Lectures - When Gothic Was Modern

In the wake of the fire in Notre Dame cathedral, John Hamer of Centre Place puts Gothic architecture into its Medieval context. Modern people use the word “Gothic” to describe a kind of architecture from the Middle Ages, even though it has nothing to do with the barbarian Goths. When the architecture was new nine centuries ago, it was called “modern” and it represented something very new. Although people of the Modern Era disparaged their immediate predecessors with terms like “Medieval” and “Gothic,” the Middle Ages were anything but backward. In fact, they anticipated the Modern Era which followed.