Gothic Revival architecture: how to identify it

what it is

Gothic Revival buildings use the forms of medieval Gothic churches: pointed arches, steep roofs and gables, tracery (stone bars that divide a window into patterns), pinnacles (small spires), buttresses and tall towers or spires. Churches often follow medieval plans, with a long nave and a separate chancel for the altar. A wooden American version, Carpenter Gothic, has steep gables, pointed windows and bargeboards (decorated boards along the roof edge) cut with a scroll saw.

Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin rebuilt the Palace of Westminster in London from 1840, after a fire in 1834; Barry planned the building and Pugin designed its Gothic details and interiors. In New York, Richard Upjohn's Trinity Church (1839-1846) was the tallest building in the United States until 1869. Ithiel Town's Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven, Connecticut (1814-1816) is often considered the first true Gothic-style church in America.

how to spot one

Pointed arch An arch whose two curved sides meet at a point, called the apex. It is the standard arch of Gothic and Gothic Revival buildings and pushes outward less than a round arch. Tracery window A window divided by vertical stone bars called mullions, which branch at the top into curved stonework called tracery. It supports large areas of glass in Gothic churches and Gothic Revival buildings. Steep gable The triangular upper part of an end wall, framed by the two slopes of a steep roof. Steep gables are common on Gothic Revival, Tudor Revival and Queen Anne houses.

Also look for

Buttress Lancet window Spire Turret Stained glass

history

The revival began in England in the late 1740s. In 1749 the writer Horace Walpole began rebuilding Strawberry Hill, a small house in Twickenham near London, with Gothic details copied from real medieval examples, in stages to 1776. In the 1830s and 1840s the movement became more exact and more religious. Pugin's books Contrasts (1836) and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841) argued that Gothic was the proper style for a Christian country, and the Cambridge Camden Society, founded in 1839, set rules for building Anglican parish churches in medieval forms.

John Ruskin's The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851-1853) promoted Italian Gothic and walls of colored brick and stone. Gothic Revival became the standard style for Victorian churches and was used for town halls, railway stations and universities in Britain, its colonies and the United States. In France, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc restored medieval buildings, including Notre-Dame de Paris, from the 1840s. The style declined after 1900 but stayed in use for churches and colleges, and Cass Gilbert applied Gothic detail to a skyscraper in New York's Woolworth Building (1913).

where to find it

The Palace of Westminster in London, Trinity Church in New York, and university campuses across the U.S. and Britain.

architects

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

easy to confuse with

Notre-Dame de Paris, an example of Gothic

Gothic Pointed arches, ribbed ceilings, and flying buttresses that let stone walls turn into glass and light.

Trinity Church, an example of Romanesque Revival

Romanesque Revival Round arches revived in heavy rough-cut stone: squat columns, cave-like entrances, and deep-set windows.

Liberty London, an example of Tudor Revival

Tudor Revival Storybook medieval English: decorative dark timber over stucco, steep gables, and massive patterned chimneys.