 Towns became crowded and dirty - disease

was rife
 Black Death struck Europe from 1347 to
1351 and killed half the population - spread
by rats and fleas, could kill a person within 3
days

INFLUENCES

HISTORY ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER - DESCRIPTION

• "Gothic" is a term used in reproach to this
 12th – 13th centuries: Holy Roman Empire
style
was reduced to the area of Germany
• a departure from classic lines
 Only 3 great kingdoms were left: France,
• Can be identified by the general use of
England and Castile in Spain
pointed arch
 Prosperous years in terms of agriculture -
• Also called “Medieval Architecture”
warm weather and invention of the windmill
and water-mill increased the amount of food
produced FRANCE
 Most Europeans were Catholics
• In French, "L'architecture Ogivale“
 Church under the Pope brought Christians
together Primaire (12th Century AD)
 Entire Christianity was united against
Muslims • Also called "a lancettes" • Distinguished by
pointed arches and geometric traceried
 The rulers, the church and townspeople
windows
spent wealth on building more castles,
cathedrals and monasteries Secondaire (13th Century AD)
 Towns competed with each other to
produce the best architecture • Also called "Rayonnant" • Characterized by
circular windows with wheel tracery
Tertiare (14th to 16th Century AD)
• Also called "Flamboyant" • Flame-like
window tracery or free - flowing tracery
Features:
• Use of pointed arch to cover rectangular
 Some 4000 new towns were built to bays
accommodate the rising population • Use of flying buttresses weighted by
pinnacles
 Towns became centers of trade – Paris,
• Tall, thin columns – “stretching up as if to
Milan, Florence, Venice, Naples
heaven”
 Mixture of lands ruled by nobles
• Walls released from load-bearing function
 Feudal system - landlords ruled with tyranny
• Invention of colored, stained glass windows
 There was restlessness among the people to adorn window-walls
• Tracery windows provided a framework for Notre Dame, Paris
Bible stories to be told in pictures
• One of the oldest French cathedrals
• Cathedrals as a library for illiterate
• Begun by Bishop Maurice de Sully
townspeople - Biblical stories were told with
• Façade features successive tiers of niches
stained-glass and statuary
with statues: Christ and French kings
• Central wheel window
• Two western towers with high pointed
louvred openings

Other cathedrals:
- Beauvais Cathedral
- Laon Cathedral
- Soissons Cathedral

CASTLES
• Built on mounds above rivers
• Thick walls and small windows to resist
attack
• Many were adapted to make convenient
residences in later periods
Carcassone
• built in 13th Century AD
• double wall, inner one made in 600 AD
• 50 towers and moat
• two gateways guarded by machicolations,
drawbridge and portcullis

ENGLAND
NORMAN (1066 to 1154 AD)
• Includes the raising of most of major
Romanesque churches and castles
TRANSITIONAL (1154 to 1189 AD)
• Pointed arches in Romanesque structures
EARLY ENGLISH (1189 to 1307 AD)
• Equivalent to High Gothic in France
• Also called "Lancet" or "First Pointed" style,
from long narrow pointed windows
DECORATED (1307 to 1377 AD)
• Window tracery is "Geometrical" in form,
and later, flowing tracery patterns and
curvilinear surface pattern
• Also called "Second Pointed", equivalent to
French "Flamboyant" style
PERPENDICULAR (1377 to 1485 AD) GERMANY, BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS
• Also called "Rectilinear“ or "Third Pointed" • In Germany, the chief influence came from
France, not from German Romanesque
TUDOR (1495 to 1558 AD)
• In Belgium and The Netherlands, it was
• Increasing application of Renaissance detail based on French Gothic, developing the
Brabantine style
ELIZABETHAN (1558 to 1603 AD)
HALL CHURCHES
• Renaissance ideas take strong hold
• Had a different look:
• Nave and aisle of same height
CATHEDRALS • One or two immense and ornate western
• May have been attached to monasteries or towers or apse in place of sculptured
to collegiate institutions doorway
• Found in precincts with dormitories, • Brick-work and simplified ornamentation
infirmary, guest houses, cloisters, refrectory, SPAIN
other buildings
• Strong Moorish influences: the use of
Westminster Abbey horseshoe arches and rich surface
• Complex of church, royal palace and burial decoration of intricate geometrical and
grounds flowing patterns
• Most important medieval building in Britain • Churches had flat exterior appearance, due
• widest (32 m) and highest vault in England to chapels inserted between buttresses
(102 ft) • Excessive ornament, without regard to
constructive Character

