Gothic Revival (lecture by Rhona Kenneally)

The architecture of the nineteenth century has sometimes been described as the "battle of the Styles," a reference to the pervasiveness of buildings whose designs allude--with varying degrees of accuracy--to Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Renaissance, medieval, or other historical precedents.
Style has been a central criterion in architectural history, an approach which focussed on comparisons between buildings or between historical periods. More recently, a theory of association has been applied to the study of style, whereby a building's style is said to stimulate a response on the part of the perceiver, based on that person's education, past experience, etc. From that perspective, the function of the nineteenth century architect was to orchestrate, by choosing, blending, or manipulating styles, an emotional or behavioural reaction to a particular building.
The English gothic revival style addressed the architecture of its medieval period, and was employed in a variety of ways. During the latter half of the eighteenth century, buildings such as Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill, and Fonthill Abbey, designed by James Wyatt, exhibited elements of gothic language which were borrowed freely and applied in an ornamental rather than a structural way, to create picturesque backdrops to their owners' lavish lifestyles. In 1835, the government's decision to require a gothic- or Elizabethan-inspired style for the new parliament buildings (final design by Sir Charles Barry) was intended to evoke the medieval origins of the parliamentary system, but also to stir nationalistic feelings based on England's cultural heritage.
Medievalists moved toward an obsession with historical accuracy and structural literalism with the arrival on the scene of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, and a group known as Ecciesiologists. Pugin, who had been responsible for the interior of the parliament buildings, designed a number of churches (including St. Giles, Cheadle, Staffordshire) and wrote several influential texts which advocated the supremacy of the gothic style. His books include Contrasts, (1836) and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841). Ecclesiologists encouraged architects and lay people alike to study the original medieval buildings firsthand, and were very effective in disseminating their particular brand of gothic-revival High Anglican church architecture throughout Britain and around the world. Christchurch in Fredericton, N.B., by Frank Wills, is one such example.
Notwithstanding this call to limit the use of gothic on the basis of historical precedents, substantial adaptations beginning at mid~century may be observed. William Butterfield's All Saints, Margaret Street Church overcomes the limitations of its restrictive site to display all the characteristics required of it as the model Ecclesiology church, and yet its "sprung rhythm" is unique and its constructional polychiomy is a departure later associated with John Ruskin. George Gilbert Scott applied gothic language to a new building typology in his Midland Grand Hotel, and George Edmund Street displayed his prowess in arranging a complex, large-scale public building in his Royal Courts of Justice in London, which overlays elements from both the gothic and classical traditions.
Prof. Adams provides these slides immediately following each lecture as a courtesy to students for study purposes only. She takes no responsibility for their arrangement on this page or for any unintended use of the images.

1a)

2a) 2b)

3a) 3b)

4a) 4b)

5a) 5b)

6a) 6b)

7a) 7b)

8b)

10a) 10b)

11a) 11b)

12a) 12b)

13a) 13b)

14a) 14b)

15a) 15b)

16a) 16b)

17a) 17b)

18a) 18b)

19a) 19b)

20a) 20b)

21a) 21b)

22a) 22b)

23a) 23b)

24a) 24b)