Help With Gothic Architecture

What should everyone know about Gothic Architecture?

The first answer pretty much covered it all, but I'll add three personal interests: a) I like the idea that the building was its own scaffold. The structural and constructional logic meant that  it could largely support itself as it was constructed. For example the spiral stairs were built as a series of stone steps inside a stone drum that required no temporary or additional support. b) Gothic architecture, particularly its churches, was seen as 'organic' because few are pure or perfectly unified in their design and expression. However, there was a great deal of design involved and they are highly rationalized structures. The fact that there was a lot of trial and error involved doesn't mean they were intuitively designed.c) Finally, what I most appreciate about the cathedrals, in particular, is that although they contain a great deal of visual meaning - stories told in stain glass, sculpture, and through metaphor - they incorporate spatial meaning through bodily rituals. That is, they make the space of the architecture important. The procession of moving of moving from the profane to the sacred is embedded in the linear plan and you experience it by walking. The effect of parallax, accentuated by the many columns, heightens the sense of transition. My favourite spatial detail is the central column (often called 'Christ the column') found in many of the central portal doors that physically makes one step off the central axis (which was considered sacred) - the act of deferring is not something that is read, graphic or visual, but a bodily experience, embedded in the organisation of the architecture itself. This kind of spatial significance is lost afterwards and doesn't begin to appear again until the 19th century.

Why do I find gothic college architecture so appealing?

I am very much the same way.I think part of it, for me at 43 years old, comes from watching movies about college and prep schools that were filmed in schools from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, when Gothic Revival was in it’s heyday. I associate the idea of learning with those environments, thanks to shows like Good Will Hunting and Dead Poet’s Society (and Harry Potter for that matter), and the fact that my prep school was built in that style. As well, I attended church in Gothic Revival buildings for most of my life, so there is an implicit connection in the way that I think and experience that tells me that Gothic style architecture is soothing, safe, and a place to support spirituality.On top of all that, most modern architecture is based on breaking the rules of Classical architecture, so it seems place-less, scale-less, and proportion-less. Where Gothic was also interested in breaking those rules, it did so in a way that actually embraced many of the rules - it just changed the proportions to adapt to the newer skillset in sophisticated structures. But it used massing, openings, light and shadow, heirarchies of space… in the same, familiar way as before - just elaborated.So I think, for me at least, that the idea of learning, and of seeking, is reinforced in those Gothic environments… my draw to these structures is primal as well as aesthetically oriented.

How and why did Gothic architecture replace Romanesque architecture in the Middle Ages?

Contrary to what the other respondents have said, Gothic architecture has nothing to do with the Goths, nor did it develop in places where there had heavy Gothic settlement.  It was first developed in the 1130s and 1140s when the Basilica of St. Denis was renovated by its abbot, Suger.  The basic idea was to create a church with enormous windows which would admit more light, which Suger saw as a symbol of God, and allow him space to tell stories from the Bible in the glass.  He also wanted to create something spectacular - something befitting the abbey's status as the burial site for the kings of France.He succeeded.  As a result, Gothic architecture began to spread.  The huge windows, the brightness of the interiors, and the unprecedented height of the buildings appealed to civic pride and bishops' egos across northern France and, eventually, most of Western Europe.  Gothic was trendy and people simply wanted their churches to reflect what was fashionable.  Not only that, but cities began competing to build the tallest and most spectacular churches possible, both for the bragging rights and in the hopes that they could capture a bigger share of the tourist trade by attracting more and more pilgrims.Once cities began competing to see who could build the tallest possible church, Gothic was really the only option.  Romanesque buildings couldn't be as tall as Gothic buildings without sacrificing the large windows to make way for thick walls and massive columns.  They may even have been more expensive, simply because more stone would have been required.  They also would have been much broader than Gothic churches and, as a result, looked heavier and bulkier, by contrast Gothic churches feel surprisingly light and elegant for buildings their size.Granted, Gothic wasn't universally popular.  Once Roman styles came back into fashion with the Italian Renaissance, Romanesque churches became popular again, particularly in Italy.  Gothic lost popularity there simply because it didn't Roman - and because it wasn't Roman enough and because it was popular in Germany, a lot of Renaissance thinkers thought it was barbaric, which led Giorgio Vasari to start calling it "Gothic".

What is the purpose of the flying buttresses in Gothic architecture?

The flying buttress is a specific form of buttress composed of an arched structure that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass, in order to convey to the ground the lateral forces that push a wall outwards, witch are forces that arise from vaulted ceilings of stone and from wind-loading on roofs. The defining, functional characteristic of a flying buttress is that it is not in contact with the wall it supports, like a traditional buttress, and so transmits the lateral forces across the span of intervening space between the wall and the pier. To provide lateral support, flying-buttress systems are composed of two parts : a massive pier, a vertical block of masonry situated away from the building wall, and an arch that bridges the span between the pier and the wall, either a segmental arch or a quadrant arch, The flyer of the flying buttress. Another application of the flying-buttress support system is the reinforcement of a leaning wall in danger of collapsing, especially a load-bearing wall, for example, at village of Chaddesley corbett, the practical application of a flying buttress to a buckled wall is more practical than dismantling and rebuilding the wall.Source:wikipedia the free encyclopedia.

How can architecture help the economy of a country?

The power of architecture is really tremendous in proposing innovative solution. In fact, Low-cost materials and efficient allocation of space is the basis for affordable housing. Hong-Kong experiences baffling economic growth and not surprisingly high costs of living in its epicenter. James Law Cybertecture studio has designed a prototype for low cost housing, as you can see on the picture picture below.The pipes are stackable and can fill the gaps between the buildings.The average mothly rentof one-bedroom apartment in the center of the city is 1500$, while this micro home can be rented for 300$ per month[1]. Such improvement in price is important for those lacking funds. It also allows to pursue a career at the very center and develop sufficent skills to get higher qualification for more pricy apartments.Footnotes[1] Micro homes in pipes designed to ease Hong Kong's housing crisis