Architecture

While each architectural era has its distinctive features, there are some elements, floor plans, and terms common to many. This is particularly true of churches, large numbers of which were built in Europe from the Middle Ages through the 18th century.

From the Norman period on, most churches consist either of a single, wide aisle or a wide central nave flanked by two narrower aisles. The aisles are separated from the nave by a row of columns, or square stacks of masonry called piers, connected by arches. Sometimes -- especially in the medieval Norman and Gothic eras -- there is a second level to the nave, above these arches (and hence above the low roof over the aisles) punctuated by windows called a clerestory.

This main nave/aisle assemblage is usually crossed by a perpendicular corridor called a transept near the far, east end of the church so that the floor plan looks like a Latin Cross (shaped like a crucifix). The shorter, east arm of the nave is called the chancel; it often houses the altar and stalls of the choir. Some churches use a rood screen (so called because it supports a rood, the Saxon word for crucifixion) to separate the nave from the chancel. If the far end of the chancel is rounded off, we call it an apse. An ambulatory is a curving corridor outside the altar and choir area, separating it from the ring of smaller chapels radiating off the chancel and apse.

Some churches, especially after the Renaissance when mathematical proportion became important, were built on a Greek Cross plan, with each axis the same length like a giant plus sign ("+").

It's worth pointing out that very few buildings (especially churches) were built in only one particular style. Massive, expensive structures often took centuries to complete, during which time tastes would change and plans would be altered.

Norman (1066-1200)

Aside from a smattering of ancient sights -- pre-classical stone circles as at Stonehenge and Avebury and Roman ruins such as the Bath spa and Hadrian's Wall -- the oldest surviving architectural style in England dates to when the 1066 Norman conquest brought the Romanesque era to Britain, where it flourished as the Norman style.

Churches in this style were large, with a wide nave and aisles to accommodate the masses who came to hear Mass and worship at the altars of various saints. But to support the weight of all that masonry, the walls had to be thick and solid (meaning they could be pierced only by few and small windows) resting on huge piers, giving Norman churches a dark, somber, mysterious, and often oppressive feeling.

Identifiable Features

• Rounded arches. These load-bearing architectural devices allowed the architects to open up wide naves and spaces, channeling all the weight of the stone walls and ceiling across the curve of the arch and down into the ground via the columns or pilasters.
• Thick walls.
• Infrequent and small windows.
• Huge piers. These load-bearing, vertical features resemble square stacks of masonry.
• Chevrons. These zigzagging decorations often surround a doorway or wrap around a column.

Best Examples

• White Tower, London (1078). William the Conqueror's first building in Britain, White Tower is the central keep of the Tower of London. The fortress-thick walls and rounded archways are textbook Norman.
• Durham Cathedral (1093-1488). The layout is Norman, save for the proto-Gothic, pointy rib vaulting along the nave. The massive piers are incised with chevrons.
• Ely Cathedral (1083-1189). The nave and south transept are perfectly Norman, though much of the rest of the interior is as Gothic as the exterior.

Gothic (1150-1550)

The French Gothic style invaded England in the late 12th century, trading rounded arches for pointy ones -- an engineering discovery that freed church architecture from the heavy, thick walls of Norman structures and allowed ceilings to soar, walls to thin, and windows to proliferate.

Instead of dark, somber, relatively unadorned Norman interiors that forced the eyes of the faithful toward the altar where the priest stood droning on in unintelligible Latin, the Gothic interior enticed the churchgoers' gaze upward to high ceilings filled with light. While the priests conducted Mass in Latin, the peasants could "read" the Gothic comic books of stained-glass windows.

The squat, brooding exteriors of the Norman fortresses of God were replaced by graceful buttresses and soaring spires, which rose from town centers like beacons of religion.

The Gothic proper in Britain can be divided into three overlapping periods or styles: Early English (1150-1300), Decorated (1250-1370), and Perpendicular (1350-1550). While they all share some identifiable features , others are characteristic of the individual periods.

Gothic style proved hard to kill in Britain. It would make comebacks in the 17th century as Laudian Gothic in some Oxford and Cambridge buildings, in the late 18th century as rococo or "Strawberry Hill Gotick" at Lacock Abbey, and in the 19th-century Victorian Gothic Revival, discussed below.

