Characteristics of gothic church architecture include tall designs, flying buttresses, vaulted ceilings, light and air, gargoyles, decorative and ornate finishes, and what else?
Belarusian Gothic Belarusian Gothic Belarusian Gothic (Belarusian "беларуская готыка [belaruskaya hotyka]") is the architectural style of ecclesiastical buildings constructed during the 15th and 16th centuries in parts of modern-day Belarus, Lithuania and eastern Poland. Although these buildings have features typical of Gothic architecture such as lofty towers, flying buttresses, pointed arches and vaulted ceilings, they also contain elements not typically considered Gothic by Central and Western European standards. With the baptism of Grand Prince Vladimir the Great and the Christianization of Kievan Rus, the region's buildings became heavily influenced by Byzantine architecture. During the 13th and early 14th centuries the principalities of
Gothic architecture rain water off the roof; it was expelled from the mouths of stone gargoyles placed in rows on the buttresses. In the late Gothic periods the buttresses became extremely ornate, with a large amount of non-functional decoration in the form of pinnacles, curving arches, counter-curves, statuary and ornamental pendants. An important characteristic of Gothic church architecture is its height, both absolute and in proportion to its width, the verticality suggesting an aspiration to Heaven. The increasing height of cathedrals over the Gothic period was accompanied by an increasing proportion of the wall devoted to windows, until, by the late Gothic,