Un fraude monumental : Mil años góticos

During a visit to the British Museum, Félix de Azúa noticed a subtle shift in visitors' interest from the galleries dedicated to Greek art to those of ancient Egypt. This observation led him to question the historical evolution of taste, which served as the starting point for a brief history of the Gothic style. Like Classicism, Gothic architecture has experienced periods of both flourishing and decline, its fortunes reflecting the fluctuations of cultural sensibility throughout history. Today, in a Europe transformed into a theme park, Gothic cathedrals continue to inspire almost universal fascination. But what do we truly admire in them? How much belongs to their origins, and how much to later reconstructions or an aesthetic narrative fueled by restorations, revivals, and market strategies? If Gothic architecture barely dominated three centuries, what remains of it when its materials have been replaced and its metaphysics forgotten? From Notre-Dame to the British Parliament, passing through the castle of Disneyland Paris, this book proposes a critical journey through the influence of Gothic architecture, literature and music, questioning with irony and rigor the limits between restoration, reinterpretation and monumental fraud.