1. History of Architecture - III
Kurdistan Region-Iraq
Tishk International University
Faculty of Engineering
Architecture Engineering Department
History of Architecture - III 11
Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character
11.3. Vaulting
By:
Nizar Najim
Assistant Lecturer

2. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character:
The principles and character of Gothic architecture were similar throughout Western Europe (Figure 04).
The fully developed Gothic art of the 13th century was the style which had been slowly developing itself throughout Europe as a necessary sequence of Romanesque art, and is mainly recognized because of the introduction and use in door and window openings, arcades, vaulting and ornamentation of the pointed arch which, indeed, is so characteristic as to give a suggestion of height coinciding with the aspiring tendency of the style and its connection with the religious enthusiasm of the period.
In the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries the Gothic masons carried to the utmost the use of stone as a building material, in towers that rose on open archways through the lofty roofs of the naves and transepts.

3. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
(figure 04).
11.2. Architectural Character:

4. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character:
The Gothic architects, developing still further the principles of Romanesque architecture, had to employ the materials at hand according to their nature, and to seek for those laws of elasticity and equilibrium which were substituted for those of inert (static) stability as practiced by the Greeks and Romans.
This elasticity was obtained by the employment of stone laid in narrow courses with tolerably thick mortar joints.
Every vertical support in Gothic architecture depended for its stability on being stayed by a buttress, which in its turn was weighted by a pinnacle.
In the case of the nave vaults, the collected pressures of the vaulting and roof were counteracted by arches, called flying buttresses, leaning against the nave wall and supported at some distance by massive piers, weighted with tall pinnacles (Figure 05).

5. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character:
(figure 05).

6. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character:
Walls became mere enclosures, and the entire structure consisted of a framework of piers, buttresses, arches, and ribbed vaulting held in equilibrium by the combination of oblique forces neutralizing each other (Figure 06).
Even the walls themselves were occupied principally by glazed windows, divided by stone mullions, having their upper parts designed with combinations of curves of great variety.
No such system of construction, could have been developed without the employment of such a material as stone, laid in tolerably small courses with mortar joints, which gave the necessary elasticity to the various pressures.

7. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character:
(figure 06).

8. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character:
These principles led to the introduction of much novelty in moldings, capitals, and piers, for the numerous vaulting ribs, and these were provided with shafts, sometimes carried on corbels and sometimes continued to the ground, influencing very largely the forms of the nave piers.
Further, the comparative shortage of materials taught the Gothic architects to practice economy in their use, the characteristic moldings of the Medieval period exhibiting much less waste of material than those common in Classic times.
Although many, of the architectural features were founded primarily on structural necessity, yet others were the expression of artistic invention and of aesthetic requirements.

9. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character:
Forms, in the best types of architecture, is not the result of caprice, but is only the expression of the structural necessities.
If the column is a real support and has an expanded capital it is for the purpose of supporting a particular load; if the moldings and ornaments have particular development it is because they are necessary, and if the vaults are divided by ribs it is because they are performing a necessary function.
The architecture was adapted to a structure of small stones with thick mortar joints, and was a compromise between the concrete walling and the jointed stones (without mortar) of the Romans.

10. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character:
As to the material at hand, the Gothic architects of Western Europe possessed stone which was strong and hard, and could be split into thin pieces, but had not at their disposal either the marble of Pentelicus or the blocks of granite which the Romans procured from Corsica, the Alps, and the East.
Thus they were absolutely obliged to erect considerable buildings with thin courses of stone, whereas the Greeks erected small buildings with enormous blocks of marble.
Romanesque architecture consisted of walling formed of a rubble core between two faces of stonework, but at the beginning of the 13th century, loftier and more extensive edifices being built, a new method was gradually evolved.

11. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.2. Architectural Character:
In seeking to diminish the size of the piers and thickness of the walls, it was necessary for the architects of this period to find a mode of construction more homogeneous and more capable of resistance, and to avoid the expense of labor which the carrying of material of large size involved.
The walls, therefore, became of secondary importance, their place being occupied by stained glass windows, and the support of the structure was effected entirely by means of buttresses or short walls placed so as best to resist the thrust of the vaulting.

12. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.3. Vaulting:
The method was an extension of the Romanesque system, which was evolved from that of the Romans and consisted of a framework of independent ribs, which were first constructed and which supported thin panels of stone.
The difficulties of vaulting oblong compartments were now overcome by the introduction of the pointed arch, which was used to cover the shorter spans, while the semicircular arch was still used for the diagonal ribs.
The ribs became permanent centers on which the panels or “infilling” of thin stone could rest, and enabled the building to be erected all at once or in parts without disadvantage to the solidity of the edifice.
The pressure of the vaults was transmitted to the angles of each compartment by the diagonal ribs (Figures 04).

13. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.3. Vaulting:
Such pressure are of two kinds: outwards by the nature of the arch, and downwards by the weight of the material, the resultant of the two being in an oblique direction.
The increase of the number and variety of ribs and the consequent form of the vaults (Figure 07) during the 3 centuries of Gothic architecture is one of the most fascinating studies of the style.
The invention of painted glass was an important factor in the development of the style, for traceried windows came to be looked upon merely as frames in which to exhibit painted transparent pictures displaying the incidents of Bible history.

14. History of Architecture - III 11. Gothic Architecture:
11.3. Vaulting:
Neither the painted sculpture and hieroglyphics of the Egyptian temples, the colored and sculptured slabs of the Assyrian palaces, the paintings of the Greek temples, nor the mosaics and frescos of the Byzantine and Romanesque periods produced color effects that can be compared with the brilliancy of the transparent walls of a Gothic Cathedral.
In the north and west of Europe, where painted glass was the principal mode of decoration, the walls were kept internally as flat as possible, so as to allow the windows to be seen internally in every direction.
By the grouping of windows and the subsequent formation of mullions and tracery, the entire screen wall between the piers came to be occupied by bright colored windows.

15. History of Architecture - I 11. Gothic Architecture
References:
1. Ching, Francis D.K., “A Global History of Architectural”, Second Edition, John Wiley& Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2011
2. Fletcher, Banister, “A History of Architectural on the Comparative Method”, Fifth Edition, Pradbury, Agnew & Co. Limited Printers, London, 2011
3. KOSTOF SPIRO, “A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals”, Oxford University Press, USA, 1995
4. Mansbridge, John, “Graphic History of Architecture”,
Hennessey & Ingalls, 1999