Gothic in the interior - a combination of style and luxury

The Gothic style became the successor of the Romanesque many centuries ago. Thanks to him, modern mankind can still enjoy such masterpieces of architecture as the Abbey of Saint-Denis, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Roman Cathedral and many others. You can look at the stunning buildings with awe and delight, admiration and pleasure. But many people do not just admire the beauty of the Gothic, but also recreate it in the interiors of their home - today the romantic, majestic and “sweeping” style is back in fashion.

In this article we will talk about the methods, materials and other aspects of using Gothic style details in the design of modern housing.

A bit of history - the term Gothic, the Goths came from the Latin language during the invasion of the Roman Empire by the northern barbarian tribes. Then this word was used with contemptuous coloring, calling them barbarians and ignoramuses who knew absolutely nothing about the culture of that time. During the Renaissance, artists began to use the term to express the majesty and imposing size of various structures that had awesome proportions and appearance. In those days, such a definition of the word “Gothic” gained great popularity, after which the Romanesque style began to fade away, giving way to barbarian, but already so native Gothic.

It should be noted that the luxurious, majestic buildings of the Gothic style were built for a very long time - not for years, but for centuries. The most ideal example in this case is the famous Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris - a monumental building that was erected for more than two centuries. Moreover, changes and corrections were constantly made to the architectural plan, because the new creator strove for even greater perfection than the previous one. Thus, at that time all buildings in the Gothic style were built - we can judge this fact only by the architectural monuments that have survived to our time.

It is noteworthy that during the Middle Ages, only the nobility could afford all the exquisite details of the style in question. In the houses of merchants, one could find only some items of rich wrought-iron furniture, but mostly wood predominated. The poor could only be content with ordinary household items. That is, it was thanks to the castles, monasteries and cathedrals that have survived to this day that it became possible to restore the Gothic style.

Another interesting fact about those times is the famous witch hunt. Of course, we will never be able to find out about all the events of those years, but the fact that the mystical side affected the Gothic style is unequivocal.

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The spirit of Gothic history - a brief digression to the origins

The main feature of the style under consideration is the desire for various innovations. One of them is the majestic, extraordinarily beautiful fan vault, which helps to significantly remove the main load from the load-bearing walls. This made it possible to make them much higher and more spacious, as well as to increase not only the number, but also the size of the windows of the building. A special addition to such splendor were various decorations and amazing, unlike anything decor.

Interesting fact: Innovative at that time, Gothic technology is the starting point for creating the most popular and economical frame-panel construction.

The special, affecting the soul of everyone, the expression of the Gothic style still makes us think about the origins of this ancient cultural layer. How much mystery, mysticism and beauty are in these frozen vaults, striving in an eternal impulse to reach the sky. The atmosphere of grandeur and calm luxury can be seen in every detail: starting from the calmness of the mind, decorations and stained-glass windows attracting with their stunning beauty. And up to the high, striking ceilings.

Architectural features of the Gothic style

Unfortunately, during the Renaissance, the Gothic style quickly faded into the background, and then was completely forgotten. They remembered him only in the 18th-9th centuries, from which the triumphant ascent to the pedestal of eternal glory and popularity began. However, Gothic has undergone some changes, which could not but happen with the transition from the dark Middle Ages to the century of enlightenment and technological rapid development. The style was transformed and settled in the chamber atmosphere of merchant estates, royal palaces and persons close to the royal court.

Interesting fact: Foreign architects were invited to build their luxurious houses and furnish them in Russia, and many furniture and decor items were ordered from France and Germany. That is, Gothic did not receive its offshoot here and did not acquire a special flavor. The style had only one major change - at the time of its re-flourishment in Europe.

Since that time, without the Gothic, it is difficult to imagine modern interior design. It is excellently placed in large, spacious rooms, complementing them with its undisclosed magic and charm. Although you can try to bring its inherent romance and mystery into apartment rooms. True, it will be much more difficult and costly, because you will have to artificially expand window openings and use design tricks to visually increase the height of the ceilings.

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We follow the rules for using Gothic

The rooms, which are decorated in a modern Gothic style, are recognizable at a glance. To equip the interior, there are several immutable, expressive rules and features.

Those who have never encountered the Gothic design of the premises should know that at the first meeting in the soul and mind only one word “Greatness” will sound. This irresistible feeling is caused by special stylistic tricks, namely large architectural elements. The main feature of the Gothic style is extended windows - they can be either rounded or elongated, as well as decorated with stained glass or one stained glass pattern on ordinary transparent glass. Ceilings must have vaults. If this is not possible, then the vaulted appearance can be created artificially.

