The Gothic period produced profound changes in tower design. Windows and arcades were much lengthened; buttresses in creased in size and complexity; corner buttresses were much em phasized and frequently crowned with pinnacles and offsets were arranged to vary the silhouette. Although many Gothic towers were designed to carry spires a large number have flat roofs with rich battlemented or traceried parapets and many pinnacles and finials. Sometimes octagonal turrets rose continuously from the ground to the top at one or more corners of the tower. The number of towers contemplated for great churches increased with their complexity. Thus in Rheims, seven towers with crocketed spires were originally planned, and at Chartres, eight ; Tournai cathedral (the only scheme of the three completed) in Belgium has seven. Of flat topped towers the Tour S. Jacques, Paris (1508-1522) is a graceful example. The most beautiful of Eng lish Gothic towers are Canterbury cathedral (central tower ; Lincoln (western towers c. 1250, completed c. 1400), cen tral tower (lower portion 1240-50, upper portion 1307-1311); Gloucester (central tower middle 15th century) ; and York (cen tral tower 1400-1423, south-west tower begun 1432, north-west tower finished Of the smaller towers, those of Wrexham church (1506) and the famous Magdalen tower at Oxford (1492 1505) are both beautiful examples of Perpendicular richness.
Secular.—Towers are not limited to either military or re ligious uses. Many were built in connection with town halls, others to carry clocks. Isolated belfrys are also found as at Amiens (present building 1748, on a mediaeval base), and Dame tal (1512-14) ; and those containing clocks at Evreux (490); Rouen (1389, altered 1527) ; Bordeaux (13th and 15th cen turies). The greater number of the hotels de ville of France, Germany and the Netherlands had towers, serving as belfrys. Ex amples exist at S. Antonin, France (12th century), Ypres (early 14th century, now, 1928, destroyed) and Arras in Belgium (1554) ; while the fantastic tower of the Rathaus at Rothenburg (13th century) is characteristic of the German examples.
Oriental.—The Muslim architects rank with the greatest me diaeval tower designers, but except for a few examples in pal aces, such as the 14th century Comares tower in the Alhambra at Granada, Spain, the greater number were purely religious and served for places from which the call to prayer was given. The greatest of them all is the Giralda tower at Seville, originally a mosque minaret (1195), but in its present form it is crowned with a Renaissance top, built in the 17th century by the archi tect Heman Ruiz. The Kutub Minar at Delhi, (early 13th cen tury) is the most important Indian example. (See MINARET.) Tower-like structures play an important part in the Brahmin temples of India and in other religious architecture of the Far East. Thus many of the temples are entered through gateways
under enormous piles of masonry which take the form of oblong pyramids, lavishly covered with tier on tier of sculptured figures, carved mouldings, little projecting shrines and the like. Charac teristic examples are those at Madura (17th century) and Con jeeveran. Sometimes a square, pyramidal tower is placed over the Holy of Holies of a temple, as at Madura.
In China the tower is chiefly developed as the pagoda (q.v.), whose characteristic, repeated roofs and galleries form an in teresting silhouette, typically Chinese. Japanese pagodas are similar in everything but small details.
Renaissance.—The best Renaissance towers are those of corn paratively late date, for it required the imaginative freedom of the Baroque spirit to combine classic detail with the non-classic verticality a rich tower requires. Of these Baroque towers the best were those of south Germany, Austria and England, in all of which comparatively simple bases were crowned with several stages of rich, colonnaded detail, the whole topped with some sort of fantastic, curved roof. The Spanish Baroque towers differ from those already mentioned in being crowned by a lantern, us ually smaller than the tower below, with frequently a low dome at the top of the entire composition; sometimes two or more stages occur, each smaller than the one below. Such towers were common, not only in Spain itself, but also in the Spanish colonies in America, existing in rich and highly developed examples in Mexico, as in the cathedral at Mexico City, and in much simpli fied form in the mission churches of California, as in S. Luis Rey, completed 1802.
The greater number of modern church towers follow the prece dent of earlier styles, but a few of marked individuality exist. Westminster cathedral tower, London (1895-1903), by J. F. Bentley, 283 ft. high, is especially interesting, also the tower of the church of Mitre Dame at La Raincy (1924), built of rein forced concrete, by Perret Freres. Other modern examples in clude the Eiffel tower, Paris (1889), by Gustave Eiffel, 984 ft. high; in Germany, the Einstein tower, Potsdam, an observatory, (1921), by E. Mendelsohn and Stuttgart railway station (1927), by Bonatz and Scholer; in America, the Cleveland Memorial tower, Princeton university (1913), by Cram and Fergusson; the Harkness Memorial tower at Yale university (1921), by J. G. Rogers; the tower of the Holder group, Princeton (1909), by Day and Klauder; and in Sweden, the tower of the city hall, Stockholm (1924), by Ragnar Ostberg. A characteristic modern use of the word tower is for high office buildings. (See ARCHI TECTURE; INDUSTRIAL ARCHITECTURE.) Office towers are also sometimes incorporated into modern governmental buildings. (See