What is a Neo-Gothic Castle?

This episode of Shadiversity is brought to you by my stupendous, awesome, LEGENDARY supporters on Patreon. If you'd like to support Shadiversity on Patreon, visit patreon.com forward slash Shadiversity. Shadiversity. Ratings, I'm Shad. And this is the third attempt I've had at making this video on Neo-Gothic castles, because the concept of what is truly Neo-Gothic is a convoluted mess, which has made my previous attempts convoluted messes. So I'm not sure if it's within my ability to make this subject properly coherent, so I'm just going to do the best job I can, and at the very least I'm confident that you are going to end up being as confused as I have been throughout this process. And if I'm lucky, I might be able to offer you some new information that you haven't had on the subject, separate to feeling very dizzy. Within the medieval period, there is a good distinction between castle and Gothic architecture. A castle is a building meant to defend its occupants, and there are certain architectural elements that are part of its design that has helped assist in that function. Like, for instance, crenellations, corbeling, which of course leads provision to... You know what I'm going to say, machiculations. But because this is a bit more of a randy episode, let's just continue on. Buildings that serve as an entry point to a courtyard, of course referring to gatehouses in this regard, portcullises, defensive towers, and defensive turrets. Each one of those things that I just mentioned are architectural elements that can be included on buildings in an aesthetic manner to make those buildings look castle-like. And in fact, this has been done in many instances to make the building feel like a castle, so much so that people legitimately call it a castle. Two great examples of this are Windsor Castle and Balmoral Castle. Look at that, they're called castles, and they also have massive windows on the lowest levels without any proper fortifications. But look, they got crenellations, so we're going to call them a castle. And so one of the frustrating things that has arisen out of me trying to figure out what is Gothic and what is Neo-Gothic is that it has brought up that same age-old question of what is truly a real castle. Is it a building with one castle-like architectural element added to it? Is it a building with several architectural castle-like elements added to it? Which is kind of weird, because when I look at this building right here, it doesn't really feel like a castle to me. But then I have to ask myself, how different is it really from, say, Balmoral Castle? Yet when I certainly compare Balmoral Castle to, say, Neuschwanstein, Neuschwanstein certainly strikes me as far more castle-like than Balmoral does. It has a distinctly identifiable keep, a bailey that is surrounded by structures that do form a wall. It's on a very high mountain with a single approach. These are all very castle-like features, whereas Balmoral, even though it is called a castle and legitimately regarded as a castle, it is far less of a castle than Neuschwanstein. This is actually quite interrelated to the Neo-Gothic architectural design, because those castle-like elements that you can add to a structure to make it look like a castle and then be called a castle, like, say, Balmoral, are actually included under the umbrella of Neo-Gothic design. This is why Balmoral, Neuschwanstein, and Windsor Castle are all casually considered Neo-Gothic castles, whereas if you go back to the original genesis of what Gothic architecture was, they wouldn't be called Gothic buildings. There was a distinction between castle-like architecture and Gothic-like architecture in the medieval period. What is the difference between Gothic and Neo-Gothic? Primarily, it's the time period, even though they share the same architectural elements, though Neo-Gothic is a much broader encompassing subject because the Gothic style is combined with other architectural styles which created many subclassifications. But the other confusing thing, I've actually made a whole video dedicated on Gothic-style architecture when I got to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. I go into detail in that video about the distinct elements of Gothic-style architecture, even though St. Patrick's Cathedral technically is a Neo-Gothic building because it wasn't built in the medieval period, though it is very, very accurate and true to authentic Gothic architecture. But I'll summarize some of the basic elements of Gothic architecture because they apply both to Gothic and Neo-Gothic. And it is generally characterized by upward-pointed lines, slim towers, delicate embellishments that are placed in repetition to one another, arches that comprise the structural kind of layout of the building, as well as the windows. You have lancet windows, which are tall, thin windows placed side by side to one another, ribbed vaults, and, of course, buttresses and flying buttresses. Castles did not often have a lot of these architectural elements added to them, but there were some of these elements here and there. When a castle had some Gothic-style architectural embellishments here and there, you can rightly call that a Gothic castle. But not all castles are Gothic, and not all Gothic-style buildings like the Grand Cathedrals were castles. This is a good, easily understandable distinction, which helps us figure out the difference between the two. But when we come to Neo-Gothic, because the Gothic style was incorporated with so many other different styles, there are subcategories, and it has become this very broad, overlapping style, which has actually come to incorporate any building which has castle-like elements. Even those buildings that only have castle-like elements, and