Gothic architecture. The architecture of the pointed arch, the rib vault, the flying buttress, the walls reduced to a minimum by spacious arcades, by gallery or triforium, and by spacious clerestory windows. These are not isolated motifs; they act together and represent a system of skeletal structure with active, slender, resilient members and membrane-thin infilling or no infilling at all. (See also Gothic revival.)
-- John Fleming, Hugh Honour & Nikolaus Pevsner, 1991
The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture
Penguin Books, London, England