Other examples: Burgos Cathedral (1221 - 1457 AD)

Wells Cathedral • Irregular in plan

• Most beautiful and poetic of all Spanish
York Cathedral - largest medieval cathedral in cathedrals
England and in Northern Europe
Seville Cathedral (1402 to 1520 AD)
Winchester Cathedral - longest medieval cathedral
in England • Largest Medieval church in Europe
• Second largest church in the world, next to
St. Peter's, Rome
MANOR HOUSES ITALY
• Erected by new and wealthy trading families • Led the way in Europe, in terms of art,
learning and commerce
Parts:
• Cultural revival was taking place in Italy in
• great hall, room with solar room, chapel, advance of northern Europe
latrine chamber, service rooms, kitchens, • Roman tradition remained strong
central hearth • This arrested the development of Gothic
architecture in Italy
Later, in Tudor Manor Houses • Verticality of Gothic is generally neutralized
• increased rooms, quadrangular court, by horizontal cornices and string courses
battlement parapets, and gateways, • Absence of pinnacles and flying buttresses
chimneys, buttery (butler’s pantry), oven, • Small windows without tracery
pantry, serving area and storage, larder • Projecting entrance porches with columns
(food storage), wardrobe, oratory-study, on lion-like Beasts
private chapel with altar and crucifix, •
scullery, brew house
Florence Cathedral or S. Maria del Fiore
• Designed by Arnolfo di Cambio
• Essentially Italian in character, without the
vertical features of Gothic
• Peculiar latin cross plan with campanile and
baptistery
Siena Cathedral
• One of most stupendous undertakings since
the building of the Pisa cathedral
• Outcome of civic pride - all artists in Siena
contributed their works to its building and
adornment
• Cruciform plan
• Zebra marble striping on wall and pier
Other cathedrals:
Milan Cathedral
• Largest Medieval cathedral in Italy
• 3rd largest cathedral in Europe
HISTORY OF GOTHIC INTRODUCTION
ARCHITECTURE  Gothic Art is the expression of the new city
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture life
that flourished in Europe during the high and late  It is going to have to different areas:
medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque
architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance
architecture.
Originating in 12th-century France and
lasting into the 16th century, Gothic architecture
was known during the period as Opus Francigenum
("French work") with the term Gothic first appearing
during the latter part of the Renaissance.
Its characteristics include the pointed arch,
the ribbed vault (which evolved from the joint
vaulting of Romanesque architecture) and the flying  The term was coined with a deceptive
buttress. sense
Gothic architecture is most familiar as the  It is deter by a series of elements:
architecture of many of the great cathedrals, - Economic and social transformations
abbeys and churches of Europe. It is also the of the late Middle Ages
architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, - Consolidation of the new monarchies
guild halls, universities and to a less prominent and modern states
extent, private dwellings, such as dorms and - A new spirituality, with the Cister
rooms. reform
It is in the great churches and cathedrals  The style had an evolution:
and in a number of civic buildings that the Gothic
style was expressed most powerfully, its  12th century: origin
characteristics lending themselves to appeals to the  13th century: plenitude
emotions, whether springing from faith or from civic
pride. A great number of ecclesiastical buildings  14th century until mid-15th century:
remain from this period, of which even the smallest international
are often structures of architectural distinction while
many of the larger churches are considered
 Second half of the 15th century: flamboyant
priceless works of art and are listed with UNESCO
as World Heritage Sites. For this reason a study of
Gothic architecture is largely a study of cathedrals
and churches.
  The cover is of ribbed vaults •
 There are two towers in the façade.

