Neues gothic: Gothic 1 Remake on Steam

New Gothic | it’s… What is New Gothic?

The most famous neo-Gothic building is the Palace of Westminster on the Thames.

Neo-Gothic (“New Gothic”) is the most common direction in the architecture of the era of eclecticism, or historicism, reviving the forms and (in some cases) design features of medieval Gothic. Originated in England in the 40s of the XVIII century. It developed in many respects in parallel with medieval studies and was supported by it. Unlike national eclectic trends (such as pseudo-Russian or neo-Moorish styles), neo-Gothic was in demand all over the world: it was in this style that Catholic cathedrals were built in New York and Melbourne, Sao Paulo and Calcutta, Manila and Guangzhou, Rybinsk and Kiev.

In the XIX century, the British, French and Germans challenged each other for the right to be considered the founders of the Gothic, but the palm in the revival of interest in medieval architecture is unanimously given to Great Britain. In the Victorian era, the British Empire, both in the mother country and in the colonies, carried out neo-Gothic construction of vast scope and functional diversity, the fruits of which were such well-known structures as Big Ben and Tower Bridge.

In Russia, the demand for Neo-Gothic was limited to the court circles and the Catholic communities of large cities, which built architectural whims and churches, respectively. In Russian-language literature, the term “pseudo-Gothic” is used to refer to Neo-Gothic flavored with national elements, since there was no genuine Gothic on the territory of Ancient Rus’.

Origins

Tom’s Tower, Oxford (1681-82, architect Christopher Wren) is the only Gothic structure of its kind in the Baroque era.

Just as the Enlightenment was embodied in the forms of architectural classicism, neo-Gothic reflected the nostalgic aspirations and individualistic values ​​of the Romantic era that came to replace it. Interest in the Middle Ages, and especially in medieval ruins, awakened in England in the middle of the 18th century. It reached its highest incarnation in the novels and ballads of Walter Scott, as well as in the specific genre of the «gothic novel». For more information about the literary aspects of the Neo-Gothic, see the Gothic trend in the art of the New Age.

Already at the end of the 19th century, patriotic and nationalist romantics began to oppose the «Roman» aesthetics of classicism with the artistic tastes of «barbarian», Germano-Celtic Europe. In its own way, it was the opposition of reason and feelings, rationalism and irrationalism. This incompatibility between Roman aesthetics and «barbarian» aesthetics, that is, not Roman ones, gave rise to the very name «Gothic». As you know, the name «Gothic» arose in the Renaissance to denote an architectural style that was opposite in its aesthetics to the rational Roman system. The Goths, who destroyed Ancient Rome, were for the figures of the Renaissance the embodiment of everything “barbarian”, which determined the choice of the name “barbarian”, not Roman architectural style.

Returning to ancient Roman ideals, the Renaissance stubbornly saw in everything non-Roman the stamp of «barbarism», although from an engineering point of view, Gothic cathedrals undoubtedly represented a big step forward compared to Romanesque cathedrals. Therefore, at the turn of the 19th century, when, following the collapse of the French Revolution, a wave of disillusionment with classicist rationalism and the ideals of the Enlightenment swept through Europe, natural (in the Rousseauist sense), “natural” architecture turned out to be in demand, presumably preserving under the cover of Christian dogma the spirit of Europe that existed before the advent of northern Europe of the Romans.

The castle of the Scottish Duke of Argyll on Loch Fyne (1746-89) is one of the first Neo-Gothic monuments in Europe.

The works of Romantic writers contributed to the spread of Neo-Gothic in Europe. Chateaubriand devoted many inspired pages to the Gothic ruins, arguing that it was the medieval temple architecture that most fully captured the «genius of Christianity. » The setting and protagonist of the first historical novel in French is a Gothic building — Notre Dame Cathedral. In Victorian England, John Ruskin argued in excited, flowery prose for the «moral superiority» of the Gothic over other architectural styles. For him, the «central building of the world» was the Doge’s Palace in Venice, and the most perfect of all styles was the Italian Gothic. Ruskin’s views were shared by Pre-Raphaelite artists who drew inspiration from the art of the Middle Ages.