If we talk about Gothic in a global sense, then the walls of the room will not remain bare, because they must carry their own artistic and semantic load.The list of decorations is almost limitless - bas-reliefs, carvings or beautiful paintings, special Gothic decorative elements that have a not entirely poetic name - “fish bones”. What it is? These structural elements protrude from the walls and form a joint right under the ceiling. Of course, to perform such gothic perfectionism, a very large area is required. The apartment will have to do with other, more accessible elements that are not inferior in beauty and majesty.

So, let's move on to creating our own mystical, infinitely mysterious and beautiful style.

And you should start with the floors, which in the Gothic style can be stone or made of wooden boards. There is no limit to the revelry of imagination, because the choice of decorative tiles from which you can create a fancy mosaic is simply huge. Or you can go further and create a floor design that looks like an ancient temple floor - worn-out stones can be aged artificially or you can purchase a floor with an appropriate design.

The next design element is windows. They just have to play their part and fit perfectly into the overall design. How to do it? If possible, be sure to expand and lengthen the openings. But you can get by with stained-glass windows, a pattern of colored glass or lancet binding. Pay special attention to the frames - they and the slopes should be painted to look like metal (lead gray or use anodized aluminum). This will allow you to get as close as possible to the original Gothic style that appeared many centuries ago.

If we talk about the door, then a rose window or its skillful imitation, which has real stained glass inserts, would ideally look above the opening. In this case, the Gothic interior would look even more realistic.

Many are mistaken, considering the choice of color palette in the Gothic meager and gray. It turns out that everything is quite the opposite - a bright palette is present in every detail of medieval and later Gothic. Luxurious Gothic style will be obtained by using lemon, azure, green, carmine red and other colors.

You need to navigate the choice according to the chosen stained-glass window - you can use crimson, and purple, and ultramarine, and copper color. If the idea is to bring to life a mystical, somewhere magical and slightly gloomy note, then when choosing a color, you need to pay attention to its depth, density and “heaviness”. But here, too, the choice will be huge: shades of wine, bloody scarlet, coniferous and very rich blue are perfect. Be sure to use gold and black as they will help complete the look of grandeur and grandeur.

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We select furniture

In order for the interior to turn out to be 100% Gothic, all furniture must be necessarily high, as if striving upwards. The chairs have a straight back above the head when sitting, the chairs are not soft, but leather and harsh.

You can put a tall cabinet that reaches to the ceiling or an old sideboard. Decorations that increase the height are also required - the best option is several carved details attached from above.

In modern interiors with the use of Gothic, special tables with drawers and a large, massive table top are often used. Such a piece of furniture will fit perfectly into an office or a spacious living room.

In the bedroom, as in any style, the main object is the bed - in the Gothic style, this furniture is not only huge in size, but also specially “weighted” with a patterned back, a wide mattress on which five people can sleep, as well as an impressive canopy or silk fabrics along the entire perimeter.

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We decorate the interior

Oddly enough, it will sound in the twenty-first century, but you simply cannot do without a chest in a Gothic interior. There are two types of this ancient product:

• With a flat lid - a versatile item that can hold a lot of necessary and useful things, served as a kind of closet. The advantage of such a cover was the ability to fold them one on one and save space.

• With a sloping lid, they could store anything from jewelry to groceries.

To create a real gothic style in any room, it is imperative to use only natural fabrics and materials. A special place here is occupied by velvet and satin fabrics - almost all the furniture was upholstered first, and the second served as luxurious bed linen.

Furnishing materials are selected from wood, stone, leather, glass or stone mosaics, majolica and even ceramics. Gothic is very "loves" painted sculptures and colored glass - stained glass or mosaics.

Additions to the perfect image

In the Gothic interior, you can not do without forged elements, because in the Middle Ages almost everything was created from metal - from decorative ornaments to furniture details (backs of chairs, armchairs and beds). Forged design should always be present in a Gothic styled room.

If you still need to decorate the room, then you need to choose not paintings, which were rarely used at that time (except for family portraits), but exquisite, sophisticated craft items. We owe this feature of the interior to medieval artisans, whose work was very much appreciated many centuries ago. It was thanks to them that such products and decorations as mosaics, carvings, paintings on fabric, wood and plaster appeared.

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Some ready-made ideas for a gothic look

How to furnish an office using a modern gothic style? The height of the room can be emphasized or increased with the help of large windows rounded at the top. We install contrasting strips on the ceiling, making the room look like a castle hall. Exposed brickwork on one wall will help to emphasize and enhance the impression.

