Rose Hill Mansion Plantation in Bluffton, South Carolina. Meanwhile, in the United States, builders put a new spin on the Gothic Revival style. Private homes were considerably more restrained. Not surprisingly, Victorian High Gothic Revival architecture was usually reserved for churches, museums, rail stations, and grand public buildings. If it was built between 11 AD, the architecture is Gothic if it's built in the 1800s, it's Gothic Revival. Because this style is generally a realistic recreation of authentic medieval styles, telling the difference between Gothic and Gothic Revival can be difficult. High Victorian Gothic Revival architecture features masonry construction, patterned brick and multi-colored stone, stone carvings of leaves, birds, and gargoyles, strong vertical lines and a sense of great height. Victoria Tower is named after the reigning Queen Victoria, who took delight in this new Gothic vision. Pugin would rebuild Westminster Palace in a High Gothic Revival style that imitated 15th-century Perpendicular Gothic styling. After lengthy debate, it was decided that architects Sir Charles Barry and A.W. A fire destroyed most of the original palace in 1834. One of the most famous examples of High Victorian Gothic architecture is Victoria Tower (1860) at the Royal Palace of Westminster in London, England. The 19th-century buildings, called High Gothic Revival, High Victorian Gothic, or Neo-Gothic, were closely modeled after the great architecture of medieval Europe.
Looking up the High Victorian Gothic Victoria Tower (1860) in London, The Houses of Parliament.īetween 18, John Ruskin and other critics and philosophers stirred interest in recreating a more authentic Gothic architecture, like buildings from centuries before. The ideas of John Ruskin and other thinkers lead to a more complex Gothic Revival style often called High Victorian Gothic or Neo-Gothic. A belief in Gothic guilds was a rejection of mechanization - the Industrial Revolution - and an appreciation for the hand-crafted. Ruskin believed that man's highest spiritual values and artistic achievements were expressed not only in the elaborate, heavy masonry architecture of medieval Europe, but also that era's working system of guilds when craftsmen formed associations and coordinated their non-mechanized methods in order to build things. Ruskin's books outlined principles of design that used European Gothic architecture as the standard. The great English philosopher and art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) was more influential in Victorian Gothic Revival.
Gothic metal art full#
With Gothic Revival, Sir Horace became an early proponent of turning back the clock as Britain led the Industrial Revolution, full steam ahead. It is in this house that Walpole also invented a new genre of fiction, the Gothic novel, in 1764. Walpole worked on Strawberry Hill House for nearly thirty years beginning in 1749. The well-known house, located near London at Strawberry Hill near Twickenham, became a model for Gothic Revival architecture. In the mid-1700s, the English politician and writer Sir Horace Walpole (1717-1797) decided to redo his country home with details inspired by medieval churches and cathedrals - a 12th-century architecture known as "Gothic" was "revived" by Walpole. Jonathan McManus/Getty Images (cropped)Īmerican Gothic architecture was imported from the United Kingdom. Eighteenth Century Strawberry Hill, Gothic Revival Home of Sir Horace Walpole.