What's better, Byzantine or Gothic architecture?

[Landon Caeli]

BYZANTINE:

GOTHIC

...You can see how after the barbarians of the Dark Ages spent nearly a thousand years making clay pottery and living in mud huts, that Europeans began to display "intelligence" once again in Gothic architecture... It took about a thousand years to return to civility.

BYZANTINE:

GOTHIC:

...Notice how Gothic style borrows from the more Ancient Byzantine. Also, notice how the Byzantine appears to be more modern, even though it's almost a thousand years older. Amazing, isn't it?

 

[chevyontheriver]

...Notice how Gothic style borrows from the more Ancient Byzantine. Also, notice how the Byzantine appears to be more modern, even though it's almost a thousand years older. Amazing, isn't it?

Both are far better than modern. Which is barbaric by comparison.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Sigh, there were some fantastic buildings during the Carolingian Renaissance, like Aachen Palatine Chapel built in the 9th century. It also depended on what a location needed and could handle in size. No need to build an Hagia Sopia when a smaller structure would do.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

FYI, I'm a architecture geek after doing a senior seminary in college on mechanical engineering and art. We focused on European church styles after studying the arch. This turned into the barrel vault and dome. Just remember that these tall structures depended on buttressing to handle the stress of the vaults. Once you start throwing heavy snows and ice on these, you start getting major major problems. What we see today is often a final construction. Chartres, completed in the early 13th century, is the fifth incarnation. Its history rivals the Monty Python Swamp Castle. First one was burned under the Duke of Aquitaine, the second was burned by pirates, the third one damaged in a fire, rebuilt then burned again. Ahh but the fifth one stayed! It was targeted to be destroyed by Americans in WW2 but thankfully, Welborn Griffith - Wikipedia stopped the planned shelling.