Gothic Architecture

Gothic architecture is the building style that succeeded Romanesque architecture across Western Europe from the mid twelfth century onward, defined by the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress, structural devices that let architects replace load-bearing masonry walls with slender piers and large stained glass windows. The style is conventionally dated from the rebuilding of the choir of the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, north of Paris, under Abbot Suger beginning around 1140, and it spread through France, England, the Holy Roman Empire and beyond over the following four centuries, producing the great cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, Notre-Dame de Paris, Cologne and Salisbury. Regional late phases, including Flamboyant Gothic in France and Perpendicular Gothic in England, carried the style well into the sixteenth century even as Renaissance forms were displacing it elsewhere in Europe.