Gothic Revival and the Possibility of “Gothic Survival”

The notion of “Gothic survival” is still prevalent in literature on Gothic revival architecture in England. This concept implies the possibility of the unreflexive survival of Gothic architectural tradition in some distant provincial regions, where architects, searching connections with the past or folk traditions, could find it. This notion, dating back to the literature of the beginning of the 20th century, can be convincingly refuted by analyzing the meanings and purposes of different stages of Gothic revival. The article aims to demonstrate that the use of Gothic architectural forms in the second half of the 17th — beginning of the 18th century was initiated by intellectuals and had no connection to the preservation of artisan traditions.

The courtiers of Elizabeth I, re-enacting mediaeval romances and Arthurian legends, conducted the earliest known Gothic revival. The relation between Eli­zabethan architecture and Gothic tradition has been discussed many times. And in later decades — du­ring the Stuart era, the Commonwealth and after the Restoration — Gothic colleges and churches were extensively built.

Basing on the sources available, it can be assumed that, though there was not any chronological break in Gothic architectural tradition, Gothic revival had been ideologically biased from its very beginning. We can also say that the spread of classical architecture in England not only was unable to destroy the Gothic tradition, but also gave it new meanings and almost immediately made any appeal to Gothic forms an ideological statement.

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