, flame-like point. These arches create a rich and lively effect when used for window tracery and surface decoration. The form is structurally weak and has very rarely been used for openings except when contained within a larger and more stable arch. It is not employed at all for vaulting.

Some of the most beautiful and famous traceried windows of Europe employ this type of tracery. It can be seen at St Chapelle in Paris, St Stephen's Vienna, at the Cathedrals of Limoges and Rouen in France, and at Milan Cathedral in Italy. In England the most famous examples are the West Window of York Minster with its design based on the Sacred Heart, the extraordinarily rich seven-light East Window at Carlisle and the exquisite East window of Selby Abbey. Doorways surmounted by Flamboyant mouldings are very common in both ecclesiastical and domestic architecture in France. They are much rarer in England. A notable example is the doorway to the Chapter Room at Rochester. The style was much used for wall arcading and niches. Prime examples in England are in the Lady Chapel at Ely, the Screen at Lincoln and externally on the Facade of Exeter Cathedral.

4. The Depressed Arch. This is an arch which is much wider than its height and gives the visual effect of having been flattened under pressure. Its structure is achieved by draughting two arcs which rise steeply from each springing point on a small radius and then turn into two arches with a wide radius and much lower springing point. This type of arch, when employed as a window opening, lends itself to very wide spaces, provided it is adequately supported by many narrow vertical shafts. These are often further braced by horizontal transoms. The overall effect produces a grid-like appearance of regular delicate, rectangular forms with and emphasis on the perpendicular. It is also employed as a wall decoration in which arcade and window opnenings form part of the whole decorative surface. The so-called Perpendicular style that evolved from this treatment is specific to England and was employed to great effect during the Tudor Period when the Renaissance had brought about a revival of Classial styles in Italy and France. It can be seen notably at the East End of Gloucester where the East Window is said to be as large as a tennis court. There are three very famous chapels and one chapel-like Abbey which are the embodiment of this style- King's College Chapel, Cambridge; St George's Chapel, Windsor; Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster Abbey and Bath Abbey.

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Brick Gothic

Main article: Brick Gothic. Image:Marienburg 2004 Panorama.jpg In Northern Germany, Scandinavia and northern Poland, in areas where native stone was unavailable, simplified provincial gothic churches were built of brick. The resultant style is called Backsteingotik in Germany and Poland. The biggest brick gothic building is the Teutonic Knights Castle of Malbork in Poland and the biggest brick gothic church is the St. Mary's Church, Gdańsk in Gdansk. The most famous example in Denmark is Roskilde Cathedral. Brick gothic buildings were associated with the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights. There are over one hundred brick gothic castles in northern Poland built by the Teutonic Knights.

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Sequence of Gothic Styles: France

The designations of styles in French Gothic architecture are as follows:

Early Gothic
High Gothic
Rayonnant
Late Gothic or Flamboyant style

These divisions are effective, but debatable. Because Gothic cathedrals were built over several successive periods, each period not necessarily following the wishes of previous periods, the dominant architectural style changes throughout a particular building. Consequently, it is often difficult to declare one building as a member of a certain era of Gothic architecture. It is more useful to use the terms as descriptors for specific elements within a structure, rather than applying it to the building as a whole. Image:Cathedrale de Coutances.jpg Early Gothic:

The East end of the Abbey Church of St Denis

High Gothic:

Rayonnant:

The nave of the Abbey Church of St Denis

Late Gothic:

The north tower of Chartres Cathedral
The rose window of Amiens Cathedral
The west facade of the Rouen Cathedral
Church of St. Maclou, Rouen.
The south transept of the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Beauvais

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Sequence of Gothic styles: England

Image:Salisbury Cathedral Detail Arches.jpg The designations of styles in English architecture still follows conventions of labels given them by the antiquary Thomas Rickman, who coined the terms in his Attempt to Discriminate the Style of Architecture in England (1812—1815)

Early English (ca 1180 - 1275)
Decorated (ca 1275 - 1380 )
Perpendicular (ca 1380 - 1520 ).

