American medieval Authenticity and the indifference of architecture

American medievalist buildings of the Gilded Age often reinterpreted historical forms in new idioms inflected by modern architectural developments. Nevertheless, some of their makers remained keenly aware of issues of authenticity and struggled to create truly medieval experiences for their American audiences. This essay explores the discourse of authenticity as it influenced the architectural formation of Isabella Stewart Gardner's museum in Boston, Raymond Pitcairn's projects in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, and The Cloisters in New York City. Rather than accepting these structures as modern pastiches that merely demonstrate empty nostalgia for the past, this essay presents the phenomenon of modern medievalism in architecture as a sincere quest for authenticity, a contradictory pursuit that reflects the problems and complexities of Gilded Age attitudes towards the Middle Ages.