Brick Gothic (German: Backsteingotik, Polish: Gotyk ceglany) is a specific style of Gothic architecture common in Northern Europe, especially in Northern Germany and the regions around the Baltic Sea that do not have natural rock resources. The buildings are essentially built from bricks. Brick Gothic buildings are found in the Baltic countries of Denmark, Finland, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Russia and Sweden.
As the use of baked red brick in Northern Europe dates from the 12th century, the oldest such buildings are classified as the Brick Romanesque. In the 16th century, Brick Gothic was superseded by Brick Renaissance architecture.
Brick Gothic is characterised by the lack of figural architectural sculpture, widespread in other styles of Gothic architecture; and by its creative subdivision and structuring of walls, using built ornaments and the colour contrast between red bricks, glazed bricks and white lime plaster.
Many of the old town centres dominated by Brick Gothic, as well as some individual structures, have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Read more about Brick Gothic: Distribution, Historical Conditions, Development, Characteristics of Brick Gothic, Brick As The Basic Material, 19th Century Neogothic
Famous quotes containing the words brick and/or gothic:
“They dropped separately after the celebration,
handpicked,
one after the other like artichoke leaves.
After that I walked to my car awkwardly
over the painful bare remains on the brick sidewalk....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“It is perhaps the principal admirableness of the Gothic schools of architecture, that they receive the results of the labour of inferior minds; and out of fragments full of imperfection ... raise up a stately and unaccusable whole.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)