49 Facts About Gothic style

Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas.

In doing so, a new architectural Gothic style emerged that emphasized verticality and the effect created by the transmission of light through stained glass windows.

Many of the finest examples of medieval Gothic style architecture are listed with UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.

Gothic style architecture is known as pointed architecture or ogival architecture.

The assumption that classical architecture was better than Gothic style architecture was widespread and proved difficult to defeat.

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Gothic style decidedly broke with tradition in his assumption that Gothic architecture did not merely represent a violent and bothersome mistake, as suggested by Vasari.

Rather, he saw that the Gothic style had developed over time along the lines of a changing society, and that it was thus a legitimate architectural style in and of its own.

Wren claimed the inventors of the Gothic style had seen the Saracen architecture during the Crusades, called the Religious war or Holy War, organised by the Normans in the year 1095:.

Several authors have taken a stance against this allegation, claiming that the Gothic style had most likely filtered into Europe in other ways, for example through Spain or Sicily.

However many of the elements of Islamic and Armenian architecture that have been cited as influences on Gothic style architecture appeared in Late Roman and Byzantine architecture, the most noticeable example being the pointed arch and flying buttress.

Gothic architecture began in the earlier 12th century in northwest France and England and spread throughout Latin Europe in the 13th century; by 1300, a first "international style" of Gothic had developed, with common design features and formal language.

However, the first buildings to be considered fully Gothic style are the royal funerary abbey of the French kings, the Abbey of Saint-Denis, and the archiepiscopal cathedral at Sens They were the first buildings to systematically combine rib vaulting, buttresses, and pointed arches.

The first cathedral built entirely in the new Gothic style was Sens Cathedral, begun between 1135 and 1140 and consecrated in 1160.

French Gothic style churches were heavily influenced both by the ambulatory and side-chapels around the choir at Saint-Denis, and by the paired towers and triple doors on the western facade.

Gothic style's work was continued by William the Englishman who replaced his French namesake in 1178.

The first building in the High Gothic style was Chartres Cathedral, an important pilgrimage church south of Paris.

New High Gothic style churches competed to be the tallest, with increasingly ambitious structures lifting the vault yet higher.

The high and thin walls of French Rayonnant Gothic style allowed by the flying buttresses enabled increasingly ambitious expanses of glass and decorated tracery, reinforced with ironwork.

Flamboyant Gothic style was characterised by the multiplication of the ribs of the vaults, with new purely decorative ribs, called tiercons and liernes, and additional diagonal ribs.

In England, ornamental rib-vaulting and tracery of Decorated Gothic co-existed with, and then gave way to, the perpendicular style from the 1320s, with straightened, orthogonal tracery topped with fan-vaulting.

Perpendicular Gothic was unknown in continental Europe and unlike earlier styles had no equivalent in Scotland or Ireland.

Lacey patterns of tracery continued to characterize continental Gothic style building, with very elaborate and articulated vaulting, as at St Barbara's, Kutna Hora .

In certain areas, Gothic style architecture continued to be employed until the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in provincial and ecclesiastical contexts, notably at Oxford.

The first English houses in the new Gothic style were Burghley House and Longleat, built by associates of Somerset.

Gothic style architecture survived the early modern period and flourished again in a revival from the late 18th century and throughout the 19th.

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Flamboyant Gothic style was particularly known for such lavish pointed details as the arc-en-accolade, where the pointed arch over a doorway was topped by a pointed sculptural ornament called a fleuron and by pointed pinnacles on either side.

An important feature of Gothic style architecture was the flying buttress, a half-arch outside the building which carried the thrust of weight of the roof or vaults inside over a roof or an aisle to a heavy stone column.

In later periods of Gothic style, pointed needle-like spires were often added to the towers, giving them much greater height.

Early phase of Middle Pointed Gothic style is characterized by Geometrical tracery – simple bar-tracery forming patterns of foiled arches and circles interspersed with triangular lights.

The mullions of Geometrical Gothic style typically had capitals with curved bars emerging from them.

Third Pointed or Perpendicular Gothic style developed in England from the later 14th century and is typified by Rectilinear tracery .

Gothic style architecture was a continual search for greater height, thinner walls, and more light.

In Early Gothic style architecture, following the model of the Romanesque churches, the buildings had thick, solid walls with a minimum of windows in order to give enough support for the vaulted roofs.

The increasing height of cathedrals over the Gothic style period was accompanied by an increasing proportion of the wall devoted to windows, until, by the late Gothic style, the interiors became like cages of glass.

Gothic style facades were adapted from the model of the Romanesque facades.

Italian Gothic style facades have the three traditional portals and rose windows, or sometimes simply a large circular window without tracery plus an abundance of flamboyant elements, including sculpture, pinnacles and spires.

Gothic style broke away from the French emphasis on height, and eliminated the column statutes and statuary in the arched entries, and covered the facade with colourful mosaics of biblical scenes .

Gothic style added sculpture in relief on the supporting contreforts.

In Early Gothic style churches, following the Romanesque tradition, sculpture appeared on the facade or west front in the triangular tympanum over the central portal.

Gradually, as the Gothic style evolved, the sculpture became more and more prominent, taking over the columns of the portal, and gradually climbing above the portals, until statues in niches covered the entire facade, as in Wells Cathedral, to the transepts, and, as at Amiens Cathedral, even on the interior of the facade.

Besides saints and apostles, the exteriors of Gothic style churches were decorated with sculptures of a variety of fabulous and frightening grotesques or monsters.

Gothic style was used in royal and papal residences as well as in churches.

The Gothic style was copied in chateaux and other aristocratic residences across France and other parts of Europe.

Gothic style was adopted in the late 13th to 15th centuries in early English university buildings, with inspiration coming from monasteries and manor houses.

One of the best preserved examples of a Gothic style synagogue is the Old New Synagogue in Prague which was completed around 1270 and never rebuilt.

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New Gothic style churches built in Paris in this period included Saint-Merri and Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois.

Gothic style began to be described as outdated, ugly and even barbaric.

Examples from the High Victorian Gothic style period include George Gilbert Scott's design for the Albert Memorial in London, and William Butterfield's chapel at Keble College, Oxford.

The Gothic style reached the Far East in the period, for instance the Anglican St John's Cathedral located at the centre of Victoria City in Central, Hong Kong.