In English literature, Neo-Gothic is called «resurrected Gothic» ( Gothic Revival ). More recently, art historians have begun to question whether it is correct to talk about the resurrection of medieval art in the 19th century, given that the tradition of Gothic architecture in parts of Europe continued to develop throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Moreover, such «advanced» Baroque architects as Carlo Rainaldi in Rome, Guarino Guarini in Turin and Jan Blažej Santini in Prague had a deep interest in the so-called. «Gothic order of architecture» and when completing the construction of ancient monasteries skillfully reproduced Gothic vaults. In the interests of ensembles, English architects of the 17th century also resorted to Gothic, for example, Christopher Wren, who built the famous “Tom Tower” at Christ Church College, Oxford.

Early British Gothic Revival

Horace Walpole, author of the first Gothic novel, not only set its action in the medieval castle of Otranto, but wished to have something similar as a country villa. In 1748, he purchased Strawberry Hill, near London, in order to give its interiors a macabre antique look. Part of the estate, however, was decorated in the Rococo style, and such a neighborhood gave the Gothic interiors of the manor house a reputation for pretentious architectural whim, like the earlier craze for «Chinese». Other aristocrats followed Walpole’s example, in particular, the Duke of Argyll, who stylized his Scottish estate Inverary as a medieval castle; Robert Adam’s brother, William, took part in the development of the project.

Fonthill Abbey — the country house of the English writer W. Beckford with a 100-meter Gothic tower (built in 1795-1813).

The true flowering of English Gothic comes at the end of the 18th century in connection with the disappointment of the British in French ideals and the search for a national architectural style. The son of the mayor of London, William Beckford, began building the imposing Fonthill Abbey estate in Wiltshire in 1795, with an octagonal 90-meter tower that collapsed three times in 30 years. Beckford’s estate made an indelible impression on contemporaries, and its fame spread throughout Europe. Shortly after the death of the owner, the tower once again collapsed, and the building was demolished. Its complex construction history testifies to the imperfect understanding of the design features of medieval Gothic by the architects of the early 19th century.

Fonthill Abbey draws a line under the period when neo-Gothic was only a tribute to fashion from a narrow circle of aristocrats, and elements of Gothic decor (such as lancet arches) were applied to essentially Palladian buildings contrary to structural logic. Regency architects paid close attention to the architecture of English Gothic cathedrals. Mastering the acquired knowledge allowed the masters of the Victorian era to turn neo-Gothic into a universal architectural style, in which not only churches were erected, but also buildings of various functional orientations — town halls, universities, schools and train stations. In this so-called. In the «Victorian style» entire cities were built up in the 19th century.

Victorian Neo-Gothic

London St Pancras Station (architect J. G. Scott, 1865-68) is an example of neo-Gothic decoration superimposed on modern ironwork.

Neo-Gothic was «officially» recognized as the national style of Victorian England when, after a devastating fire, the British Parliament Building was commissioned in 1834 to rebuild the famous neo-Gothic connoisseur and enthusiast, Augustus Pugin. Erected by Pugin in collaboration with Charles Barry, the new Palace of Westminster became the hallmark of the style. Following the seat of the Parliament, the Royal Court of Justice and other public buildings, town halls, railway stations, bridges and even sculptural memorials, such as, for example, the Prince Albert Memorial, began to acquire a neo-Gothic look. In the 1870s the abundance of neo-gothic buildings in Britain already allowed for the publication of weighty reviews on the history of this style.

The neo-Gothic triumphant procession through the colonies of the British Empire scattered buildings in this style all over the globe. Neo-Gothic temples, in particular, abound in Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, neo-Gothic attitudes were at first wary, partly because of the lingering antagonism with the former mother country, and partly because Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers considered the most suitable architecture for the republic, heir to the ancient ideals of freedom, not gothic, but Palladian and neo-Greek. The New York Trinity Church (1846) testifies that in the middle of the 19th century, Americans were just beginning to master the Neo-Gothic language. Much more confidently executed in imitation of the temples of medieval Europe, the Catholic Cathedral of St. Patrick in the same city (1858-78).

