swallowed the style whole. In Burgos, Toledo
(both begun in the 1220s) and León (started in 1255),
cathedrals went up with the high naves, pointed arches,
tracery and stained glass of High Gothic. But although
León came close to the pure aesthetic with its slender,
lofty nave and glorious stained glass, Spain’s arches
were never as high, the buttresses never as flying nor
the windows ever as large as French models.The essentials of Gothic architecture in Spain
Such was the variety of Gothic architecture in Iberia
that it’s hard to talk of a specific Spanish style. The
important northern European traits of Gothic all cropped
up: pointy arches to replace the rounded Romanesque
variety, higher walls and ceilings supported by
buttresses that grew to accommodate them. Where,
in a handful of cases, these protruded from the body
of the building, they were called flying buttresses.
Intricately carved stone, or tracery, was another feature.
There was one peculiarly Spanish addition to the Gothic
pantheon though, and that was star vaulting, in which
the ribs of a vaulted ceiling were launched from a
central point. The central dome of Bugos cathedral and
the cloisters in Pamplona cathedral carry particularly
good examples of the style.Gothic around the regions
Away from the richly decorated, derivative cathedrals
of Castile y León, Spain found a more personal take on
Gothic. In particular, Catalonia developed something
more idiosyncratic. In Girona and Barcelona the most
obvious design trait was width. The unostentatious
Gothic cathedrals in both cities are cavernous – the
former second only to St Peter’s in Rome in its girth.
On Majorca, the high, wide cathedral of Palma falls
within the same style. With such a wide span to149- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
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