Some European scholars, especially scholars of the Near East, have suggested that the use of pointed arches and clustered piers in the cathedral influenced the development of Gothic architecture. The theory was popularized by Josef Strzygowski, who was the first European to thoroughly study Armenian architecture and placed Armenia in the center of European architecture. Strzygowski wrote in the "Origin of Christian Church Art" (1920): "It is a delight, in a church earlier than AD 1000, to see the builder, the court architect Trdat, carrying Armenian art so logically and so successfully past 'Romanesque' to 'Gothic'." Several scholars had proposed this view before Strzygowski. H. F. B. Lynch in his book on Armenia published in 1901 suggested that the cathedral has "many of the characteristics of the Gothic style, of which it establishes the Oriental origin." William Lethaby found the cathedral "strangely western." He wrote in "Medieval Art" (1912) that it is especially remarkable because its pointed arches, clustered piers, ribs and colonnades correspond to the Gothic of a hundred years later. Edith Browne wrote in 1912 that the cathedral is "a very specimen of transition to the Gothic style."