Architecture is the art and technique of designing, planning and constructing buildings and other physical structures. Architecture works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols and as works of art.

During the Middle Ages architecture was practiced in England with even greater success than among any of the medieval nations. In beauty of detail and elegance of proportion, the English buildings generally surpassed their ancestors.

Art in the Middle Ages was inseparable from religion. It was infused with spiritual symbolism and meaning. The purpose of art was to awe and inspire the viewer with the grandeur of God. It also served to symbolize what people believed.

Despite being the largest city in medieval England, you could walk across London in twenty minutes. Most of it laid inside the stone city wall originally built by the Romans. The wall’s large gates were locked and guarded at night. Medieval architecture mainly served for defense and because of this outside the wall was a moat and beyond that were fields. As time passed by and population increased, suburbs developed outside the gates, forming the beautiful city that London is today.

London has a complex architecture due to its variety of styles, so I would like to show you how the specific architectural styles used during the Middle Ages, The Romanesque and The Gothic styles, differ from the modern architecture that we see nowadays.

Firstly, I would like to play a video which offers a great view of the London’s skyline and London’s variety of architectural styles.

As you can see from this video, one of the most significant difference between modern architecture and medieval architecture is the simplicity and clarity of forms and elimination of “unnecessary detail”. This means that modern architecture has simple designs, yet complex to achieve, but easy to remember while medieval architecture puts emphasis on the decorative details which can be seen in the Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles.

Moreover, visual expressions of structure can be seen in the modern architecture as opposed to hiding of structural elements in the medieval architectural styles. This process is called “the truth of materials” meaning that the true nature or natural appearance of a material is ought to be seen rather than concealed or altered to represent something else. By this way of constructing buildings, modern architects wanted to reduce buildings to pure forms, removing historical references and ornament in favor of functionalist details. Buildings display their functional and structural elements, exposing steel beams and concrete surfaces instead of hiding them behind decorative forms.

Another remarkable difference between modern architecture and medieval architecture is the use of materials. During the medieval period, stone, which was cut with precision, was mainly used in the process of building. Because of this, Romanesque buildings, for example, were often very heavy and dark inside. Nowadays, there are used industrially-produced materials which reduces considerably the effort put in the building process. These materials also allow the building to become free standing because of their capacity to sustain more easily the structure of the building.

To conclude, it is crystal clear that London’s architecture has come a long way due to the growth of population and their needs regarding the buildings that they would like to live in. Humanity leaves immortal echoes through its history using the media of language, art, knowledge and architecture. We are mortal, but we wish to become eternal

and architecture is our success in this battle. So why does architecture have a tremendous role in our lives? I’ll tell you: as Winston Churchill said “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us”.