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The author has totally overlooked the influence of Islamic architecture, which is widely held to have been a major inspiration on Gothic architecture. There's m

The author has totally overlooked the influence of Islamic architecture, which is widely held to have been a major inspiration on Gothic architecture. There's more to constructing elaborate buildings than being able to draw pointy bits. https://www.mei.edu/publications/stealing-saracens-how-islamic-architecture-shaped-europe https://www.mei.edu/publications/stealing-saracens-how-islam..., England’s greatest architect, Sir Christopher Wren, wrote that what we call "the Gothic style should more rightly be called the Saracen style.”

dgb23 5y ago
I like this quote from the article you linked: > Surely if there is a lesson in all of this, it is that no one “owns” architecture, just as no one “owns” science. Everything builds on everything else. If we want to understand our history, we need to think of it as different cultures mixing and evolving with and from each other like a complex mesh of both hostile and fruitful interactions. Some of the richest and advanced cultures often have been multicultural.
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twelvechairs 5y ago
This is right. The author is quite loose with influences, though I wont discredit the story of the article for not having a full description of history. The first Latin translation of Euclid's Elements noted in the article was not translated from the original Greek but via Arabic - by an English monk, who also brought Arabic numerals and translations of other texts on geometry from Arabic. It was Islam that kept the science of Geometry after the ancient Greeks and developed it further. The Norman conquest of southern Italy including Islamic Sicily was critical to this knowledge transfer. This happened not long before the first Gothic cathedrals appeared. Al-Andalus was also an influence. Worth noting too that while the Gothic Cathedrals were clearly developed with a geometric influence, none of them have a simple and exoteric geometric structure. Not even the Milan Cathedral mentioned in the article where we actually have some surving discussion of its geometric design has an exact and clear structure to it.

dgb23 5y ago

I like this quote from the article you linked: > Surely if there is a lesson in all of this, it is that no one “owns” architecture, just as no one “owns” science. Everything builds on everything else. If we want to understand our history, we need to think of it as different cultures mixing and evolving with and from each other like a complex mesh of both hostile and fruitful interactions. Some of the richest and advanced cultures often have been multicultural.

deleted 5y ago

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twelvechairs 5y ago

This is right. The author is quite loose with influences, though I wont discredit the story of the article for not having a full description of history. The first Latin translation of Euclid's Elements noted in the article was not translated from the original Greek but via Arabic - by an English monk, who also brought Arabic numerals and translations of other texts on geometry from Arabic. It was Islam that kept the science of Geometry after the ancient Greeks and developed it further. The Norman conquest of southern Italy including Islamic Sicily was critical to this knowledge transfer. This happened not long before the first Gothic cathedrals appeared. Al-Andalus was also an influence. Worth noting too that while the Gothic Cathedrals were clearly developed with a geometric influence, none of them have a simple and exoteric geometric structure. Not even the Milan Cathedral mentioned in the article where we actually have some surving discussion of its geometric design has an exact and clear structure to it.