not traditional Gothic-like elements. Therefore, if you were to add these castle-like elements to make the building look more castle-like, it would generally be considered a Neo-Gothic building, and therefore Neo-Gothic castle. But then what really makes it a castle? Going back to that question that we were talking about previously. Would you consider this building a castle, because it has castle-like elements in its structure? No, I generally wouldn't. But I'm not saying that because it has large windows and things like that. There's just not enough castle here for it to be considered a castle. So because of that, you wouldn't call it a Neo-Gothic castle, even though it would be considered a Neo-Gothic style building. I think buildings need a few more similarities to real authentic medieval castles to really be considered a castle. And one of the main ones isn't actually an architectural type of embellishment, but rather the silhouette or shape size of the structure itself. I think the number of castle-like embellishments added to a structure certainly plays a very large role. And so even if you have a building that does not resemble the shape, size, or layout of many traditional medieval castles, if most of the parts of the building is made to actually look like a castle with crenellations, turrets, and towers everywhere, I think you could be in your rights to call it a castle. Not a real medieval castle, but certainly what castle has come to evolve to mean in the modern day. And in contrast to this, you could take a building with very few castle-like architectural embellishments, but because of its shape and size, it could be considered very castle-like. And I think a good example of this is this building right here. I present to you the Cathedral of Learning of Pittsburgh University. And seriously, that is its name. THE CATHEDRAL OF LEARNING I want one. It is a neo-gothic design building, but the neo-gothic elements are not castle-like elements, they're actually more traditional gothic-like elements. When I say gothic, I mean the gothic in the traditional meaning of the sense of the word. It looks so cool. And what's interesting about it, its design very much matches many a fantasy kind of castle I've seen depicted within movies and also fantasy literature. It is like a grand, mighty citadel. And honestly, all you would need is kind of a wall around this building, and it would pass as a fairly legitimate fantasy-style castle, the main large building being this epic grand keep, even though it doesn't have any battlements, turrets, towers, or anything like that. Yet it does bear a kind of similarity to the square, tall, Norman-style keeps, just heavily embellished and stylistically designed with traditional gothic-style architectural embellishments, which makes the building feel distinctly medieval, far more so than just a regular square skyscraper, which means, in my own opinion, you could casually refer to the Cathedral of Learning as a type of castle. Now, you might disagree with me regarding the Cathedral of Learning, and you might think it at least needs crenellations, and I do admit, adding some crenellations to the edge of its roof would really finish the job in the consideration of could we call this a castle? And honestly, these days, it seems like just naming something a castle is enough for people to consider it a castle, even on things that are distinctly not castle-like, like Maiden Castle, which is an Iron Age hillfort and not a castle! I don't know who named it Maiden Castle! There's no structure there that you would even call a castle, and back in the day when it did have some defensive structures there, it was a hillfort and not a castle! So there you go, that is just an interesting example of how fast and loose the term castle is becoming these days. At least have something look distinctly castle-like! Luckily, there is a distinction that separates the castle-like architectural design elements that you can add to a building and the more traditional Gothic-style architectural elements that you can add to a building, even though both these things, castle-style architecture and traditional Gothic-style architecture, are considered under the overall umbrella of Neo-Gothic. But the name for distinctly castle-like architectural embellishments, which is specifically turrets, crenellations, corbeling and towers, it is called the Scots Baronial Style, or Scottish Baronial Architecture. The Scottish part added because in the revival of these castle-like houses, they were generally more common in the Scottish lands, particularly by the characteristic turrets on the sides. But to avoid the geographical connotation, I think it's better to just refer to it as the Baronial Style. It's called the Baronial Style because barons lived in castles, and therefore if a building is looking like a castle, it's like a baron's a baronial. The useful thing with this designation is that it is essentially saying buildings built in this style are not the same as the actual buildings this style is based on. You know, real medieval castles, just built in the style of the castles that barons once lived in. There's no need to call real medieval castles this because castles aren't styled after themselves, they are just castles. Therefore, if we use this designation, we do kind of get the same distinction that, say, the German language has because the German language has a distinction between castles that are properly fortified to protect the occupants and repel attackers, which are called bergs, and a castle which is simply made to look like a real medieval castle, which is called a schloss. Hence Neuschwanstein is called Schloss Neuschwanstein. Baronial Style means a building that is built to look like a castle, but isn't really a