GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the late medieval
period.
It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance
architecture.
Originating in the 12th century in France and lasting till the 16th century, Gothic
architecture was known as "the French Style" during this period.
Its characteristic features include the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying
buttress.
It is the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guild halls, universities.
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade.
GUILDS
• Guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade.
• The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers.
• A confraternity is normally a Roman Catholic or Orthodox organization of lay people
created for the purpose of promoting special works of Christian charity and approved
by the Church hierarchy.
• They were organized in a manner of a trade union, a cartel and a secret society.
• Cartel is a formal agreement between the producers and the manufactures to fix the
prices, marketing and production.
• Guild hall is a building historically used by guilds for meetings.
FACTORS INFLUENCING GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
Geographical condition
The people of Western Europe under the Roman Empire formed into separate nations by
the end of 12th century.
Italy, France, Germany, Spain became independent kingdoms.
Germany was supposed to be the holy empire.
England came under Norman kings who possessed large territories in France.
Geological condition
The style was characterized by the availability of materials.
In Italy white and colored marbles were used.
In England and France coarse grained stones were available.
Bricks determined the character of the architecture in North German countries.
Climatic condition
The climatic condition varies in Europe from North to South and from East to West.
In North due to dull climate ‘large sized windows’ were employed to admit light.
Small windows were used to cut off bright dazzling sunshine in South.
On account of less rainfall in South, roofs were flat and high pitched roofs were used to
drain off rain water and snow in North.
Religious conditions
Immense power was vested in Bishops and Popes. Power of churches increased and it
became dominant.
Social condition
In this time period, towns and cities developed rapidly and consequently public
buildings were constructed.
There were constant disputes between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire.
Historical condition
This includes the loss of English possession in France, division of Germany into
number of independent kingdoms.
Gothic styles in France
Early gothic
High gothic
Late gothic or Flamboyant style
Early gothic
• This style began in 1140 and was characterized by the adoption of the pointed
arch and transition from late Romanesque architecture.
• To heighten the wall, it is divided it into four tiers: arcade (arches and piers),
gallery, triforium, and clearstory.
• To support the higher wall the flying buttresses were introduced which
developed to its full growth only in the high gothic age, 13 th century.
• The vaults were six ribbed.
High gothic
• The 13th century style canonized proportions and shapes from early Gothic and
developed them further to achieve light, tall and majestic structures.
• The wall structure was modified from four to only three tiers: arcade, triforium,
and clearstory.
• The clearstory windows changed from one window in each segment to rose
window.
• Rose window or a Catherine window is a circular window divided into segments by
stone mullions and tracery.
• Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window.
• The rib vault changed from six to four ribs.
• The flying buttresses became the canonical way to support high walls, as they
served both structural and ornamental purposes.
• Huge stain glass windows were placed instead of walls. This made a
transformation from a dark Romanesque Cathedral (interiors) to a very bright and
warm interior space of Gothic Cathedral.
Gothic architecture has three distinct characteristics
• Pointed arches or ogival
• Ribbed vault
• Flying buttresses
Spires: (is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on
the top of a church tower)
• Flamboyant style consists of wavy lines and flame like forms characteristic of 15th-
and 16th-century French Gothic architecture.
• It evolved from the Rayonnant style and greater attention was given to decoration.
• The name derives from the flame-like windings of its tracery (the stonework
elements that support the glass in a Gothic window) and the dramatic lengthening
of pediments and the tops of arches.
• The key feature is the ogee arch.
Ogee Arch
tracery
Characteristics of Gothic churches
• The Gothic style in an ecclesiastical building emphasizes verticality and light.
• Most Gothic churches are of the Latin cross ("cruciform") in plan, with a long nave
making the body of the church, a transverse arm called the transept and, beyond it, an
extension which is called the choir.
• The naves are generally flanked on either side by aisles, usually single, but sometimes
double. The nave is generally considerably taller than the aisles, having clerestory
windows which light the central space.
• In some churches with double aisles, like Notre Dame, Paris, the transept does not
project beyond the aisles.
Basic shape of Gothic arches
Lancet arch
Equilateral arch
Flamboyant arch
Lancet arch
An acutely pointed Gothic arch consisting of a joint instead of a keystone at the apex.
The long opening with a pointed arch known in England as the lancet.
