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...object is necessarily confined to the social definition of form as processed through individual conceptualizations of nature and the empirical surroundings. The gothic revivalism of the nineteenth century was based more on a concept than on the aesthetic quality of its element - or so many of its critics would argue. Many individualsluding Victor Hugo, have attempted to preserve medieval monuments through the process of 'resignification,' recasting Gothic's symbolic connection from a despotic past repudiated by the French Revolution to a symbol 'of continuity with the best of the past,' in his successful struggle to realign the French national consciousness (quoted in Nichols 138). The medieval gothic period inspired the revivalist movement but did not define it. The revival architects started with the principles of the earlier period and expanded on them in order to develop a unique and functional style appropriate for the industrialized era. The forms of the gothic period - such as the bay, arches, buttresses, wooden roof, colonette, balustrade, dormer, fenestration and tracery - are included in and expanded upon, within the revivalist form....