Identifiable Features

• Pointed arches (all periods). The most significant development of the Gothic era was the discovery that pointed arches could carry far more weight than rounded ones.
• Cross vaults (all periods). Instead of being flat, the square patch of ceiling between four columns arches up to a point in the center, creating four sail shapes, sort of like the underside of a pyramid. The "X" separating these four sails is often reinforced with ridges called ribbing. As the Gothic progressed, four-sided cross vaults became fan vaults , and the spaces between the structural ribbing spanned with decorative tracery .
• Flying buttresses (all periods). These free-standing exterior pillars connected by graceful, thin arms of stone help channel the weight of the building and its roof out and down into the ground. Not every Gothic church has evident buttresses.
• Dogtooth molding (Early English). Bands of a repeated decoration of four triangle-shaped petals placed around a raised center.
• Lancet windows (Early English). Tall, thin pointy windows, often in pairs or multiples, all set into a larger, elliptical pointy arch.
• Tracery (Decorated and Perpendicular). These delicate, lacy spider webs of carved stone grace the pointy end of windows and the acute lower intersections of cross vaults .
• Fan vaults (Perpendicular). Lots of side-by-side, cone-shaped, concave vaults springing from the same point, fan vaults are usually covered in tracery .
• An emphasis on horizontal and vertical lines (Perpendicular). What defines the Perpendicular is its broad and rectilinear fashion, especially in the windows.
• Mullioned, transomed windows (Perpendicular). Perpendicular windows tend to be wide, under flattened arches, with their bulk divided into dozens of tiny pointed panes by mullions (vertical bars) and transoms (horizontals bars). This cagelike motif often carries over to the decoration on the walls as well.
• Stained glass (all periods but more common later). The multitude and size of Gothic windows allowed them to be filled with Bible stories and symbolism writ in the colorful patterns of stained glass. The use of stained glass was more common in the later Gothic periods.
• Rose windows (all periods). These huge circular windows, often appearing as the centerpieces of facades, are filled with elegant tracery and "petals" of stained glass.
• Spires (all periods). These pinnacles of masonry seem to defy gravity and reach toward heaven itself.
• Gargoyles (all periods). Disguised as wide-mouthed creatures or human heads, gargoyles are actually drain spouts.
• Choir screen (all periods). Serving as the inner wall of the ambulatory and outer wall of the choir section, the choir screen is often decorated with carvings or tombs.

Best Examples

• Early English: Salisbury Cathedral (1220-65) is unique in Europe for the speed with which it was built and the uniformity of its architecture (even if the spire was added 100 years later, they kept it Early English). The first to use pointy arches was Wells Cathedral (1180-1321), which has 300 statues on its original facade and some early stained glass.
• Decorated: The facade, nave, and chapter house of York Minster (1220-1480), which preserves the most medieval stained glass in Britain, are Decorated, though the chancel is Perpendicular and the transepts are Early English. Exeter Cathedral (1112-1206) has an elaborate Decorated facade and fantastic nave vaulting.
• Perpendicular: King's College Chapel at Cambridge (1446-1515) has England's most magnificent fan vaulting, along with some fine stained glass. Henry VII's Chapel (1503-19) in London's Westminster Abbey is textbook Perpendicular.

Renaissance (1550-1650)

While the Continent was experimenting with the Renaissance ideals of proportion, order, classical inspiration, and mathematical precision to create unified and balanced structures, England was still trundling along with the late Tudor Gothic Perpendicular style (the Tudor use of red brick became a major feature of later Gothic revivals) in places such as Hampton Court Palace and Bath Abbey (great fan vaulting).

It wasn't until the Elizabethan era that the Brits turned to the Renaissance style sweeping the Continent. England's greatest Renaissance architect, Inigo Jones (1573-1652), brought back from his Italian travels a fevered imagination full of the exactingly Classical theories of Palladianism, a style derived from the buildings and publications of Andrea Palladio (1508-80). However, most English architects at this time tempered the Renaissance style with a heavy dose of Gothic-like elements.

Identifiable Features

• Sense of proportion.
• Reliance on symmetry.
• Use of classical orders. This specifies three different column capitals: Corinthian, Ionic, and Doric.

Best Examples

• Robert Smythson (1535-1614). This early Elizabethan architect was responsible for two of the greatest mansions of the period: Hardwick Hall (1590-97) in Derbyshire, virtually abandoned and therefore wonderfully preserved (if a bit dilapidated) in its 16th-century condition; and Longleat House (1559-80), an elegant Wiltshire manse with a park designed by Renaissance landscape architect and garden designer Capability Brown.
• Inigo Jones (1573-1652). Jones applied his theories of Palladianism to such edifices as Queen's House (1616-18 and 1629-35) in Greenwich; the Queen's Chapel (1623-25) in St. James's Palace and the Banqueting House (1619-22) in Whitehall, both in London; and the staterooms of Wiltshire's Wilton House (1603), where Shakespeare performed and D-Day was planned. Recently, London's Shakespeare's Globe Theatre dusted off one of his never-realized plans and used it to construct their new indoor theater annex.