Lancet openings are often grouped, usually as a cluster of three or five.
They are very narrow and steeply pointed.
Equilateral arch
The Equilateral Arch gives a wide opening of satisfying proportion useful for
doorways, decorative arcades and large windows.
The structural beauty of the Gothic arch is that no set proportion had to be rigidly
maintained.
Flamboyant arch
• The Flamboyant Arch is one that is drafted 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 when used for window tracery and
surface decoration create a rich and lively effect.
• The form is structurally weak and therefore is used
very rarely for large openings.
• It is employed within a larger and more stable arch.
• Doorways surmounted by Flamboyant moldings are
very common in both ecclesiastical and domestic
architecture in France.
Evolution of vaulting
Vault is an architectural term for an arched form of roof or a ceiling for a space.
Vault types are
Dome
Barrel vaults
Groin vaults
Rib vaults
Fan vaults
Dome
It is a structural element of that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere.
Barrel vault
It also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault
It is an architectural element formed by the extrusion
of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a
pointed barrel vault) along a given distance.
Characteristics of French churches
• The distinctive characteristic of French cathedrals is the impression of verticality.
• They are compact, with slight or no projection of the transepts and subsidiary
chapels.
• The west fronts are highly consistent, having three portals surmounted by a rose
window, and two large towers.
• It may consist of additional towers on the transept ends.
• The east end is polygonal with ambulatory and radiating chapels.
• In the south of France, many of the major churches are without transepts and some
are without aisles
Notre Dame, Paris (Notre Dame de Paris)
• Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Catholic cathedral on the east of Paris, France,
was begun by Bishop Maurice de Sully
• The plan comprised of a wide nave, double aisles, transepts surrounded with
chapels and ambulatories and was on a bent axial line.
• The central nave is divided into number of bays with cylindrical columns of
Corinthian capitals carrying pointed arches.
• The main door has a central pillar with a statue of Christ.
• The cathedral has imposing western towers of Gothic style and is crowned with a
central wheel window of 10 m in diameter.
• The interior elevation is of four levels
• with an arcade of columnar piers
• a tribune covered with transverse barrel vault lit by round windows
• decorative oculi opening into the tribune roof spaces
• Small clerestory windows.
• The high vault is six partite and is over 30m high.
• The wall which supports the vault is very thin and articulated by slender ‘endelit’
(face bedded- Stone is set in such a way that its lamina are exposed both in parallel
and vertical) shafts.
• Double span flying buttresses support the nave.
Transformation
• In thirteenth century, attempts were made to lighten the interior by expanding the
clearstory windows downwards ingesting the decorative oculi of the third storey.
• The tribunes were rebuilt with larger windows and ordinary quadripartite vaults.
Western façade of Notre dame cathedral:
• Construction on this façade began under
Bishop Eudes de Sully.
• Imposing, simple and harmonious mass
whose grandeur is based on interplay
between vertical and horizontal lines.
• Four powerful buttresses that spring up to
the top of the towers, lifting them
heavenwards and symbolically signifying
that this cathedral was built for God.
• Two wide horizontal strips seem to bring
the building back down to our mortal
earth.
• It is 41m wide and 63m high till the top of the towers.
• At the centre of the façade, near the gallery of the Virgin, a large rose measuring
10 m (9.6m) in diameter, stands at the centre of the façade.
The Rose window fro outside The Rose window from inside
• Under the balustrade, there is a wide horizontal frieze, the gallery of kings, a row
of twenty-eight statues representing twenty-eight generations of kings of Judah,
descendants of Jesse and human ancestors of Mary and Jesus.
On the lower level, under the gallery of kings, there are three large portals which are
not exactly identical.
The central portal, known as the Portal of the Last Judgment, is taller and wider than
the others.
The Portal of Saint Anne (to the right, or the south).
The Portal of the Virgin (to the left and the North).
Vaulting
• The difficult vaulting over the radiating bays of the double ambulatory was treated
with great elegance.
• By repeating (twice) the number of supports in the exterior circuit of each aisle each
trapezoidal bay of the vaulting was divided into three easily managed triangular
compartments.
• The side aisles were doubled and those next the centre were built in two stories, providing
ample galleries behind a very open triforium.
• The nave was unusually lofty and covered with six-part vaults.
