GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
. The term “Gothic,” first derisively applied by Italian Renaissance writers, is still the
accepted designation for the last phase of medieval art and architecture, lasting from ca.
1140 to ca. 1525. The period is usually divided into four parts, based (incorrectly) on the
organic model of growth: Early Gothic (ca. 1140–95); High Gothic (ca. 1195–1225/30);
Rayonnant (ca. 1225/ 30-ca. 1400); and Flamboyant (ca. 1400–1525).
The development of the Gothic style is usually analyzed in terms of specific elements,
such as round or pointed arches, rib vaults, tribune galleries, wall passages and triforia,
flying buttresses, elevations, and plans. More important than such constructional features,
which can also be traced in Romanesque architecture, was the change in the way builders
worked within their architectural vocabularies. Prior to the rebuilding of parts of the
abbey of Saint-Denis beginning ca. 1140, builders generally borrowed features, more or
less unchanged, from other building projects. Builders in the generations that followed
Saint-Denis more and more integrated borrowed elements into the total design. It is the
cognitive shift and the increasingly comprehensive design sense, together with the unified
architectural space in which the parts are subsumed within the whole, that set Early
Gothic apart from Romanesque. The change occurred as a series of experiments, not as
an absolute solution. The surviving structures resist easy synthesis and suggest that we
must appreciate the staggering variety of experimentation, the excitement of discovery,
and the intellectual ferment that resulted in the extraordinary range of Early Gothic
architecture; there are as many directions and trends as there are buildings. With the
acceptance of a pluralistic approach, we move closer to the reality of the extraordinary
variety that characterized the period.
“Early Gothic” is the generally accepted designation for the first phase of the French
Gothic style, lasting from its beginning at Saint-Denis, ca. 1140, until the reconstruction
of the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Chartres, begun in 1194. The Early Gothic style was
initially confined to the areas in and around Paris and those under royal control but
quickly lost its Parisian association with the Capetian kings. Architecture ceased to be a
craft and became a discipline in the new chevet at Saint-Denis, dedicated in 1144. For the
first time, medieval architecture became something other than the sum of a series of parts
or sequence of units. The important conceptual shift in the thinking of the second builder
at Saint-Denis is that for the first time he faced the challenge of creating an inner
spaciousness that fused separate but contiguous units into a single architectural entity.
The success of the east end of Saint-Denis lies in the creation and direct expression of a
visual logic in the arrangement of every architectural element and a subordination of
elements to the unified, total space. In the decade or so following the dedication of the
east end of Saint-Denis in 1144, we can find a number of buildings that respond to it in a
variety of ways. With few exceptions, the builders react as did builders of previous
generations and borrow elements from Saint-Denis in random fashion or attempt to
“copy” the east end as they understood it.
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