Gargoyles? A column on Gargoyles? Are you serious, O.C.?
Well, yes. Looking through a book on the building of Medieval cathedrals in Europe — “Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction,” by David Macaulay (1973) — led me to thinking about gargoyles, “a breed of creatures which frighten us with their appearance.” Stay with me here.
I remembered seeing what appeared to be gargoyles on the 15-story 1924 Jackson Building in Pack Square in Asheville, when I was there years ago. Designed by Asheville architect Ronald Greene, the Jackson Building is also notable in that it was the first skyscraper in western North Carolina.
My cousin Anna lives in Asheville and she does mechanical drawings and architectural types of stuff, so I emailed her, basically to find out if what I thought I had seen from ground-level were, indeed gargoyles hundreds of feet above me and the streets of Asheville. Although I had a camera with me then, the gargoyles were perched too far above me to capture with a photograph from the street. Anna suggested I see Richard Hansley’s Asheville’s Historic Architecture, (Charleston: History Press, 2011).
People are also reading…
Author Hansley, in the introduction to his book, observes that “Architects…have adorned their buildings at heights far above what the normal viewing public would see. All the good stuff is above. The casual passerby is not inclined to look up to see what delights of fancy these creative artists have embellished their structures with.”
Gargoyles, in case you have forgotten, are representations of monsters, devils, chimeras (unusual animal mixtures) and other grotesque creatures that are used to direct rainwater away from buildings, such as European cathedrals. Rainwater would soften the soil and also might dissolve mortar and stain the masonry walls. What I saw as gargoyles on the Jackson Building are technically termed “grotesques,” as they do not function as downspouts, but are only decorative.
The high point of functioning gargoyle downspouts on Gothic buildings seems to have been around 1100 to 1500 AD, some 500 years ago. You may recall scenes from the 1939 movie, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” in which the spinal-challenged bell ringer Quasimodo (played by Charles Laughton) poured molten lead through the gargoyles of the Notre Dame cathedral onto the mob below that was attempting to seize the beautiful Gypsy girl, Esmeralda (played by Maureen O’Hara).
We have buildings in our larger metropolitan areas built in the Gothic style. One notable building with metallic “eagle” gargoyles is the iconic Chrysler Building in New York City, which is not Gothic, but Art Deco in style.
The Gothic style of architecture is recognized by a number of features, such as the use of external flying buttresses to support the walls, thus eliminating the need for interior building supports, the use of tall stained-glass windows. Often there was a large, circular “rose” window over the main entrance to a Gothic-style church. There was also a marked emphasis of verticality in the design of the building, said by some to “point the way to heaven.” One author has described the object of Gothic architecture to be the creation of “tall, slender, airy spaces, flooded with light.”
It is ironic that this style, which we associate with churches was in its day decried as a style less desirable than the classic forms which preceded it. Indeed, the very term Gothic referred to the barbarians who invaded the late Roman Empire and destroyed much of it.
We also have a number of buildings built in the revival of the style in the late 19th century, termed neo-Gothic. Neither architectural style, Gothic or neo-Gothic, ever caught on in North Carolina in a big way.
Are there any gargoyles on Gothic style buildings in Charlotte? I don’t know. There seems to be at least one, according to Google, but it does not give the name or location of the building. All Google says is that it is a bank. Anyone know where it is?
There are also gargoyles a few miles from Asheville at the Biltmore House. Workers built more and more for the Vanderbilts; “America’s Largest Home” is worth a look as long as you are in the area. There are nine non-draining gargoyles at Biltmore.
As usual, when in doubt, seek more information: I consulted Bill Yenne’s “Gothic Gargoyles” (First Glance Books, 1998). The purpose(s) of adding decorative gargoyles to medieval buildings, it seems, is not all that settled. They serve as rainwater downspouts on Gothic buildings, however, a simple terra cotta pipe would work as well for a drain.
But there are, perhaps, other reasons for them as well. But the objects remain mysterious. As Mr. Yenne, points out, “The gargoyle sculptors — who, like most people at the time, were probably illiterate — left no written records,” as to the why of gargoyles.
Mr. Yenne is described on his book’s dust jacket as “A lifelong gargoyle enthusiast” and the author of more than two dozen books. He also took the photographs for this book in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Scotland, England and the United States, but mostly in France, ground zero for gargoyles. France, it seems, may well have the highest number of gargoyles per capita of any country in the world, although Vienna, Austria, is favored by some experts as having the best examples of Gothic architecture in Europe.
One purpose of the gargoyles may be to emphasize that places of divine worship are sanctuaries from the evils of day-to-day life. After all, the symbolic gargoyles are only found on the outside of buildings, never the interior.
Then, too, the carving of gargoyles may have been an opportunity for the stone masons to show off their skills and exercise their imaginations. But basically, we don’t know why the Medieval stonemasons carved downspouts as demonic, or sometimes comic, gargoyles.