In the second half of the 19th century, the Society for Arts and Crafts and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, led by the prominent Pre-Raphaelite William Morris, put on the agenda questions about the revival of the integrity of the artistic perception inherent in the Middle Ages. Morris and his supporters sought to resurrect not only and not so much the appearance of medieval buildings, but their loving filling with handmade decorative and applied art objects (“Red House” by Morris, 1859). Just this unity was lacking in large Victorian projects like train stations and shopping centers: a “cap” of fractional Gothic decor was usually worn on modern steel structures. Behind a medieval façade, an ultra-modern «stuffing» of products of the industrial revolution was often hidden, and this dissonance characterizes the period of eclecticism not only in England (cf. V. G. Shukhov’s ceilings in Moscow’s GUM).

Neo-Gothic in Central Europe

Oberbaumbrücke bridge across the Spree restored in medieval form (1894-96).

Earlier than in other countries of continental Europe, the Neo-Gothic was «tasted» by Anglo-lovers in various states that later formed Germany. The prince of tiny Anhalt-Dessau ordered, as a whim, to build a Gothic house and a church in his «park kingdom» near Wörlitz. Even earlier, during the construction of Potsdam, the Prussian king Frederick II ordered to give a monumental medieval look to the Nauen Gate (1755). However, as in Britain, these examples of 18th-century German neo-Gothic are sporadic.

The surge of German national feeling during the period of romanticism and especially after the revolution of 1848-1849 resulted in a movement aimed at completing the «long-term construction» of the Middle Ages and, first of all, the Cologne Cathedral — one of the most ambitious buildings conceived of the Middle Ages. In 1880, when the construction of the cathedral was completed, at a height of 157 meters it became the tallest building in the world. A few years later, his record was broken by another completed church — the 161-meter Ulm Cathedral. Somewhat earlier, the most important monument of the Bavarian Gothic style, the cathedral in Regensburg, was cleared of later layers.

The fabulous Neuschwanstein («new swan cliff») combines elements of authentic gothic with fantastic additions.

Following the example of the British, the German rulers carefully restored the ruined medieval castles. In some cases, the initiative came from individuals. Significant restoration work was required by the main castle of the Teutonic Order — Marienburg. The German sovereigns did not skimp on financing the construction of new castles, which were designed to surpass all medieval examples. Thus, the Prussian government financed the construction of the grandiose Hohenzollern castle in Swabia (1850-67), but it also faded before the Neuschwanstein castle, which seemed to have come out of a fairy tale, the construction of which was launched in the Alps in 1869Bavarian King Ludwig II.

German architects successfully used forms that were previously exclusively characteristic of church architecture in the construction of purely secular buildings, such as the town halls in Vienna, Munich and Berlin, as well as the extended and in its own way unique complex of Hamburg shipyards — Speicherstadt. In connection with the transformation of Hamburg into the main port of the German Empire, a particularly large-scale neo-Gothic construction was carried out in this city, which included the construction of the highest church in the world — the Nikolaikirche (destroyed during World War II). New churches were often built of unplastered brick in the Brick Gothic tradition, such as the Wiesbaden Marktkirche and the Friedrichswerder Church in Berlin.

The Viennese Votivkirche is known for its exquisite interior decoration, following the precepts of late Gothic.

Austria-Hungary in its perception of neo-Gothic followed the path of other Germanic nations. Here, Neo-Gothic was in sharp competition with other retrospective styles — Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque, although it was Neo-Gothic that resurrected the medieval power of the Holy Roman Empire, of which the Austrian Habsburgs saw themselves as heirs. Following the example of other states, they took care of the completion of the construction of the Prague Cathedral of St. Vita. Of the neo-Gothic projects proper, the Viennese Votivkirche (1856-79) stands out for its scope and splendor.) and the building of the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest (1885-94).

