The Gothic Revival Beyond Europe

Abstract

Abstract This chapter traces the movement outward and influence of the Gothic Revival movement beyond Europe during the mid to late nineteenth century. It considers the impact of this movement on both secular and religious buildings, focusing on how this particular style of architecture found its way into the wider British world, and into corresponding Anglophone cultures such as the United States of America, and what its transmission meant culturally and institutionally. Although much of the chapter’s content focuses on church buildings, other building types considered include museums, universities, and government legislatures. It is argued that the medievalizing tendencies brought by the broadcasting of the Gothic Revival movement were intended to capture and symbolize the essential image and values of European, Christian culture as it sought to inculcate such values though education, religion, and government.