Ávila Cathedral: A Medieval Fortress-Church

In this installment of ‘Larger Than Life: Architecture Through the Ages,’ we visit Spain’s first Gothic cathedral.

Avila Cathedral’s façade closely resembles the Basilica of Saint-Denis, the first European Gothic church. Its curved-sided pointed arches above doors and windows demonstrate an important aspect of the Gothic architecture style’s development. Sergey Dzyuba/Shutterstock

In 1144, France unveiled the first structure that became the worldwide model for Gothic architecture—the Basilica of Saint-Denis. A quarter century later, the new style reached the margins of European culture. In Ávila, Spain, the Cathedral of the Savior became Spain’s first Gothic masterpiece.

Designed to be a fortress church, the cathedral’s apse was built into one of the 88 towers along the city’s 1.5-mile-long defensive wall. While parts of the previous 11th to mid-12th century Romanesque structure were retained, the cathedral’s basic core—a cross-shaped floor plan with front towers, buttresses, and radiating chapels—was built between 1170 and 1475.