Transcript PowerPoint Presentation - The Gothic Revival in Europe and

The Gothic Revival in Europe
and the United States
in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries
Former Abbey Church at
Z’dar, Moravia [Czech
Republic]
Renovation in the early 18th
century by Giovanni Santini
Aichl
View of the apse with its
gothic arcuation filled in. The
gothic character of the
church was assimilated into
the baroque renovation.
Interior to East
Interior to West
Organ case in N transept
High Altar
Cemetery at Zelena Hora, Moravia [Czech Republic]
with Chapel by Giovanni Santini Aichl, early 18th c
Views of the Circuit
wall with corridor
that surrounds the
cemetery
Principal (west) facade
Lateral (south) facade
Various views of the exterior,revealing
the idiosyncratic form.
High Altar with its sculptural decoration
Vault and gallery
Stucco respond and ribs
Window detail
Organ Gallery (upper gallery)
Organ Gallery parapet detail (above:
back side)
The Gothic Revival in England
T he great fire of London in 1666 destroyed over 100
churches in the center of London. In his plan for the
reconstruction of t he city and it s churches, the architect Sir
Christopher Wren usually designed t he replacement
buildings in t he classical style that had been imported to
England in t he late 16th century by
Inigo Jones.
However, in the case of some smaller parish churches,
Wren elected to rebuild them in the medieval style in
which they had originally been constructed--usually
Gothic. T his was possible because t here were still
masons who could cut stone in the medieval style; and
because he t hought the parishioners would feel more at
home in a church t hat closely resembled the original.
St. Dunstan’s-in-the-East by Sir
Christopher Wren, 1698 (damaged
during World War II
St. Mary Aldermary, Victoria Street, by Sir Christopher Wren, 1682
The reconstruction of some of the London churches in
Gothic style was a pragmatic choice that did not have an
immediate impact on British architecture. However, in the
middle of the 18th century, Horace Walpole and a group of
his friends undertook an experiment that did have
consequences of great importance.
In 1748, at Twickenham on the banks of the Thames above
London, Horace Walpole erected a country home that he
named Strawberry Hill. This was a conscious attempt to
create a modern building using the forms and ornaments of
the Gothic. It was also the first time that the Gothic had
been revived for residential or secular rather than for
religious buildings.
Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, by Horace Walpole and
others, 1748-77
Walpole assembled a variety of
medieval elements, none of them
archaeological, and created an
asymmetrical composition with an
irregular roofline of towers, turrets,
chimneys and crenelations.
The gallery of Strawberry
Hill is modeled on the fan
vaulting found in English
Gothic cathedral cloisters
such as Lincoln and
Gloucester.
However, these modern
counterparts of the stone
vaults of the medieval
period are executed in
plaster.
The effect was more
important than the
technique.
Strawberry Hill was wildly popular.
Tourists came in droves from
London to see and admire it. As a
result many other neo-Gothic works
were built.
Sitting Room with fireplace
derived from a twin-towered
façade, probably of a chapel or
church.
The Library with carved wood tracery derived from
a choir screen .
Library
Cabinet
Fonthill Abbey for William Beckford by James Wyatt, 1796-1807
Fonthill Abbey by
James Wyatt was one
of the most elaborate
and extravagant of the
neo-Gothic houses.
Meant to seem like an
abandoned abbey that
had been taken over
and inhabited by
modern people, it
plays on the darker
side of the Gothic
revival: the mystical,
mysterious, shadowy,
and awe-inspiring.
St. Michael
Gallery
Plan
Grand Staircase
The interior was equally
steeped in the sense of
the mysterious and even
the foreboding. The
spiritual, aspiring forms
of the medieval Gothic
now carried an element
of the supernatural, the
ghostly, even the
ghoulish, perhaps the
magical.
The Gothic Revival in the United States
Cathedral of the
Assumption, Baltimore, by
Benjamin Henry Latrobe,
1804-08
Two versions of the
Cathedral of the
Assumption were
designed by Latrobe:
one was neo-classic
and the other was
gothic.
The Church authorities
saw the neo-classic
design as more suitable
to express the notion
of religious freedom
for which Maryland
had been founded by
Lord Baltimore, a
catholic.
St. Mary’s Seminary Chapel,
Baltimore, by Maximilian
Godefroy, 1806ff
Interior of the Chapel with modern choir stalls and lighting. Note the
plaster ribwork and the decorative column clusters with gilded capitals.