who developed the first example of gothic architecture
Gothic architecture The term "Gothic architecture" originated as a pejorative description. Giorgio Vasari used the term "barbarous German style" in his 1550 Lives of the Artists to describe what is now considered the Gothic style,[2] and in the introduction to the Lives he attributes various architectural features to "the Goths" whom he held responsible for destroying the ancient buildings after they conquered Rome, and erecting new ones in this style.[3] Vasari was not alone among 15th and 16th Italian writers, as Filarete and Giannozzo Manetti had also written scathing criticisms of the Gothic style, calling it a "barbaric prelude to the Renaissance." Vasari and company were writing at a time when many aspects and vocabulary pertaining to Classical architecture had been reasserted with the Renaissance in the late 15th and 16th centuries, and they had the perspective that the "maniera tedesca" or "maniera dei Goti" was the antithesis of this resurgent style leading to the continuation of this negative connotation in the 17th century.[1] François Rabelais, also of the 16th century, imagines an inscription over the door of his utopian Abbey of Thélème, "Here enter no hypocrites, bigots..." slipping in a slighting reference to "Gotz" and "Ostrogotz."[a] Molière also made this note of the Gothic style in the 1669 poem La Gloire:[1]
Early skyscrapers There is academic disagreement over which building should be considered the first skyscraper.[37] The term was first used in the 1780s to describe a particularly tall horse, before later being applied to the sail at the top of a ship's mast, tall hats and bonnets, tall men, and a ball that was hit high into the air.[38] In the 1880s it began to be applied to buildings, first in 1883 to describe large public monuments and then in 1889 as a label for tall office blocks, coming into widespread use over the next decade.[39] Identifying the first "true skyscraper" is not straightforward, and various candidates exist depending on the criteria applied.[40] George Post's New York Equitable Life Building of 1870, for example, was the first tall office building to use the elevator, while his Produce Exchange building of 1884 made substantial structural advances in metal frame design.[41] The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, opened in 1885, is, however, most often labelled the first skyscraper because of its innovative use of structural steel in a metal frame design.[42]