The Gothic Revival Style

Beginning in the 1830's and 1840's many architects grew tired of the restrained and simple qualities of architecture based on Roman and Greek examples. Tastes called for more fanciful, "picture book like" or picturesque buildings. One of the first styles to answer this need was Gothic Revival. Gothic Revival borrowed decorative elements from Churches and town halls that were built in Europe between 1100 and 1500.

Gothic Revival structures were built of stone and brick with lots of wooden trim, or they could be frame with clapboard siding and lots of wooden decorative trim. The structures most often built in the Gothic Revival style are churches. This brick example(ABOVE) is St. Peter's Lutheran Church built around 1870. We immediately see the main characteristic of Gothic Revival architecture: emphasizing the tall, narrow, pointed and vertical. The main entrance of the Church is defined by a tall, graceful bell tower that terminates with a pointed roof. Four pointed decorative elements called pinnacles, are at the base of the spire. The openings in the bell tower are narrow with pointed arched tops. The main doorway is in the form of a pointed arch and the windows are all tall and skinny and have pointed arches. These are called "lancet windows".

The Samuel Jones house build around 1870 is an example of a frame house in the Gothic Revival style. Note how the simple "box" with a low pitched gable roof of the Federal and Greek Revival has given way to a profusion of steeply pitched gables and numerous wings. The modest stoops of earlier homes have blossomed into a shady veranda. The gables' steepness is emphasized by a jig-saw cut or fretwork "barge board" that follows the line of the eaves.

Here is a detail of the Jones house showing the fretwork barge board and a lancet window. Note that the window frames project significantly from the building surface. Where Federal preserved the integrity of the wall surface, Gothic Revival is a celebration of "ins" and "outs" and interruptions.

Another frame example is the Henry Stahl house, built around 1860. Note the steep gabled roofline. While there is no fretwork barge board, we see the use of fretwork trim in the porch supports and the second story porch rail. Many Gothic Revival houses have this characteristic two story porch with fretwork trim at the main entrance.

SUMMARY

Gothic Revival buildings combined verticality, the use of fretcut wooden trimwork and rambling building designs to create some of the most picturesque buildings constructed in the decades surrounding the Civil War.

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