ENGLISH AND ITALIAN GOTHIC
English Gothic
• English Gothic is the name of the architectural style that flourished in England from
about 1180 until about 1520.
• English Gothic is defined by its pointed arches, vaulted roofs, buttresses, large
windows, and spires.
• The distinctive architectural characteristic of English cathedrals is their extreme
length, and their internal emphasis upon the horizontal, which may be emphasized
visually as much or more than the vertical lines.
• English cathedrals sprawl across their sites, with double transepts projecting
strongly.
• In the west front, the doors are not as significant as in France.
• The congregational entrance is through a side porch.
• The West window is very large and never a rose, which are reserved for the transept
gables.
• The west front may have two towers like a French Cathedral, or none.
• There is nearly always a tower at the crossing and it may be very large and
surmounted by a spire.
• The distinctive English east end is square.
• Both internally and externally, the stonework is often richly decorated with carvings,
particularly the capitals.
Gothic styles in England
• Early English gothic
• Decorated gothic
• Perpendicular gothic
Early English gothic
• The most significant and characteristic development of the Early English period was
the pointed arch known as the lancet.
• Pointed arches were used as arcade and doorways in the nave and windows.
• The arched windows are usually narrow by comparison to their height and are
without tracery.
• For this reason Early English Gothic is known as the "Lancet" or "First Pointed" style.
• A notable example of steeply-pointed lancets is the apsidal arcade of Westminster
Abbey.(one of the best examples of this style)
• The Lancet openings of windows and decorative arcading are often grouped in twos
or threes.
• A cluster of five lancet windows known as the Five Sisters and these windows were
even erected up to fifty feet high.
• Through the employment of the pointed arch, walls became less massive and
window openings were made larger and grouped closely together, so architects
achieved a more open, airy and graceful building.
• Half arches which transmit the outward thrust of the superstructure to the supports or
buttresses were often visible on the exterior of the building.
• The arches of decorative wall arcades and galleries are sometimes cusped.
• Circles with trefoils, quatrefoils, etc., are introduced into the tracery of galleries and
large rose windows were formed in the transept or nave.
• The capitals are decorated with the foliage which extends to spandrels.
Trefoil quatrefoil
• Trefoil is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings.
• The fourfold version of an architectural trefoil is a quatrefoil.
Decorated gothic
• This is a name given specifically to a division of English Gothic architecture.
• The Decorated style was in use between c. 1250 and c. 1350
• This is broken into two periods: the "Geometric" style (1250–1290) and the "Curvilinear"
style (1290–1350).
• Decorated architecture is characterized by its window tracery.
• Elaborate windows are subdivided by closely-spaced parallel mullions (vertical bars of
stone), usually up to the level at which the arched top of the window begins.
• The mullions then branch out and cross, intersecting to fill the top part of the window
with a mesh of elaborate patterns called tracery, typically including trefoils and quatrefoils.
• The style was geometrical at first and flowing (flamboyant tracery) in the later period.
• Interiors of this period often feature tall columns (often more slender and elegant than in
previous periods) which may support elaborately vaulted roofs.
• Arches are generally equilateral, and the moldings bolder than in the Early English Period.
Perpendicular gothic
• The Perpendicular Gothic period is the third historical division of English Gothic
architecture.
• It is so-called because it is characterized by an emphasis on vertical lines.
• It is also known as International Gothic, the rectilinear style, or Late Gothic.
• This perpendicular linearity is particularly obvious in the design of windows, which
became very large, sometimes of immense size, with slimmer stone mullions than in
earlier periods, allowing greater scope for stained glass craftsmen.
• The mullions of the windows are carried vertically up into the arch molding of the
windows, and the upper portion is subdivided by additional mullions (super mullions)
and decorated inside.
• Doorways are frequently enclosed within a square head
over the arch moldings, the spandrels being filled with
quatrefoils or tracery.
• Pointed arches were still used throughout the period, but
ogee and four-centered Tudor arches were also
introduced.
• Tudor arch, a low, wide arch is a common architectural
element in the Tudor period in England.
• It is a flattened pointed arch usually drawn from four
centers.
• The Tudor period refers to a period between 1485 and
1603 in England during the reign of the Tudor dynasty
• Buttresses and wall surfaces are likewise divided up into
vertical panels.
