Am I the only one who finds Gothic/Neo-Gothic architecture ugly?

Right. Don'tcha always think it's too busy?

You see if nowadays it's always dull, faded. and dark. With color (original?) maybe it looks better.

I was born in Galveston and there is a place there called the Bishop's Palace, a gothic revival mansion, that scared the piss out of me when I was young just riding by.

OP - you may or may not know the historic origins, but one reason I love Gothic Architecture are the technological advances it embodied - allowing masonry walls to be filled with huge windows because they figured out how to move the load of the roof off the walls. The various revival churches built in America usually only ape this with applied style, but the old cathedrals in Europe are really marvels of engineering and human ingenuity. You can still find the visual style ugly, of course, and it certainly has been associated with ghosts / horror / etc in the pop culture of the 20th cent.

R3 I googled to see what that place looks like and while it does look kind of creepy I don't see anything neo-gothic about it. It looks more neo-romanesque to me.

Actually, it's Queen Anne more than anything else--but it's really a hodgepodge. Maybe that's why it's so creepy.

All I knew R5 was it looked like the kind of place monsters would live. It's actually beautiful inside though.

I wanted to live with Christina Ricci in Whipstaff Manor (Friendship, Maine!) when I was a little gay. It’s still my dream home, cobwebs and annoying ghouls and all.

I like it. Very aspiring. Which is why early skyscrapers used it. Though it’s best use is in its original form - ex, Notre Dame - some neo-Gothic like the Woolworth Building works well.

I love Gothic Revival. Many people who grew up Catholic hate it because it reminds them of church. I made Gothic Revival pelmets for the living room windows of my house and have some Victorian decorative items in the style.

I like both the original Gothic architecture, as well as Gothic revival. I see how Gothic revival buildings here in the US can take on creepy connotations, but I don't think the Gothic cathedrals in Europe are creepy at all. This mausoleum is in a nearby cemetery.

Any fans of Venetian Gothic around here?

I love Venetian Gothic and I miss this glam 60s take on that style.

It is quite jarring to see Gothic revival homes and smaller structures. The heavy ornamentation just doesn’t work on buildings that aren’t grand in scale. It would have looked affected, even in 1872. It’s why real Gothic architecture was limited to large churches.

R13 Love that building. Where the hell is that place?

r15, that's the old Huntington Hartford Museum that used to dominate Columbus Circle in NYC. They completely revamped it so it looks like a different building now--almost everyone agreed the old facade just wasn't right for where it was, though by itself it was a cool building.

This is what the same building (2 Columbus Circle) looks like today.

R17 EEEK! Is there any city in the world that shitted all over its architectural heritage as horribly as NYC did?!

[quote] It’s why real Gothic architecture was limited to large churches.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "real" Gothic architecture but there were lots of grand civic buildings built in that style too, like the fabulous city hall in Brussels. The Ypres cloth hall was even more beautiful (until it was blown to pieces in WWI).

I find it somewhat ugly, but I also think there's some beauty in it. I wouldn't want to see a city 100% full of Gothic architecture.

What I really hate are the Victorian apartments (painted ladies) in San Francisco. So awful. I know it's a different time period, but talking about Gothic stuff got me thinking about these Victorian style apartments.

R18, By real gothic, I meant “built during the Middle Ages” or “not Gothic revival”. But fair enough, I should’ve replaced “churches” with “very grand buildings”. That city hall is definitely the real thing.

2 Columbus Circle is a metaphor for the City's recent decline. New York City used to be a haven for those who didn't fit in. Not any more.

The worst part of the fate of 2 Columbus Circle is that when it's lighted, the north face, shown in the photo in R17, spells HE.

That says it all about the new New York City.

Exactly R21. I don’t agree with the poster above who said the building “never fit in.” But I guess it didn’t since it stood out in a very arresting way. I can remember driving through C Circle as a kid and noticing that building - it fascinated me because it really didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before. The battle to save the the building proved that lots of people felt the same way about it, but sadly not those with the real clout.