Gothic Architecture

GOTHIC
ARCHITECTURE
12th to the 16th century
• Gothic architecture are building designs, as first pioneered in
Western Europe in the Middle Ages. It began in France in the
12th century. The Gothic style grew out of Romanesque
architecture.
• The important features of Gothic architecture are
• the pointed arch
• the ribbed vault
• the flying buttress
• and stained glass windows.
• Gothic architecture is best known as the style of many of the
great cathedrals, abbeys and churches of Europe. It is also
the architecture of many castles, palaces, town
halls, universities, and also some houses.
ABOUT THE WORD "GOTHIC"
• Gothic architecture was at first called "the French
Style" (Opus Francigenum).
• The word Gothic was used later during
the Renaissance as an insult.
• An Italian writer named Giorgio Vasari used the word
"Gothic" in the 1530s, because he thought buildings
from the Middle Ages were not carefully planned and
measured like Renaissance buildings or the buildings
of ancient Rome.
• He said that, as the barbaric Goths had destroyed the
classical world, so this "modern art" had destroyed the
architecture of the twelfth century.
• After Vasari, many other people used the word
"Gothic" to describe architecture with pointed arches.
• In Western Europe, in the Middle Ages, almost everyone belonged to
the Roman Catholic Church.
• The Roman Catholic Church has one head - the Pope.
• During the Middle Ages, one language was used in churches all across Europe
- Church Latin, which had developed from ancient Latin.
• The churches of each area had a local bishop who came under the Pope.
• Each Bishop had a throne where he could sit when priests and people came
to him.
• A church which has a Bishop's throne is called a "cathedral“
• Cathedrals were usually the biggest and most beautiful churches.
• In the early Middle Ages, many monasteries were built all over Europe.
• A group of holy men lived and worked and prayed there.
• Monks belonged to different "orders" which had different rules.
• The biggest number of monasteries were homes to the monks of
the Benedictine Order.
• Their monasteries were generally in towns and they often built very big
churches called "Abbeys" for the monks and the townspeople to worship in.
• Other orders of monks, like the Cistercians, did not live near towns.
• Nowadays their abbeys are seen as beautiful ruins in the English countryside.
USE OF VAULTS IN DIFFERENT ERA
TYPICAL PLAN OF GOTHIC CHURCH
ELEMENTS OF GOTHIC BUILDINGS
Features of the Gothic style
• Pointed arches
• Very high towers and spires and roofs
• Clustered columns: tall columns that looked like a group of
thin columns bundled together
• Ribbed vaults: arched ceilings made of stone. In the Gothic style they
were held up by stone ribs.
• A skeleton of stonework with great big glass windows in between.
• Tracery: carved stone lace in the windows and on the walls
• Stained glass: richly colored glass in the windows, often with pictures
telling stories
• Buttresses: narrow stone walls jutting out from the building to help hold
it up
• Flying buttresses: buttresses that help to hold the vault up. They are
made with an arch that jumps over a lower part of the building to reach
the outside wall.
• Statues: of Saints, Prophets and Kings around the doors
• Many sculptures, sometimes of animals and legendary
creatures. Gargoyles spout water from the roof.
ABBEY OF ST DENIS, PARIS
• The Basilica of St Denis ranks as an architectural landmark—as the first major
structure of which a substantial part was designed and built in the Gothic style.
• Both stylistically and structurally, it heralded the change from Romanesque
architecture to Gothic architecture. Before the term "Gothic" came into
common use, it was known as the "French Style"
• As it now stands, the church is a large cruciform building of "basilica" form; that
is, it has a central nave with lower aisles and clerestory windows.
• It has an additional aisle on the northern side formed of a row of chapels.
• The west front has three portals, a rose window and one tower, on the
southern side.
• The eastern end, which is built over a crypt, is apsidal, surrounded by
an ambulatory and a chevet of nine radiating chapels.
• The basilica retains stained glass of many periods (although most of the panels
from Suger's time have been removed for long-term conservation and replaced
with photographic transparencies), including exceptional modern glass, and a
set of twelve misericords.
• The basilica measures 108 meters long, and its width is 39 meters.
A view looking towards the choir. Altarpiece in the choir of the Basilica of Saint Denis.
Bronze door at the entrance of the Central Portal, Basilica of Saint Denis.
Stained glass in the triforium from the transept crossing. The subjects
are past kings and queens of France.
a ledge projecting from the underside
of a hinged seat in a choir stall which,
when the seat is turned up,
gives support to someone standing.
Rose window at abbey of saint dennis

NOTRE DAME , PARIS (1163-1345)
• Bishop Maurice de Sully began
construction of the new cathedral
from 1163 on the site occupied by a
former church dedicated to St.
Etienne.
• The cathedral is roughly 128 metres
(420 ft) in length, and 12 metres (39
ft) wide in the nave.
• Its cruciform plan, elevated nave,
transept and tower were borrowed
from 11th-century Romanesque
architecture, but its pointed arches
and rib vaulting were strictly Gothic.
• Notre-Dame de Paris was among the
first buildings in the world to use
the flying buttress.
• Many small individually crafted
statues were placed around the
outside to serve as column supports
and water spouts. Among these are
the famous gargoyles, designed for
water run-off, and chimeras.
• The statues were originally colored as was
most of the exterior. The paint has worn
off.
• The cathedral was essentially complete by
1345. The cathedral has a narrow climb of
387 steps at the top of several spiral
staircases; along the climb it is possible to
view its most famous bell and its gargoyles
in close quarters, as well as having a
spectacular view across Paris when
reaching the top.
• Notre-Dame is also famous for its external
statues and gargoyles arranged around the
outside to serve as extra column supports
and drainage pipes.
• As Gothic building designers hoped, the
additional reinforcement provided by the
buttresses, piers and other stone supports
enabled the main walls of the cathedral to
become non-structural, and thus a greater wall
area was available for stained glass, in order to
inspire worshippers and illuminate the
cathedral's interior.
• Thus the clerestory windows of Notre-
Dame's original nave were enlarged in the
13th century, filling the interior with light,
thanks to the improvements achieved in
structural support.
• The facade design balances the verticality
of the twin towers (69 metres in height)
with the horizontal banding of the
decorated galleries.
FRONT FAÇADE OF NOTRE DAME PARIS
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GOTHIC

Rose window at abbey of saint dennis

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