The Vertical Townscape

Illustration from 1880 of a canal in Bruges, Belgium surrounded by Renaissance buildings, all of which pointing up to the sky. The entire townscape seems to point upwards, gesturing to the sky.

I came across this illustration recently, and I was immediately struck by it. It was drawn in 1880 and shows a medieval canal in Bruges, Belgium. What struck me was how the entire townscape seems to reach upward toward the sky. The scene is an amalgamation of turrets, towers and pinnacles, and the effect is a forest of brick and wood with each part jockeying for position on the skyline. Even the windows are tall and thin, accentuating the upwardly mobile buildings with a sense of vertical movement.

This obsession with verticality is common in Gothic buildings, which go to great pains to gesture upward and beckon towards the sky. There are multiple styles present here, however, and the effect is compounded because all these styles get in on the act. The result is greater than the sum of its parts; the town itself reaches upward as if it’s trying to escape gravity and exist among the clouds.

As if to hit the concept home, the artist renders the canal at the base of the image with a field of horizontal lines. This contrasts with the buildings and they’re upward gestures, and it shows that they seek to inhabit a realm above the surface.

Check out other posts about architecture and verticality here.