Recognizable for its pointed arches and rib vaults, Gothic architecture was Europe’s primary building style for cathedrals from the late 12th to the 16th century. It evolved from its heavier, rounder predecessor, Romanesque architecture, capitalizing on newly available technology to create taller, lighter, pointier structures with complex ornamentation.
“Gothic was an innovative, progressive architecture,” says Robert Bork, a professor of art history at the University of Iowa and a Gothic architecture expert. “It was a futuristic, bold, extrapolating architecture, where they were developing new things that had never been seen before, like spires, pinnacles, flying buttresses, and tracery windows. It became the new visual language and it flourished, getting wilder and crazier for 400 years.”
To complete this guide of Gothic design, AD chatted with Bork and two other authorities on Gothic buildings: Maile Hutterer, an associate professor of art and architecture at the University of Oregon, and Jana Gajdošová, a medieval art specialist at Sam Fogg, the director of the British Archaeological Association, and a lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Here’s everything you need to know.
What is the history of Gothic architecture?
Early Gothic
Gothic architecture first emerged in mid-12th-century Paris with churches like the Basilica of Saint-Denis, which is often regarded as the birth of the style. “There were other buildings that were experimenting with what would become quintessential elements of the Gothic façade, but Saint-Denis did it really early and very successfully,” Gajdošová says. “It’s the first west front (main entrance) that brings together three sculpted portals with jamb figures flanking doorways, two towers (only one survives today), and a rose window in the middle—much smaller than what you see later on, but it’s still there.”
The details of Saint-Denis’s construction, which was completed in 1144, were recorded in writing by the project’s leader, Abbot Suger. He and his team were able to develop Gothic architecture because of recent technological advancements. “There was an evolution of technology, especially with rib vaults,” Bork explains. “Buildings with a vaulted ceiling require thick walls, so they tend to be dark and heavy, but by using the rib vault the walls become less important as bearing structures, which means you can pierce windows into them. You start getting architecture that is linear, skeletal, and light-filled.” Generally, this grand scale was meant to be awe-inspiring and evoke a feeling of superhuman presence to better connect the inhabitants with God.
High Gothic
Saint-Denis, as well as other Early Gothic churches like Sens Cathedral and Senlis Cathedral, spurred the spread of the architectural style throughout the country and the continent. With this dissemination came a “quest for height, starting with Notre-Dame de Paris,” according to Gajdošová. “In the early 13th century, you can see the churches getting taller and taller. They reached the maximum height with the choir of Beauvais Cathedral, a building that was so incredibly tall, with so much stained glass and walls so thin, that it collapsed only a decade after it had been finished.”