castle. Okay, let's use that. That's good. I like it. Baronial Style. But guess what? Baronial Style is considered a subclassification of Neo-Gothic. Therefore, all Baronial Style buildings are considered Neo-Gothic in this context, but you can take a traditional Baronial Style building that doesn't have any traditional Gothic Style architecture and only have those castle-style embellishments and it wouldn't be considered Gothic in the medieval period. But now, because castle-style things have incorporated good Neo-Gothics, good Neo-Gothic, even though it doesn't have Gothic-style elements, you're getting confused and it's just not making sense! But these are the definitions as they exist and they're stupid! And the other area that I'm kind of getting frustrated here, when you add traditional Gothic-style architectural elements to Baronial Style buildings, you get something that is truly glorious and beautiful and honestly is different and distinct to just Baronial Style buildings because a Baronial Style building doesn't necessarily have the Gothic-style architectural elements, even though it's considered Neo-Gothic! But when those traditional Gothic-style architectural elements are added to a castle-like building, which we are now calling Baronial Style, they look flippin' amazing! Absolutely glorious! And these type of buildings that are truly the true Neo-Gothic-style buildings, even though it was still Neo-Gothic without the Gothic-style elements added, the true Gothic-styled Baronial Castle-like... They look amazing, okay? They are my favorite things and this is kind of the perfect... I wanted to make a video to show you guys... Guess what? If you can make a castle, get a castle to add all these awesome Gothic-style elements, so not just the little Gothic elements that are added here and there in the actual medieval period, but a true combination between full-blown Gothic-style and castle, you just get something mind-boggling gorgeous and beautiful! But it's been very hard to define exactly what this type of building is, because calling it Neo-Gothic is disingenuous, because it's also Neo-Gothic when those Gothic-style elements aren't even added, but it's far more Gothic than the castle-like buildings that don't have the traditional Gothic-style elements added to them. Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering what this glorious castle is that I presented to you, this is Castle Garibaldi from Russia. Like, seriously, it is amazing. And it's the best example that I can give of a Baronial Castle with as many Gothic-style architectural elements added to it. Of course, the way to fix this is to not include the castle design elements under the Neo-Gothic classification, which honestly, it might be the case under certain circumstances, because I'm sure other people have different definitions, but whenever I look it up, the Baronial style is included in the Neo-Gothic style, as well as other castle-style elements, so it's all very confusing. But if they were separate, a castle-like building wouldn't be considered a Neo-Gothic castle. So, Balmoral Castle, guess what? You're not Neo-Gothic, you're Baronial. And you would add the Neo-Gothic prefix only if it has traditional Gothic-style elements in its design. This means a Neo-Gothic castle would be a properly fortified castle in the traditional sense, and a Neo-Gothic Baronial castle would be a building that is meant to look castle-like, but is not properly fortified, that has legitimate Gothic architectural features in its design throughout. So, interestingly, according to this definition, even Neuschwanstein isn't necessarily a Neo-Gothic castle, though there are some Gothic elements in its design. It's actually more Romanesque, it's a bit of a splice, and so you could call it a Neo-Gothic castle at a stretch, but it's probably more accurate to define it as a Baronial castle. A Medieval castle is a Medieval castle, also including castles that are properly fortified in the same way Medieval castles actually were, and those castles that are not properly fortified, but are built to look distinctly castle-like, are Baronial castles. And then if they actually have a lot of Gothic-style elements, well, if it was a castle that's actually in the Medieval period, you can just call it a Gothic Medieval castle, but anything outside the Medieval period, it needs to be classed as Neo-Gothic, and it would be called a Baronial Neo-Gothic castle. And there you go, this has been my long epic rant on the confusion behind the whole Gothic thing, and my own personal opinions and conclusion of what a Neo-Gothic castle should be. This isn't a Neo-Gothic castle. Garibaldi certainly is. And I was even watching a documentary on the Tower Bridge where it was called a Neo-Gothic building. Stevenson chose a more decorative style of the then-fashionable Victorian Neo-Gothic. And this is the perfect example to end this video on, because the architect who identified this building as a Neo-Gothic building was correct, because the Scots Baronial style is classified under the umbrella of Neo-Gothic. But when you really look at the Tower Bridge, you cannot actually see any classic, true Gothic-style architectural elements. I see some castle-like architectural elements, some French Baroque-style windows, but not much truly Gothic. But it's still considered Neo-Gothic, which is why I think the Baronial style needs to be separated, taken out from under the umbrella of Neo-Gothic, perhaps put under the umbrella of Victorian, which Baronial is kind of under the umbrella of Victorian Revival architecture, to save us from the confusion. Thank you very much for watching, guys. I hope you have enjoyed, and I really hope you learned something, and I haven't just confused you. So until next time, bye-bye.