Early English:

Decorated or "Flamboyant":

Exeter Cathedral

Perpendicular:

King's College Chapel, Cambridge

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Secular Gothic Architecture in England

Few examples of secular structures in Gothic style survive. The "Old Palace" at Hatfield, built in 1497, is famous for its entrance wing with an imposing gatehouse, which gave access to the protected inner court. This is an example of the last phase of Gothic design in England which, due to its far northern situation, was still untouched by the Renaissance underway in central Italy. Local building traditions produced a vernacular style that was as important as Gothic in the final appearance. The roofs are tiled in the local East Anglian tradition. Substantial eaves enclose essential storage areas in spacious attics. The Gothic elements in these buildings are the paired lancet windows joined under a molding that threw rainwater away from their sills, and the buttresses between each pier and on the angles of the gatehouse tower.

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Gothic revival

Main article: Gothic revival architecture

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In England, some discrete Gothic details appeared on new construction at Oxford and Cambridge in the late 17th century, and at the archbishop of Canterbury's residence Lambeth Palace, a Gothic hammerbeam roof was built in 1663 to replace a building that had been sacked during the English Civil War. It is not easy to decide whether these instances were Gothic survival or early appearances of Gothic revival,.

In England in the mid-18th century, the Gothic style was more widely revived, first as a decorative, whimsical alternative to Rococo that is still conventionally termed 'Gothick', of which Horace Walpole's Twickenham villa "Strawberry Hill" is the familiar example. Then, especially after the 1830s, Gothic was treated more seriously in a series of Gothic revivals (sometimes termed Victorian Gothic or Neo-Gothic). The Houses of Parliament in London are an example of this Gothic revival style, designed by Sir Charles Barry and a major exponent of the early Gothic Revival, Augustus Pugin. Another example is the main building of the University of Glasgow designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott.

In France, the towering figure of the Gothic Revival was Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who outdid historical Gothic constructions to create a Gothic as it ought to have been, notably at the fortified city of Carcassonne in the south of France and in some richly fortified keeps for industrial magnates (illustration, left). Viollet-le-Duc compiled and coordinated an Encyclopédie médiévale that was a rich repertory his contemporaries mined for architectural details but also include armor, costume, tools, furniture, weapons and the like. He effected vigorous restoration of crumbling detail of French cathedrals, famously at Notre Dame, many of whose most "Gothic" gargoyles are Viollet-le-Duc's. But he also taught a generation of reform-Gothic designers and showed how to apply Gothic style to thoroughly modern structural materials, especially cast iron.

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Gothic in the 20th Century

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Neo-Gothic continued to be considered appropriate for churches and college buildings well into the 20th century. Charles Donagh Maginnis's early buildings at Boston College helped establish the prevalence of Collegiate Gothic architecture on American university campuses, such as at Chicago, Princeton and Yale. It was also used, perhaps less appropriately, for early steel skyscrapers.

Cass Gilbert produced his 1907 90 West Street building and the 1914 Woolworth Building, both in Manhattan, in a neo-Gothic idiom. It was Raymond Hood's neo-Gothic tower that won the 1922 competition for the Chicago Tribune Tower, a late example of the vertical style that has been called "American Perpendicular Gothic."

Another Gothic structure of interest is the jailhouse built in DeRidder, Louisiana in 1914. The iron bars in most of the windows give the structure an eerie appearance. The structure includes shallow arches, dormer windows and has a central tower. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Cathedral is also a neo-Gothic structure.

The last prominent Gothic architect in America was probably Ralph Adams Cram, working in the 1910s and 1920s. With partner Bertram Goodhue they produced many good examples, like the sensitive and clever French High Gothic St. Thomas Episcopal Church, New York with its asymmetrical, urban facade in the heart of Manhattan. Working alone, Cram took up the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, what he meant to be the largest cathedral and largest Gothic struture in the world, again in French High Gothic. It remains unfinished. Both St. Thomas and St. John the Divine are built without steel.

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