GOOD GUYS GO GOTHIC
On certain occasions in our architectural history a major reaction against the prevailing trend transforms the appearance of our built environment.
The Romanesque style, which rather humbly launched what became the magnificent cathedral building boom in Christian Europe, was such an occasion. Roman forms making great use of the strength of the Roman arch provided the structural skeleton for their structures, mainly castles and churches. However in the latter a completely new element appeared, like green shoots on an old dying tree. This has been called the Gothic style and was made possible an amazing leap in structural engineering. The Gothic style was also characterised by an extravagant use of sculpture on the exterior around doors and windows and brightly painted religious narrative murals on the interior walls and ceilings. Many of these reveal a deep affection for the natural world around them. However sculptures of plants, animals and ordinary humans were combined with imaginative portrayals of monsters, demons, angels, and saints in a lively non-mimetic dynamic style never seen before.
In the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries thousands of mainly anonymous craftsmen must have been involved, representing a high proportion of the small peasant populations of the time. Even the supervising builders were part of the working team and were not working from architectural plans drawn up by professional specialist architects. This was a complete departure from the rigid geometry of the Roman villas and temples and their professional architects.
A major technological revolution in structural engineering took place with the invention of the better load-supporting Gothic arch in the 12th Century. Together with the economic boom and consolidation of political power in Europe at this time, this started off a massive programme of ecclesiastical construction. The new technology made possible delicate supporting columns and a great increase in height. High walls could now be penetrated by huge windows and the art of stained glass making blossomed. These were the first appearance in history of large scale brightly lit consciousness-affecting psychedelic colours.
In the Fifteenth Century however a new civilisation was being born in the newly independent city states of Italy. This Renaissance depended on increased foreign trade and new procedures in economics led to the rise of banking whilst philosopher scientists were rediscovering ideas from the classical world. Banking families in the highly secular city states such as Venice and Florence took control of the Papacy and gunpowder cut back the power of the autonomous landed aristocracy in their massive castles.
The Gothic style was then reacted against as “barbaric” and too-other-worldly. The Renaissance returned to the classical Platonic idealism of symmetrical and geometrical forms and, with the weakening of the doctrine of original sin, the elite gave themselves over to physical pleasure. The romantic traceries, naturalistic sculptures and gothic arches were abandoned. During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Palladio, who had taken the Roman architect Vitruvius for his model, became the architectural pattern-maker for the new wealthy economic rulers in the emerging nation states to copy. However independent Tudor England, which had been expelled from Catholic Europe at this time, was developing an astonishingly wide variety of different architectural styles.
The Eighteenth Century Enlightenment, following on Henry VIII’s destruction of the great monastic estates and Cromwell’s weakening of royal power, together with the foolish actions of Charles 1s and James II, led eventually to the domination of the highly secular Whig Party. Their Classical style country houses soon covered the landscape. In this cultural environment scientific ideas found fertile ground to develop and the Industrial Revolution took off. Most science is based on the simple metaphysical idea of “usefulness” (to the new economic elite) rather than any concern with any other purpose or meaning.
A great reaction to the dominant values of materialism took place at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. The Romantic movement rejected the sterile view of man as a rational money-making machine and rediscovered the Gothic love of Nature and transcendent religious values. Formal Christianity, the Elizabethan dramas and romantic Arthurian myths, which had been rejected as crude superstitions by the Enlightenment intellectuals, inspired their architecture and replaced the obsession with the formal classical models.
This was a not a simple pastiche of past styles but a gothic renaissance, making use of completely new materials and engineering innovations. The classical style lingered on, being especially favoured by the increasingly powerful newly-rich financial elite. At the turn of the Nineteenth Century the arts and sciences went through revolutionary changes and architecture was transformed. In private housing in particular the romantic Gothic style underwent a transformation into the Tudor Revival, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau styles.
The psychological impact of the First World War and the fanatical mass movements that followed the disastrous decisions made at the Versailles Peace Conference brought “La Belle Epoque” to a sudden end. Despair at the failure of the values held by the Victorians led to the lowest common denominators of the mass society and simple unadorned Modern architecture based on the complete rejection of styles of the past and the adoption of a new theory that “form must follow function”. The problem was that there was no clear idea of what the function of architecture really was except to be safe and useful like a machine.
Bathrooms and kitchens became the most important rooms in the house and any form of complex line or embellishment was regarded as “unclean”. Mysterious interiors, stained glass and odd corners were rejected in favour of box-shaped rooms lit by huge plain glass windows. Nature was now something to be looked at rather than messily experienced. This form of architecture ideally suited factory production of component parts and vast numbers of craftsmen-builders were replaced by simple unskilled labourers.
For almost a century cost-efficient Modern has been the only style, or rather fashion, that most architects and their clients want to erect. Creativity has dried up with the exception of a few major show-pieces by radical architects using new engineering techniques and materials.
The time is ripe for another architectural revival, a reaction against sterility and the doctrine of functionalism. The only style which contrasts with Modernism in every possible way, and is therefore loathed by doctrinaire modernists, is Gothic. The variety of forms found in this style and its associated styles of Tudor, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau is unique in the history of architecture. Natural and fantastic decoration, wooden framing, wooden panelling and stained glass would make the communist pioneers of Modernism in architecture turn in their graves. What the use of new materials and new engineering could do to further develop the Gothic style is simply unimaginable.
Being labour intensive, the Gothic style would create jobs for craftsmen who would be encouraged to build their own homes. In areas of dense population
Modern construction techniques would still be needed for tall buildings but they could still be built in the Gothic or related styles.