Neo-Gothic in France and Italy

In the Romanesque countries throughout the 19th century, styles rooted in the classical tradition dominated — Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Baroque and Beaux-Arts. In the prestigious School of Fine Arts, teachers of academic training were alien to admiration for medieval art, so future architects studied mainly the heritage of antiquity and the Renaissance. Due to the lack of own neo-Gothic specialists, architects had to be invited from abroad to style the newly erected buildings as Gothic cathedrals — for example, the Parisian Basilica of Saint-Clotilde (1827-57).

Neo-Gothic came to France late and immediately received a pronounced archaeological orientation. Victor Hugo’s novel Notre Dame Cathedral (1830) sounded like a hymn to the glory of medieval architecture and a call to preserve its heritage. At first, the cathedral depicted in the novel became the subject of general attention. In the future, as a rule, it was also not about the construction of new buildings, but about the restoration of the masterpieces of the French Middle Ages, be it Saint-Chapelle, Mont-Saint-Michel, the grandiose abbey in Vezlay, the ancient fortifications of Carcassonne or the mountain castle of Roctayade. The indefatigable Viollet-le-Duc had a hand in the implementation of almost all restoration projects, striving to bring even buildings unfinished in the Middle Ages to the last degree of completion.

In Italy, the Neo-Gothic was also perceived precisely as a movement aimed at the restoration and completion of the construction of the great monuments of past years. Even before the coronation, Napoleon ordered the completion of the grandiose Milan Cathedral and promised to allocate funds for this; work on the completion of the duomo dragged on until 1965. The largest project of the Italian neo-Gothic movement was the competition announced in 1864 for the design and construction of the facade of the greatest treasury of the Cinquecento — the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. At the same time, the facades of other unfinished churches were being completed — the Florentine Basilica of Santa Croce and the Neapolitan Cathedral.

Neo-Gothic in Russia

Main article : Russian pseudo-Gothic

An early example of Russian Gothic is the Vladimirskaya Church in Bykovo (1789, attributed to V.I. Bazhenov).

Russian pseudo-Gothic of the late 18th — early 19th centuries. — These are largely romantic fantasies on the themes of the Western Middle Ages, which reflect the idealized idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe customers about the Middle Ages as the era of the triumph of Christianity and knightly tournaments. The first attempts in Russia to gothic architectural stylizations date back to the 1770s, when Yu. M. Felten, commissioned by Catherine II, built the Chesme Way Palace and the church attached to it in forms outlandish for St. Petersburg, and V. I. Bazhenov, on her instructions, took up the design vast Tsaritsyn estate near Moscow.

Unlike their European counterparts, Russian stylists, especially in the early period, rarely adopted the frame system of Gothic architecture, limiting themselves to selective decoration of the facade with Gothic decor such as lancet arches, combined with borrowings from the Naryshkin baroque repertoire. In temple construction, the cross-dome, traditional for Orthodoxy, also prevailed. There is no need to talk about a deep understanding of the language of Gothic architectural forms here due to the large temporal and spatial distance separating the new buildings from their medieval prototypes.

From the second half of the 19th century, pseudo-Gothic fantasies gave way to the forms of “international” neo-Gothic learned from Western literature, the main field for which in Russia was the construction of Catholic churches for parishioners of Polish origin. Many such temples were built throughout the Russian Empire from Krasnoyarsk to Kyiv. As in Scandinavia, the architects of Eastern European churches preferred to follow the traditions of brick Gothic. On the orders of private individuals, sometimes fabulous fantasies were erected with Gothic elements such as decorative turrets and machicolations — such as the Swallow’s Nest. In such structures, fidelity to the medieval tradition gave way to the conformity of the building to the expectations of the amateur customer.

Gothic architectural fantasies in Tsarist Russia

White Tower in Tsarskoye Selo (1821-27, architect A. A. Menelas)

Chapel of Alexander Nevsky in Peterhof (1831-34, architect K. F. Schinkel)

Marfino estate near Lobnya (1837-46, architect M. D. Bykovsky)

Novo-Petergofsky railway station (1855-57, architect N. L. Benois)

Swallow’s Nest (1911-12, architect L. On 23 апреля, 2023 By alexxlab Sonstig