 The inside is full of light thanks to the

numerous windows
CATHEDRAL  The cathedral has three levels: low, gallery
and clerestory
 Cathedrals are the most representative
building
 The walls are open, allowing a lot of light
into the church, with different levels of
 They are full of accessional spirit intensity (more light in the highest parts
 The technical innovations made possible because light comes directly).
the construction of these buildings,  Windows can be open because there are
something ethereal. new supports that are not glued to the wall.
 Plans continue being of Latin cross but it is
more difficult to distinguish because the
number of naves increases in the transept
 They have three or five nave, normally five
after the crossing
 They have ambulatory
 There are radial chapel
  The most common in the outside is the
flying buttress
 On top of them pinnacles appear in order to
transmit the strength to the floor

 Thanks to the use of

flying buttress, the wall is
liberated and may be
open with windows
 Windows tend to be
covered by stained glass

 The cover evolved from the barrel vault

 The lancet arch permits higher structures
 The most common covers are:
- Rib vault
- Crossing vault
 All of them stand on slim and delicate
pillars
 The nerves cross and there is a decorated
boss in the intersection

CIVILIAN ARCHITECTURE

 Its development is consequence of

- trade renaissance
- development of cities government
 Main buildings are
- Palaces
- Town halls
- Markets
 Town halls were the residence of the city's
government
 There are two kind of models:
- Northern (Netherlands) : very
decorated, with ogee and lancet
arches
- Southern (Italian): closer,
 Supports are essential for the new sometimes as a fortress
buildings
  The distinctive
characteristic of English
cathedrals is their
extreme length and
their internal emphasis
upon the horizontal.
 It is not unusual for
every part of the
 Palaces were the residences of the nobility • building to have been
 They lose their defensive character built in a different
century and in a different style, with no
 Markets were the places for keeping the attempt at creating a stylistic unity.
products and to sell them  English cathedrals sprawl across their sites,
 They have big rooms with this purpose with double transepts projecting strongly
and Lady Chapels tacked on at a later date.
 The spaces are clear, with high and stylised
columns  In the west front the doors are not
significant
FRENCH GOTHIC  The West window is very large and never a
rose, which are reserved for the transept
gables.
 The distinctive  The west front may have two towers or
characteristic of French none.
cathedrals, and those in
Germany and Belgium  There is nearly always a tower at the
that were strongly crossing and it may be very large and
influenced by them, is surmounted by a spire.
their height and their  The distinctive English east end is square.
impression of verticality.
 They are compact, with
slight or no projection of
the transepts and ITALIAN GOTHIC
subsidiary chapels.
 The west fronts have three portals
surmounted by a rose window, and two
large towers.  It uses polychrome
 The east end is polygonal with ambulatory decoration, both
and sometimes a chevette of radiating externally as
chapels. marble veneer on
the brick facade
 In the south of France, many of the major and also internally
churches are without transepts and some where the arches
are without aisles are often made of
alternating black
and white segments.
BRITISH GOTHIC
 The plan is usually regular and symmetrical
and have few and widely spaced columns
  The proportions are generally
mathematically simple, based on the SPANISH GOTHIC
square, the arches are almost always
equilateral.
 It may include mosaics in the lunettes over
the doors.  Spanish Gothic
cathedrals are of
 The facades have projecting open porches spacial complexity.
and occular or wheel windows rather than
roses, and do not usually have a tower.  They are
comparatively
 The crossing is usually surmounted by a short and wide,
dome. and are often
 There is often a free-standing tower and completely
baptistery. surrounded by
chapels.
 The windows are not as large as in northern
Europe and, although stained glass
 Spanish
windows are used, the decoration is fresco Cathedrals are stylistically diverse.
or mosaic.  Influences on both decoration and form are
Islamic architecture, and towards the end of
the period, Renaissance details combined
with the Gothic in a distinctive manner.
 The West front resembles a French west
front,
German Gothic
 There are spires of German style.
 Few pinnacles.
 It is characterised by  There are often towers and domes of a
huge towers and great variety of shapes and structural
spires. invention rising above the roof.
 The west front
generally follows the
French formula, but the
towers are taller, and if
complete, are
surmounted by
enormous openwork
spires.
 The eastern end follows the French form.
 The distinctive character of the interior of
German Gothic cathedrals is their breadth
and openness.
 Cathedrals tend not to have strongly
projecting transepts.
 There are also many hallenkirke without
clerestorey windows.