• Another major development of this period was fan vaulting.
Fan vault:
• A fan vault is a form of vault used in the Perpendicular Gothic style, in which all the ribs
are of the same diameter curve and spaced equidistantly, in a manner resembling a fan.
• Inside the church the triforium is withdrawn and its place is filled with paneling, and
greater importance is given to the clerestory windows, which are often the finest
features in the churches of this period.
• The moldings are flatter and less effective than those of the earlier periods.
Some of the finest features of this period are the
magnificent timber roofs, hammer beam roofs, such as
in Westminster Hall
• In areas of Southern England using flint architecture, elaborate flush work decoration
in flint and ashlar were used.
• Flush work is the decorative combination on the same flat plane of flint and ashlar
stone.
• Flint is sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz. It occurs chiefly as
nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and lime stones.
Westminster Abbey
• The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, known as Westminster Abbey, is a
Gothic church, in Westminster, London, England.
• Westminster Abbey is a Gothic monastery church in London that is the traditional place
of coronation and burial for English monarchs.
• Neither a cathedral nor a parish church, Westminster Abbey is a place of worship
owned by the royal family.
• It is located to the west of the Palace of Westminster.
• The original Abbey, in the Romanesque style that is called "Norman" in England, was
built to house Benedictine monks.
• It was rebuilt in the Gothic style between 1245-1517.
• Henry VII added a Perpendicular style chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
• The abbey's two western towers were built between 1722 and 1745 by Sir Christopher
Wren and Nicholas Hawks moor.
• The abbey's two western towers were built between 1722 and 1745 by Sir
Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawks moor.
• The towers were constructed from Portland stone, stands as an example as a Gothic
Revival design.
• Marble was used for the walls and the floors of Westminster Abbey.
• Further rebuilding and restoration occurred in the 19th century under Sir George
Gilbert Scott.
• A narthex for the west front was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in the mid 20th
century but was not executed.
Chapter house
• The entrance is approached from the east cloister walk and includes a double doorway
with a large tympanum above.
• Inner and outer vestibules lead to the octagonal chapter house.
• It is built in a Geometrical Gothic style with an octagonal crypt below.
• A pier of eight shafts carries the vaulted ceiling.
• To the sides are blind arcading with paintings and numerous stone benches above which
are large quarter-foiled windows.
• The chapter house has tiled pavement.
• The exterior includes flying buttresses added in the 14th century and a leaded tent-
lantern roof on an iron frame designed by Scott.
• The Chapter house was originally used in the 13th century by Benedictine monks for
daily meetings.
North entrance of Westminster Abbey cloister
Burials in the Nave: Burials in the North choir Aisle:
• Clement Attlee • Henry Purcell
• Charles Darwin • Ralph Vaughan Williams
• Ben Jonson
• David Livingstone Burials in the South Transept (Poet’s corner)
• Sir Isaac Newton • Robert Adam
• William Thomson • Robert Browning
• Charles Dickens
Burials in the North Transept: • Rudyard Kipling
• William Ewart Gladstone • Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier
• William Pitt • Alfred Tennyson
Hampton Court Palace, London
• Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in the London.
• The palace was built in different stages.
• The palace has two distinct contrasting architectural styles, domestic Tudor and
Baroque.
• A unity exists due to the use of pink bricks and a symmetrical, albeit vague,
balancing of successive low wings.
• The palace houses many works of art and furnishings from the Royal Collection,
mainly dating from the two principal periods of the palace's construction, the early
Tudor (Renaissance) and late Stuart to Early Georgian period.
• The Cartoon Gallery on the south side of the Fountain Court was designed by
Christopher Wren.
Cartoon gallery
• The display also consists of important collections of ceramics, including numerous
pieces of blue and white porcelain collected by Queen Mary II.
• The double height chapel was begun by Wolsey and completed under Henry VIII.
• It is timber and plastered ceiling.
• It has Gothic vault with Renaissance pendants.
• The altar is framed by a massive oak reredos in Baroque style carved by Grinling
Gibbons.
• In religious usage, reredos is a screen or decoration behind the altar in a
church, usually depicting religious iconography or images and also called an
altarpiece. This can be done in ivory, metals.
• Grinling Gibbons was a Dutch-born sculptor and wood carver who became
particularly known for his work in England, including St Paul's Cathedral,
Blenheim Palace and Hampton Court Palace.
