Angie Bonk: Gothic Design

When the Gothic period started, Paris was the center of the Gothic world. At this point, churches were the center of city life. Unfortunately, also during this time was when the black plague killed over 75 million people, which was nearly a third of the population. Religion was the heart of the design and wealth and power was within the church. There was new innovations of design during this period that no one has ever used before. They started to use pointed archs and fly buttresses to be more stable in their architecture since they had taller buildings than past periods up to this point. They also recreated ribbed vaulting in their design to also help with a more stable structure. Using this architecture, they were able to make Cathedrals appear weightless by having a very open plan due to higher ceilings and incorporating tall glass windows to allow more light. A type of window widely used in every structure during the Gothic time was the Rose window. You see this type of window in every Cathedral built during this time. Some famous Cathedrals were the St. Denis, Notre Dame, Wells Cathedral, Regensburg Cathedral, Barcelona Cathedral, and the Siena Cathedral. With the Cathedrals in Spain, they were wider and a more complex plan compared to the ones in France and Germany. Along with all these Cathedrals using their new type of architecture with the pointed archs, ribbed vaulting and flying buttresses, they also had a basic floor plan that was similar to the Romanesque period.

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