Traveler's Guide to Art & Architecture: Architecture

Victorian Gothic Revival

1750-1900--While neoclassicists were sticking to their guns in Bath, the early romantic movement swept up others with rosy visions of the past. This imaginary and fairy-tale version of the Middle Ages led to such creative developments as the pre-Raphaelite painters and Gothic revival architects, who really got a head of steam under their movement during the eclectic Victorian era. Gothic "revival" is a bit misleading, as its practitioners usually applied their favorite Gothic features at random rather than faithfully recreating a whole structure. Aside from this eclecticism, you can separate the revivals from the originals by age (Victorian buildings are several hundred years younger and tend to be in considerably better shape) and size (the revivals are often much larger). Identifiable Features Mishmash of Gothic features. Look at the features described under Gothic, and then imagine going on a shopping spree through them at random. Eclecticism. Few Victorians bothered with correctly rendering all the formal details of a particular Gothic era. They just wanted the overall effect to be pointy, busy with decorations, and terribly medieval. Grand scale. These buildings tend to be very, very large. This was usually accomplished by using Gothic only on the surface, with newfangled industrial-age engineering underneath. Best Examples Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament), London (1835-52). Charles Barry (1795-1860) designed the wonderful British seat of government in a Gothic idiom that, more than most, sticks pretty faithfully to the old Perpendicular period's style. His clock tower, usually called "Big Ben" after its biggest bell, has become an icon of London itself. Albert Memorial, London (1863-72). In 1861 Queen Victoria commissioned George Gilbert Scott (1811-78) to build this massive Gothic canopy to memorialize her beloved husband. Natural History Museum, London (1873-81). The Natural History Museum is a delightful marriage of imposing neo-Gothic clothing hiding an industrial-age steel-and-iron framework, courtesy of architect Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905).

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