Thread by @culturaltutor

On the front of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. there is a small sculpture of Darth Vader, added in the 1980s.

It seems anachronistic, but this is probably the most authentically Gothic thing about the cathedral.

Here's why...

What do you think of when you hear the words "Gothic Architecture"?

Probably pointed arches, flying buttresses, stained glass windows, soaring vaults, and gargoyles.

Something like Notre-Dame in Paris:

The Neo-Gothic National Cathedral in Washington D.C. has all of that.

Construction started in 1908 and it was finished in 1990, although some work is still ongoing after an earthquake in 2011.

Like Medieval cathedrals, this building was several generations in the making.

True to form it has an array of stained glass windows, choir stalls, a clerestory, a triforium, and a large stone reredos:

Plus those fabulous rows of Gothic rib vaulting and clustered columns that draw the eye upwards:

Nor to forget flying buttresses, along with a soaring central tower, rose windows, and crocketed pinnacles:

Now, most Medieval cathedrals are not purely of one style.

They were built, expanded, part-demolished, damaged, and rebuilt over the course of centuries.

Thus they inevitably contain multiple phases of construction and multiple architectural styles mixed in together:

This effect was recreated at the National Cathedral.

The crypt chapels were built in Romanesque style —notice the rounded arches — which directly preceded the Gothic in the 10th and 11th centuries.

Many European cathedrals have similar remnants of Romanesque design.

But the bulk of the National Cathedral is designed in the "Decorated Gothic", an English subgenre of Gothic architecture which appeared in the 13th and 14th centuries — although there are a handful of French architectural motifs too.

The National Cathedral wasn't built exclusively with Medieval methods and materials — steel and concrete were used.

But that doesn't make it inauthentic. As the 19th century French restorer Viollet-le-Duc said, Medieval architects would have happily used these materials.

So the National Cathedral is a faithful recreation of Medieval architecture — and a very impressive building in its own right.

But Gothic architecture was about more than the outward appearance of pointed arches and flying buttresses...

As the great John Ruskin wrote in the 1840s, Gothic Architecture was partly defined by the freedom it gave to individual architects and masons to pursue their own creative inclinations.

Gothic was not the work of one master designer, but the product of a whole community.

Ruskin's point is that Gothic was not a single, unified architectural style with a list of rules to be followed.

Asymmetry and variation were a natural consequence, as at Rouen Cathedral, below.

Every single Medieval Gothic building is designed and decorated differently.

This was understood well by the designers of the National Cathedral in Washington.

Notice, for example, that the capitals (the decorative part at the top of a pillar) are all different.

True to the spirit of Gothic.

Sculptors were given the freedom to decorate the cathedral with their own interpretations of religious stories, among them Roger Morigi, Frederick Hart, Jay Hall Carpenter, and Patrick Plunkett.

Consider the tympanums (the triangular section above a door) and their variety:

One thing you notice about original Medieval cathedrals is the sheer variety of their decorations, both of content and form.

There is a mind-boggling mix of nightmarish creatures, caricatures, beautiful statuary, and vulgar jokes.

The Medieval imagination was all-encompassing.

Again, this is a natural consequence of how Gothic was an adaptable, ever-changing form of architecture.

For example, local traditions and customs were inevitably integrated into church decoration.

Like the "Green Man", a pagan motif widely incorporated into Gothic art:

And, of course, the famous gargoyles and grotesques of Medieval cathedrals were usually fearsome and frightning creatures, perhaps intended to ward off evil spirits.

Maybe Darth Vader is the modern equivalent of Medieval dragons and ghouls.

All these factors mean the Darth Vader sculpture — which was carved by Jay Carpenter after a childrens' design competition in the 1980s — is a perfectly appropriate way to decorate the cathedral.

It is exactly what Medieval masons would have done, had they ever seen Star Wars.

So this Darth Vader sculpture is authentically Gothic — without it, and other similarly "modern" additions, the cathedral would simply be a cold imitation.

Because the Gothic was fundamentally a living form of architecture, and the best Neo-Gothic design recognises that.