What style of church architecture was dark with thick walls?

When you take a trip to Europe, you'll inevitably encounter one of the hundreds of Gothic cathedrals that dot the landscape. Built during the 12th through 16th centuries, these medieval masterpieces were born out of the Romanesque movement, which saw churches designed with thick walls, round arches, and large towers.



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Romanesque architecture is characterized by heavy masonry walls, rounded arches supported by piers, and barrel vaults. Gothic architecture has much thinner walls supported by flying buttresses, pointed arches, and stained glass windows.

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It is characterized by vertical proportions, pointed arches, external buttressing, and asymmetry. At great gothic cathedrals like Chartres in France and Salisbury in England, pointed arches allowed for heavy stone ceiling vaults despite the fact that the walls were pierced for huge stained-glass windows.

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Their combination of the basilica and symmetrical central-plan (circular or polygonal) religious structures resulted in the characteristic Byzantine Greek-cross-plan church, with a square central mass and four arms of equal length. The most distinctive feature was the domed roof.

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