As Ruskin wrote The Stones of Venice, the architectural world was in the midst of a revival of the Gothic style. Although Ruskin himself played a key role in shaping this movement—as did the English architect A. W. N. Pugin, among others—its roots extended back to the advent of Romanticism.

With the Romantic movement of the early 19th century came a renewed interest in, and respect for, the Middle Ages, which was increasingly seen as a purer, more spiritual time in contrast to the Industrial Revolution. For Ruskin and the painters of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the embrace of the Gothic aesthetic was a reaction against a modern system of values which emphasized machine production and scientific progress, opting instead for handcrafted objects and architecture that embodied spiritual beliefs. The Gothic revival often intertwined with religious movements emphasizing a rediscovery of Catholicism or the High Church style of worship in the Anglican Church, and Neo-Gothic was a style frequently chosen for the building of new churches from the 19th to the early 20th centuries.

Sometimes these buildings presented painstakingly accurate copies of the original style, and other times architects freely adapted their models or only emphasized such features as pointed arches, buttresses, and vaulting ceilings.