What was gothic architecture called

They based their designs on gothic colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, including castellated gateways, long steep-gabled ranges of dormitories with tall, narrow windows, and soaring pointed-arched windows for the library. One striking innovation was that American collegiate gothic buildings usually did not form closed courtyards as at medieval Oxford and Cambridge, where students were literally locked up at night.

American students were given more freedom to come and go by looser arrangements of college buildings around central lawns or along picturesque ridge lines. Cope and Stewardson were eloquent proponents of their gothic style in preference to classical Roman buildings, especially for college campuses. Classic architecture expresses completion, finality, perfection: Gothic architecture expresses aspiration, growth, and development.

To the beholder, the Classic says: This is the sum — Here is perfection — Do not aspire further. The Gothic says to him: Reach higher — Spread outward and upward — There are no limitatations. The new style caught on right away, particularly at nearby Princeton University and Haverford College. Cope and Stewardson designed another whole campus for Washington University in St. They were not renowned for great achievements in architecture. The style represented giant steps away from the previous, relatively basic building systems that had prevailed.

The Gothic grew out of the Romanesque architectural style, when both prosperity and relative peace allowed for several centuries of cultural development and great building schemes. From roughly to , several significant cathedrals and churches were built, particularly in Britain and France, offering architects and masons a chance to work out ever more complex and daring designs. The most fundamental element of the Gothic style of architecture is the pointed arch, which was likely borrowed from Islamic architecture that would have been seen in Spain at this time.

The pointed arch relieved some of the thrust, and therefore, the stress on other structural elements. It then became possible to reduce the size of the columns or piers that supported the arch. So, rather than having massive, drum-like columns as in the Romanesque churches, the new columns could be more slender. This slimness was repeated in the upper levels of the nave, so that the gallery and clerestory would not seem to overpower the lower arcade.

In fact, the column basically continued all the way to the roof, and became part of the vault. In the vault, the pointed arch could be seen in three dimensions where the ribbed vaulting met in the center of the ceiling of each bay.

This ribbed vaulting is another distinguishing feature of Gothic architecture. The architecture that informed the Gothic period drew upon a number of influences, including Romanesque, Byzantine, and Middle Eastern.

Romanesque churches from the 10th to the 12 th centuries are noted for their use of barrel vaults, rounded arches, towers, and their thick walls, pillars and piers. Housing the relics of saints, the churches were part of the pilgrimage routes that extended throughout Europe, as the faithful visited the holy sites to seek forgiveness for their sins and attain the promise of Heaven. While Gothic churches continued the religious tradition of the pilgrimage path, their new style reflected a new economic and political reality.

The pointed arch was a noted element of Middle Eastern architecture beginning in the 7 th century, as seen in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Widely deployed in the building of mosques and palaces like the fortress of Al-Ukhaidir , the pointed arch was found throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Andalucia modern day Spain , and Sicily. The pointed arch made the Gothic style possible, as it could be used for asymmetrical spaces and to intersect columns at a sharp angle thus displacing the weight into the columns and lightening the walls.

The structure also became key to a number of subsequent Gothic innovations, including the lancet arch, creating a high, narrow, and steeply pointed opening; the equilateral arch, widening the arch to allow for more circular forms in stained glass; and the flamboyant arch, primarily used in windows and traceries for decorative effect.

The flying buttress was used in a few important and influential Byzantine structures. The Basilica was famous for its mosaics and was a powerful symbol of the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Empire before it.

As a result, it became a model for later architecture. Abbot Suger led the rebuilding of the church, a venerated site where Saint Denis was martyred and where almost every French monarch since the 7 th century had been buried. Pseudo-Dionysius believed that any aspect of earthly light was an aspect of divine light, a belief with which Suger concurred.

Suger felt that the new Gothic style would lift up the soul to God. His design envisioned a soaring verticality, and key to this was the use of the pointed arch that allowed for a vaulted ceiling and thinner walls that could contain numerous stained glass windows.

The Church of Saint-Denis became the model for the Gothic style of architecture, spreading throughout Europe. Following on and expanding the Romanesque practice, Early Gothic churches also employed sculpture to decorate the building.

Religious scenes were carved into the tympanum over the doorways, and the surrounding archivolts and lintels were filled with figures. Secular images were also created, as the Basilica of St. Denis had the signs of the zodiac carved into the sides of the left portal and scenes depicting the agricultural labors of the month on the right. Most noted were the various column statues, depicting Old Testament Kings and Prophets on the portal columns.

Beginning around , the High Gothic period developed toward ever-greater verticality by including pinnacles, spires, and emphasizing both the structural and decorative effect of flying buttresses. The rose window was expanded in size, and the tracery, the intervening metal bars between sections of stained glass, was elaborated for decorative effect.

The High Gothic period was also marked by the development of two distinct sub styles: the Rayonnant and the Flamboyant. Most Late Gothic architecture employed the Flamboyant Style, which continued into the s.

High Gothic churches continued to use sculptures, particularly around the portals, but figurative treatments became more naturalistic, as the figures stepped free of the columns that once contained them. The small work, though elegant and stylized, is naturalistically sculpted, depicting the s-curve of movement and the realistic flow of draperies. The International Gothic style is the term used for the courtly decorative style of illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, painting, and sculpture that developed around