Baroque (1650-1750)

England's greatest architect was Christopher Wren (1632-1723), a scientist and member of Parliament who got the job of rebuilding London after the Great Fire of 1666. He designed 53 replacement churches alone, plus the new St. Paul's Cathedral and numerous other projects. Other proponents of baroque architecture were John Vanbrugh (1664-1726) and his mentor and oft collaborator, Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661-1736), who sometimes worked in a more Palladian idiom.

Identifiable Features

• Classical architecture rewritten with curves. The baroque is similar to the Renaissance, but many of the right angles and ruler-straight lines are exchanged for curves of complex geometry and an interplay of concave and convex surfaces. The overall effect is to lighten the appearance of structures and to add some movement of line.
• Complex decoration. Unlike the sometimes severe designs of the Renaissance and other classically inspired styles, the baroque was often playful and apt to festoon structures with decorations intended to liven things up.

Best Examples

• St. Paul's Cathedral, London (1676-1710). This cathedral is the crowning achievement of both English baroque and of Christopher Wren himself. London's other main Wren attraction is the Royal Naval College, Greenwich (1696).
• Queen's College, Sheldonian Theatre, and Radcliffe Camera, Oxford. Queen's College is the only campus of Oxford constructed entirely in one style, and it includes a library by Hawksmoor. The Sheldonian Theatre (1664-69), an almost classically subdued rotunda showing little of later baroque exuberance, was Wren's first crack at architecture. Compare this to the more baroque Radcliffe Camera (1737-49), designed by James Gibbs (1662-1754) who influenced Thomas Jefferson.
• Blenheim Palace, Woodstock (early 1700s). John Vanbrugh's crowning achievement, Blenheim Palace is a British Versailles surrounded by perhaps the best of Capability Brown's gardens.
• Castle Howard, Yorkshire (1699-1726). Another masterpiece by the team of Nicholas Hawksmoor and then-neophyte John Vanbrugh, Castle Howard became famous as a backdrop to Brideshead Revisited.

Neo-Classical & Greek Revival (1714-1837)

Many 18th-century architects cared little for the baroque period, and during the Georgian era (1714-1830) a restrained, simple neoclassicism reigned. It was balanced between a resurgence of the precepts of Palladianism and an even more distilled vision of classical theory called Greek revival. This latter style was practiced by architects such as James "Athenian" Stuart (1713-88), who wrote a book on antiquities after a trip to Greece, and the somewhat less strict John Soane (1773-1837).

Identifiable Features

• Mathematical proportion, symmetry, classical orders. These classical ideals first rediscovered during the Renaissance are the hallmark of every classically styled era.
• Crescents and Circuses. The Georgians were famous for these seamless curving rows of identical stone town houses with tall windows, each one simple yet elegant inside.
• Open double-arm staircases. This feature was a favorite of the neo-Palladians.

Best Examples

• Bath (1727-75). Much of the city of Bath was made over in the 18th century, most famously by the father and son team of John Woods, Sr. and Jr. (1704-54 and 1728-81, respectively). They were responsible, among others, for the Royal Crescent (1767-75), where you can visit one house's interior and even lodge in another.
• John Soane's London sights. The best Greek revival building by Soane in London is his own idiosyncratic house (1812-13), now Sir John Soane's Museum. Of his most famous commission, the Bank of England (1732-34) in Bartholomew Lane, only the facade survived a 20th-century restructuring.
• British Museum, London (1823). Not the most important example of Greek revival, the British Museum, by Robert & Sidney Smirke, is one that just about every visitor to England is bound to see.

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," earlier in this guide, 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).

The 20th Century

For the first half of the 20th century, England was too busy expanding into suburbs (in an architecturally uninteresting way) and fighting World Wars to pay much attention to architecture. After the World War II Blitz, much of central London had to be rebuilt. Most of the new commercial buildings in the city held to a functional school of architecture aptly named Brutalism. It wasn't until the boom of the late 1970s and 1980s that postmodern architecture gave British architects a bold, new direction.

Identifiable Features

• Skyscraper motif. Glass and steel as high as you can stack it.
• Reliance on historical details. Like the Victorians, postmodernists also recycled elements from architectural history, from classical to exotic.

Best Examples

• Lloyd's Building, London (1978-86). Lloyd's is the British postmodern masterpiece by Richard Rogers (b. 1933), who had a hand in Paris's funky Centre Pompidou.
• Canary Wharf Tower, London (1986). Britain's tallest building, by César Pelli (b. 1926), is the postmodern centerpiece of the Canary Wharf office complex and commercial development.
• Charing Cross, London (1991). Whimsical designer Terry Farrell (b. 1938) capped the famous old train station with an enormous postmodern office-and-shopping complex in glass and pale stone.