What about furniture color? Black is ideal for such an office, emphasizing the naturalness of velvet fabric or leather.

Pendants made of real crystal or sparkling high-quality glass can be hung on the ceiling. This accent will immediately determine the style direction.

The overall picture should evoke feelings of grandeur, romance and constant height - it prevails in everything from window openings to delicate slender figures of figurines.

Use more metal and wood - these are the materials that prevailed in the old Gothic interior, since there was no plastic many centuries ago. No futurism - only magical beauty, massiveness and mystery.

Living room

Even from the most ordinary room, you can make a real masterpiece of the Gothic interior.For example, a standard living room gets a real gothic flavor, thanks to the rich shade of the laid parquet, the bright wine-colored carpet, as well as the hard lambrequin, which completely changed the look of the living window. An excellent addition will be fabric, textile wallpaper with an intricate pattern.

In the middle, you can put a wide polished, massive wooden table and chairs with high metal legs and the same, but soft backs.

You can hang a mirror with a patterned frame on the wall, and diversify the room with sculptural figures of gargoyles, monks or other semi-mythical creatures of the Middle Ages.

Another living room

The second great option would be a combination of Gothic and Victorian, elegant and rich style in one room. Such an image will turn out to be more luxurious and, so to speak, universal. In general, these two solutions are perfectly combined in any room - the main thing is not to overdo it and harmoniously combine objects, parts of the interior and decor.

So, in the bedroom, various refined forged elements will be appropriate: furniture legs, wall decorations in the form of a mirror frame, a window or a picture. Miniature figurines can also be made of metal.

You can put an exquisite decorative screen with carved patterns that fits perfectly into the overall picture of the room.

You can add coziness with the help of a Victorian-style carpet - a floral bright pattern will be appropriate here. The fabric of the furniture should also be selected according to the floor covering. Arrange vases with fresh flowers - a variety of field varieties or bright, bloody or tea roses and peonies are best suited.

Bathroom and gothic

Gothic and bath? How can these two concepts be combined? We will talk about this now. A real chamber mood and a kind of comfort can be created by chocolate-colored matte tiles, which are perfectly emphasized by shiny mirror metal frames of fine embossing.

In such a bathroom, you can put a modern, white or cream bath, which will perfectly fit into the Gothic interior. It is better to take a product with a minimum of frills that will not distract attention from the more expressive parts of the interior.

If the bathroom is large, then it would be appropriate to put a small chair and table in black or another dark color. In such comfort and tranquility, you want to unhurriedly relax under hot streams of water, and soak in a bath filled with healing salt or fragrant foam.

Gothic bedroom or waiting for Dracula to visit

As mentioned earlier, the bed in the Gothic bedroom must be large, tall and simply luxurious. An obligatory detail is a carved or forged headboard. You can add a canopy or more modern hanging curtains.

An excellent combination of colors for this vacation spot will be black and red - the favorite gothic shades of the slightly gloomy Middle Ages. The floor can be decorated in mahogany, and the furniture is harmoniously distributed by color - red and black. Walls should also not deviate from the general theme of shades. You can “dilute” them with inclusions of gold or copper.

The windows, as always, are elongated, trimmed with removable wooden panels or painted in a dark metallic color, such as antimony.

You can achieve even greater expressiveness with unusual bedside or floor lamps, in the form of thorny plants with ball lamps hanging from these unusual branches.

The final touch for the perfect gothic interior is a massive, wide mirror with a frame in silver or a darker metallic color.

In general, mirrors should be present in almost every room, since they were considered real defenders from evil forces at that time.

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In conclusion about Gothic and passions

A feature of Gothic in the interior can be called its special ability to give capacious, impressive and unusually expressive images. Who might like this style? Incorrigible romantics, travelers, lovers of adventure, mystical stories and antiquities. Having applied the Gothic interior at least in one room, you will certainly want to turn the whole house or apartment into your own castle. This experiment will succeed in any case, the main thing is to follow the basic rules for creating a style.

However, care should be taken to use such an interior in the kitchen or children's room. In these rooms, it is better to give preference to softer, less pronounced styles, adding only a few Gothic details in the updated Victorian interior.

This article provides only a few examples of a classic Gothic interior that can adequately accommodate in the appropriate room. Using various variations and combinations, you can create your own unique, exclusive and simply stunning interior. Whether to do it yourself or hire a professional designer is up to you. But some special tricks and tricks cannot be told on paper. You can only try and not stop until you reach your goal.

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Photo gallery - Gothic style in the interior

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