152- 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
Keep it civil
It wasn’t all castles and cathedrals in the Gothic era.
Spanish architecture also found expression through
more workaday buildings. Design traits like the pointed
arch and vaulted ceiling crossed over to less grandiose
structures. In Valencia, the late 15thcentury silk
exchange, the Lonja, has the kind of star-vaulted ceiling
and slender columns that would make a cathedral
jealous. Barcelona’s labyrinthine Barri Gòtic harbours a
number of Gothic buildings built for local government,
ensconced in Europe’s largest surviving cluster of
medieval architecture.León Cathedral
The pick of Spain’s grand
Gothic churches sticks
closest to the French
formula: high vaulting,
flying buttresses and a
carousel-sized rose
window.
Girona Cathedral
A good example of how
Spanish Gothic differed
between regions – in
this instance Catalonia –
and a wonder as much
for its scale as its style.
The Barri Gòtic
OK, so the Gothic
architecture is often lost
amid the jumble of other
styles, both older and
newer, but nowhere
evokes the spirit of
Middle Ages Europe
quite like Barcelona’s
old quarter.
Three Gothic
wonders
of Spain