Saturday, January 27, 2024

Some Masterpieces of the Gothic Revival


Public buildings today, maybe houses later. Westminster Palace, designed by Charles Barry, constructed 1840 to 1870.


Palace of Pena, Portugal, 1839 to 1885.


House of Parliament, Budapast, Hungary, constructed 1890-1902, designed by Imre Steindl.


St. Pancras Station, London, 1868

The City Museum, Brussels. There was an actual gothic building here, built in the early 1500s, but it was damaged in three different wars. It was restored after each but by the mid nineteenth century it was in bad shape, so it was almost entirely rebuilt into this form between 1860 and 1887.

Rosario Train Station, Lisbon, designed by Portuguese architect José Luís Monteiro and constructed in 1886-1887.

Tower Bridge, London, 1886-1894


Santuario de las Lajas, Ipiales, Colombia, 1916-1949, a church built over a rock where an image of the Virgin Mary appeared "miraculously".

3 comments:

G. Verloren said...

Fine examples of the style, to be sure - pity I personally dislike the style primarily BECAUSE it is so tied up in monarchy and clergy. Basically every one of these buildings was commissioned to promote the authority of a king or a pope, most of them in conjunction with race-motivated colonization or empire-building.

A thing of beauty made for a terrible purpose is not actually a thing of beauty - even if in our appreciation of its aesthetic qualities we sometimes forget (or actively ignore) that fact.

Mário R. Gonçalves said...

Bach music is bed up in monarchy and clergy. The Kremlin and Santa Sophia are bed up in monarchy and clergy. Giotto, Leonardo, Ravenna and Florence are so much too. No things of beauty remain, except 20th century war-time art, garbage in my taste.

Mário R. Gonçalves said...

'Rosario' is wrong, the name of the station in Lisbon is "Rossio"