Gothic architecture

INTRODUCTION
• 1200 to 1500 AD
• Originated from Paris, France
• flourished in Europe during the high and Late
middle ages
• widely used, especially for cathedrals and
churches, until the 16th century. (the
renaissance)
• Early gothic 1200 period of experimentation
• concern with increasing sizes of the cathedrals,
overcoming constructional challenges.
• Most innovations developed at this time
• High gothic 1230— decoration
• Late gothic 1500… various styles eg
• English perpendicular
• German sondergotik
• French flamboyant
 characteristics
• Pointed arch
• Ribbed vaults
• Flying buttresses
• Extensive use of stained glass and rose
windows
• Use of realistic statuary on the exterior,
particularly over the portals
 characteristics
• Height both absolute and in proportion to its width
• the verticality suggesting an aspiration to Heaven.
• The increasing height of cathedrals over the Gothic period was accompanied by an increasing
proportion of the wall devoted to windows, until, by the late Gothic, the interiors became like
cages of glass.
• This was made possible by the development of the flying buttress, which transferred the thrust of
the weight of the roof to the supports outside the walls.
• As a result, the walls gradually became thinner and higher, and masonry was replaced with glass.
The four-part elevation of the naves of early Cathedrals such as Notre-Dame (arcade, tribune,
triforium, claire-voie) was transformed in the choir of Beauvais Cathedral to very tall arcades, a
thin triforium, and soaring windows up to the roof. [21]

• Beauvais Cathedral reached the limit of what was possible with Gothic technology.
• A portion of the choir collapsed in 1284, causing alarm in all of the cities with very tall cathedrals.
Panels of experts were created in Sienna and Chartres to study the stability of those structures. [22]
Only the transept and choir of Beauvais were completed, and in the 21st century the transept
walls were reinforced with cross-beams. No cathedral built since exceeded the height of the choir
of Beauvais.[21]
• A section of the main body of a Gothic church usually shows the nave as considerably taller than it
is wide. In England the proportion is sometimes greater than 2:1, while the greatest proportional
difference achieved is at Cologne Cathedral with a ratio of 3.6:1. The highest internal vault is at
Beauvais Cathedral at 48 metres (157 ft).[15]
Another practical and decorative element, the
gargoyle, appeared
The flying buttress
helps in
transmitting lateral
loads pushing a wall
outwards, across an
intervening space
and ultimately to
the ground.
• These technologies had all existed in
Romanesque architecture, but they were used
in more innovative ways and more extensively
in Gothic architecture to make buildings taller,
lighter and stronger.
Gargoyle------ an
ornamental rain spout
which channeled the
water from the roof
away from the
building
stop
 Beginnings
• The earliest building to illustrate gothic
characteristics is the choir of St Denis.
• When the Abbot Suger ordered the
reconstruction of the Basilica of Saint Denis,
he instructed that the windows in the choir
admit as much light as possible.
• Religious teachings in the Middle Ages,
particularly the writings of Religious
Pseudo-Dionysius, a 6th-century mystic whose
book, The Celestial Hierarchy, was popular
among monks in France, taught that all light
was divine. When the Abbot Suger ordered the
reconstruction of the Basilica of Saint Denis, he
instructed that the windows in the choir admit
as much light as possible.
• Cathedrals,
• Abbeys /Monastries
• Castles
• Palaces
• Townhalls
• Guildhalls
• universities
Westminster Abbey
The towers of Notre-Dame de Paris, 69
meters (226 ft) tall, were intended to be
seen throughout the city; they were the
tallest towers in Paris until the completion
of the Eiffel Tower in 1889.
 Portals and the tympanum
• tympanum, an arch filled with sculpture
illustrating biblical stories
• Portal----entrance: any entrance to a place, or
any means of access to something
Portals
 Towers and spires[
• The informal competition for the tallest church in Europe went on throughout the Gothic period,
sometimes with disastrous results. Beauvais Cathedral had the tallest tower (153 meters or 502
feet), completed in 1569, for a brief time, until its tower collapsed in the wind in 1573.
Lincoln Cathedral (159.7 meters or 524 feet) also had the record from 1311 until 1549 until its
tower also collapsed. Today the tallest cathedral tower in France is Rouen Cathedral, and
Cologne Cathedral (151.0 meters or 495 feet) is the tallest cathedral in Europe.
• The Gothic Old St Paul's Cathedral (1087–1314) had been the tallest cathedral in England until it
was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. Today the tallest combined Gothic tower and
spire in the UK belongs to Salisbury Cathedral, (123 meters or 404 feet), built 1220–1258.
• In Italy, the tower, if present, is almost always detached from the building, as at Florence Cathedral
, and is often from an earlier structure. [citation needed] In France and Spain, two towers on the front is
the norm. In England, Germany and Scandinavia this is often the arrangement, but an English
cathedral may also be surmounted by an enormous tower at the crossing. Smaller churches usually
have just one tower, but this may also be the case at larger buildings, such as Salisbury
Cathedral or Ulm Minster in Ulm, Germany, completed in 1890 and possessing the tallest spire in
the world,[29] slightly exceeding that of Lincoln Cathedral, the tallest spire that was actually
completed during the medieval period, at 160 metres (520 ft).[30]