What Is Brick Gothic Architecture?
Brick Gothic is the distinctive style of architecture that developed in the Hanseatic cities of the Baltic and the North Sea in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The style is characterised by the use of brick as the principal building material, by the forms of Gothic architecture, and by a vocabulary of forms that includes stepped gables, pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and tracery windows. The style is also known as Backsteingotik in German, baksteengotiek in Dutch, and murarchitecture gotycka in Polish.
Why brick?
The origins of Brick Gothic are a response to the geography of the Baltic region. The region lacked good building stone: the limestone of the south German region did not extend to the Baltic, and the granite of Scandinavia was difficult to work and was poorly suited to the elaborate forms of Gothic architecture. The region did, however, have an abundance of clay, and the clay could be fired into brick, which was a durable, workable, and relatively cheap building material.
The technique of brick-making was brought to the Baltic by the Flemish and Dutch settlers who founded or rebuilt the cities of the region in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The settlers brought with them the techniques of brick-making that had been developed in the Low Countries, and the settlers applied the techniques to the new cities. The result was a style of architecture that combined the techniques of brick-making with the forms of Gothic architecture, and the result was the brick Gothic style.
The mature style
The brick Gothic style reached its mature development in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the great churches, town halls, and merchant houses of the Hanseatic cities were built. The principal monuments of the style include the Marienkirche in Lübeck (1277–1351), the Marienkirche in Stralsund (1278–1340s), the Marienkirche in Danzig (1343–1502), the Petrikirche in Riga (early 13th c., with later additions), and the Rathaus in Lübeck (13th c. core, with later additions). The style was also influential in the architecture of the Low Countries, of northern Germany, and of Poland.
A lasting legacy
The brick Gothic style left a substantial legacy in the architecture of northern Europe. The style was adopted, with local variations, by all the cities of the Baltic, and the style remained the dominant style of architecture in the region until the seventeenth century. The old town of Lübeck, the old town of Stralsund, the old town of Wismar, and the old town of Tallinn are all UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and the old towns of many other Hanseatic cities are important architectural monuments. The brick Gothic style is, in this sense, one of the most visible legacies of the Hanseatic League.
A specific note: the brick Gothic style’s principal area of influence was the southern Baltic coast, but the style was also important in the architecture of northern France, the Netherlands, and northern England. The style is, in this sense, one of the principal regional styles of late-medieval European architecture, alongside the French gothique rayonnant, the English Decorated Gothic, and the German Backsteingotik. The terminology is not always consistent: in some usages, Backsteingotik refers to the entire style across northern Europe, while in others it refers specifically to the Baltic regional expression.