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 In the 16th century, Brick Gothic was superseded by Brick Renaissance architecture.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:
“Follow the yellow brick road.”
—E.Y. Harburg (1898–1981)
“The gothic is singular in this; one seems easily at home in the renaissance; one is not too strange in the Byzantine; as for the Roman, it is ourselves; and we could walk blindfolded through every chink and cranny of the Greek mind; all these styles seem modern when we come close to them; but the gothic gets away.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)