• He is widely regarded as England's finest wood carver.
• Opposite the altar, at first floor level, is the royal pew where the royal family
would attend services apart from the general congregation seated below.
• Hampton Court Palace Maze was planted in 1690.
• It takes an average 20 minutes to reach the center.
• The Great Hall is the largest room at Hampton Court Palace.
• It was begun by Henry VIII and provided a great communal dinning room for
600 members of the royal court.
The King's Staircase at Hampton Court Palace, and the most spectacular.
It was decorated in about 1700 by Italian painter Antonio Verrio
Gothic in Italy
• The distinctive characteristic of Italian Gothic is the use of polychrome decoration.
• Externally as marble veneer on the brick façade.
• Internally, the arches are often made of alternating black and white segments and the
columns may be painted red, the walls decorated with frescoes and the apse with mosaic.
• The plan is usually regular and symmetrical.
• With the exception of Milan Cathedral which is Germanic in style, Italian cathedrals have few
and widely spaced columns.
• The proportions are generally mathematically simple, based on the square.
• Except in Venice where they valued flamboyant arches, the arches were almost always
equilateral.
• Colors and moldings define the architectural units rather than blending them.
• Italian cathedral façades are often polychrome and may include mosaics in the lunettes over
the doors.
• Lunette is a half-moon shaped space, either filled with recessed masonry or void.
• The façades have projecting open porches and ocular or wheel windows rather than
roses, and do not usually have a tower.
• A circular window without tracery or tracery radiating from center as spokes in a wheel
is referred to as an ocular window or oculus
• The crossing is usually surmounted by a dome.
• There is often a free-standing tower and baptistery.
• The eastern end usually has an apse of comparatively low projection.
• The windows are not as large as in northern Europe and, although stained glass
windows are often found, the favorite narrative medium for the interior is the fresco.
Doges Palace, Venice
• The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice (Duke or chief magistrate).
• It has facades designed by Giovanni and Buon which date from 1309-1424.
• The construction was started in ninth century and was rebuilt several times and
completed in Renaissance period.
• It forms the great part of town-planning which carried through successive centuries.
• The façade with a length of 152m have
open arcades in the two lower stories
and the third storey was rebuilt after a
fire in the 16th century.
• This upper storey is faced with white
and rose colored marbles which
resembles patterned brick work.
• The façade with a length of 152m have open arcades in the two lower stories and
the third storey was rebuilt after a fire in the 16th century.
• This upper storey is faced with white and rose colored marbles which resembles
patterned brick work.
• The façade is pierced by a few large and ornate windows.
• The arcade columns which originally stood on a stylobate of three steps and now
rose from the ground without a base.
• The sturdy continuous tracery of the second tier of arcades lends an appearance of
strength to the open arches.
• The capitals of the columns are celebrated for the delicate carvings in low relief
with fine grained marble.
• The whole façade consists of columned and pointed arches, combining with carved
capitals and long horizontal lines of open tracery.
• It is this unique design which can only be termed Venetian Gothic.
Milan Cathedral
• Milan Cathedral is in Lombardy, northern Italy.
• The Gothic cathedral took five centuries to complete and is the fourth-largest church
in the world.
• The plan consists of a nave with four side-aisles, crossed by a transept and then
followed by choir and apses.
• The height of the nave is about 45 meters.
• The roof of the cathedral consists of pinnacles and spires set upon flying buttresses.
• The cathedral's five broad naves, divided by 40 pillars, are reflected in the hierarchic
openings of the façade.
• Even the transepts have aisles.
• The nave columns are 24.5 meters high, and the apsidal windows are 20.7 x 8.5
meters.
• The huge building is of brick construction, faced with marble.
• The exterior is a gleaming mass of white marble windows with lofty traceries,
paneled buttresses, flying buttresses and pinnacles crowned with statues.
• The flat pitched roofs are constructed of massive marble slabs laid on the
vaulting and over the crossing is a domical vault 65.5m above the ground.
• The later facade has the wide spreading gable lines of Romanesque churches
which were completed at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
• Specifications:
Length 157m width 92m
Width of the nave 16.75m
Height 45 m
Dome height 65.5meters
Spire height 106.5meters.
Interior view
