Gothic Architecture's Victorian Revival
front, Architecture & Cummings' Architectural Details, Marcus Fayette Cummings and Charles Crosby Miller, 1865
& 1873, reprint, 1980 /Artwork: designslinger]
It is fairly easy to identify the Gothic Revival in Victorian architecture. Most of us are
familiar with Gothic architecture, so many churches have Gothic detailing, and I'm not just talking about the 12th century originals. The two illustrations at the left side of the panel are from Chartres Cathedral, which was built from 1194 to 1260. If you look at those drawings juxtaposed with the illustrations of the house and commercial building, you can begin to see how the original elements Gothic architecture were used to create a new vernacular style that emerged at the very beginnings of the Victorian era in the 1840s.
So if you're trying to identify a Victorian house as an example of Gothic Revival, what
should you look for? Well, the roof will have a very steep pitch and the gables will be trimmed with bargeboards, sometimes called vergeboards, of ornate tracery suggestive of Gothic details, like the ones you see above. A gable is the triangle of the flat vertical surface of a building where it meets a pitched roof, and the bargeboard is the piece of wood that hangs from the edge of the gable. Not all the windows have to have the triangular shape so identifiable in Gothic architecture, but you will often find at least one in a gable. Keep your eye out for a clover-like cut out, (it's the quarter-foil in the illustration in the panel below), a detail inspired by the great Rose windows of Gothic cathedrals.
If you're on the hunt for a commercial building, or even a city row house built in this style,
you'll be hard pressed to find one. During this period in history, before the architectural profession was the profession we know it as today, the pattern book served as architect for many builders and their clients. The first Gothic Revival pattern books were published by Andrew Jackson Downing with Alexander Davis, Cottage Residences (1842) and Architecture of Country Houses (1850) which were like the Martha Stewart design bibles of their day. And, since Downing focused on the free standing, single family suburban home, that's primarily what was built.
I always associate the Gothic Revival period with Edgar Allen Poe. He wrote during the
1840s, and published his poem, The Raven, in 1845. For me, the room that the storyteller is sitting in, happens to be in the gable of a Revival house, with the Gothic details peaking out through dark corners, as he says,
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore -
Tis the wind and nothing more."
of Gothic veranda, Architecture & Cummings' Architectural Details, Marcus Fayette Cummings and Charles Crosby
Miller, 1865 & 1873, reprint, 1980 /Artwork: designslinger]
Posted by designslinger at 3/16/2009 5:20 AM 
Categories: Architecture,History,Dictionary,Interior Design,Decorative Arts
Tags: Victorian architecture Andrew Jackson Downing Gothic Revival
Categories: Architecture,History,Dictionary,Interior Design,Decorative Arts
Tags: Victorian architecture Andrew Jackson Downing Gothic Revival
I am so glad I found your blog... Architecture has always interested me, especially Gothic although most styles have intriguing features that draw me in. Thanks.
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You're welcome. And thanks for visiting!
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Thanks for the work you have done, I"m very thankful to you for sharing this useful stuff with us!
HarryDsouza
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You're very welcome!
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wow that is so interesting and it's a great art. thanks
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You're welcome. And thanks for the visits!
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I love finding Victorian Gothic buildings in my town. I love everything Victorian, to be honest, but Neo-Gothic architecture is especially interesting to me. I love its graceful arches and the interesting details... it's fascinating that they would revive a style that was so closely linked with Catholicism, too...
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This is an interesting post, and thanks for including the illustrations. I guess I have known on a logical level that modern gothic revival, as it exists in both residential and commercial architecture of the Victorian era, was based upon certain very specific elements, but it is helpful to see pictures to burn into my little brain.
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Glad we were able to help!
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