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Theory of Architecture Lecture-2-

Renaissance and 19th century Architecture

(Early 14th ,16th and 19th centuries) Prepared by L.Tara Azad Rauof

This lecture Context:

 The Origins  Characteristic of Architecture  Renaissance principles  Phases of  Lasting Influences of Renaissance Architects  Famous Renaissance Architects  19th Century Architecture  Famous 19th Century Buildings and Architects

The Origins of Renaissance:

* Early 14th and early 16th centuries in : a new age began named The Renaissance Age and spread throughout Europe.

* This "age of "awakening" in Italy and northern Europe became known as the Renaissance, which means a new born in French.

* In Italy, the Renaissance flourished with artists of innumerable talents.

* The Renaissance in European history left behind the Gothic era—it was a new way for writers, artists, and architects to look at the world after the middle Ages.

* In Britain it was the time of William Shakespeare, a writer who seemed to be interested in everything—art, love, history, and tragedy.

* Before the dawn of the Renaissance, Europe was dominated by asymmetrical and ornate . During the Renaissance, architects were inspired by the highly symmetrical and carefully proportioned buildings of Classical and Rome.

* The transformation from medieval centuries beginnings of industrial revolution, considered as the flourishment of arts, literature, and scientific inventions, so called the Renaissance age.

Characteristic of Renaissance Architecture:

*Revival of Classical ideas of ancient Greece and Rome in the period of roughly 1400 to 1600 AD.

* The Renaissance style places emphasis on Symmetry, Proportion, Geometry and regularity of parts as demonstrated in the architectural of antiquity and particular ancient Roman architecture. * The Renaissance style replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings.

* Symmetrical arrangement of windows and doors

* Extensive use of columns of the Classical orders and .

* Triangular

* Square lintels

* Semicircular arches

* Hemispherical domes

* Niches with sculptures

* The influence of Renaissance architecture is still felt today in the more contemporary home. Consider the common originated in Italy during the Renaissance.

Renaissance principles

The scientific movement impacted on architecture, depending on important principles, such as:

1- Depending on proportions, mathematical, and geometrical theories especially phythagorthian proportion to approve the fixed ratio in architecture.

2- Depending on the human body ratios as the keynote of optimum proportions.

3- Depending on the aesthetic principles, which its roots returned to Plato, and Aristotle, when they claimed that the beauty is the pleasing characteristics of things.

Phases of Renaissance Architecture:

1- Early phase of Renaissance:

Artists in northern Italy were exploring new ideas for centuries before the period we call the Renaissance. During the early 1400s, Florence, Italy is often considered the center of Early ., the painter and architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) designed the great Duomo (cathedral) dome of Florence (c. 1436), so innovative in design and construction that even today it's called Brunelleschi's Dome. The Ospedale degli Innocenti (c. 1445), a children's hospital also in Florence, Italy, was one of Brunelleschi's first designs.

Brunelleschi also rediscovered the principles of linear perspective, which examined further and documented by (1404-1472).

2- : What is called the "High Renaissance" was dominated by the works of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and the young upstart Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). These artists built on the works of those who came before them, extending a classical brilliance that is admired to this day.

Leonardo, famous for his paintings of The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, continued the tradition of what we call the "Renaissance Man." His notebooks of inventions and geometrical sketches, including the Vitruvian Man, remain iconic. As an urban planner, like the ancient Romans before him, da Vinci spent his last years in France, planning a Utopian city for the King.

During the 1500s, the great Renaissance master, the radical Michelangelo Buonarroti, painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and designed the dome for St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. Michelangelo's most recognizable sculptures are arguably the Pieta and the grand 17-foot marble statue of David. The Renaissance in Europe was a time when art and architecture was inseparable and the skills and talents of a single man could change the course of culture. Lasting Influences of Renaissance Architects:

A Classical approach to architecture spread through Europe, thanks to books by two important Renaissance architects.

1- Originally printed in 1562, Canon of the Five Orders of Architecture by Giacomo da Vignola (1507-1573) was a practical textbook for the 16th century builder. It was a "how-to" pictorial description for building with different types of Greek and Roman columns. As an architect Vignola had a hand in St. Peter's Basilica and the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, Farnese, and other large country estates for the Catholic elite of Rome. Like other Renaissance architects of his time, Vignola designed with balusters, which became known as banisters in the 20th and 21st centuries—our stairway safety is really an idea from the Renaissance.

2- Originally published in 1570, The Four Books of Architecture by (1508-1580) not only described the five Classical Orders, but also showed with floor plans and elevation drawings how to apply the Classical elements to houses, bridges, and basilicas. In the fourth book, Palladio examines real Roman temples—local architecture like the Pantheon in Rome was deconstructed and illustrated in what continues to be a textbook of Classical design. Andrea Palladio's architecture from the 1500s still stands as some of the finest examples of Renaissance design and construction.

Long after the Renaissance period ended, however, architects were inspired by Renaissance ideas. was influenced by Palladio and modeled his own home at on Palladio's La Rotonda. At the turn of the twentieth century, American architects like Richard Morris Hunt designed grand style homes that resembled palaces and from Renaissance Italy. If the Renaissance of Classical designs had not happened in the 15th and 16th centuries, would we know anything of ancient Greek and Roman architecture? Maybe NOT, but the Renaissance sure makes it easier.

Famous Renaissance Architects:

1- Filippo Brunelleschi 2- Leon Battista Alberti 3- Andrea Palladio

Filippo Brunelleschi Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 –1446) was an Italian architect and designer, recognized to be the first modern engineer, planner and sole construction supervisor. He was considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture. He is most famous for designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, a feat of engineering that had not been accomplished since antiquity, as well as the development of the mathematical technique of linear perspective in art which governed pictorial depictions of space until the late 19th century and influenced the rise of modern science. His accomplishments also include other architectural works, sculpture, mathematics and engineering. His surviving works can be found in Florence, Italy.

Projects:

* The dome of the Florence Cathedral.

Leon Battista Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti (1404 –1472) was an Italian author, poet, linguist, architect, philosopher, cryptographer, and general Renaissance polymath. The son of an extremely wealthy family in Florence, Italy. His focus on ancient Greece and Rome led him to study the Classical architectural orders. In particular, he obsessed over ' De Architectura, the only surviving work of the great Roman architectural theorist.

The new conception of Architecture by Alberti is his description of a building [the product of thought] as a form of body [the product of Nature] which like any other consists of lineaments and matter. The intent and purpose of lineaments as he said: “lies in finding the correct, infallible way of joining and fitting together those lines and angles which define and enclose the surface of the building”.

“Beauty” according to Alberti “is that reasoned harmony of all the parts within a body, so that nothing may be added, taken away, or altered but for the worse”.

To give structure and decoration to facades, Alberti developed a clever system of classical pilasters and architraves which could be superimposed on any earlier smooth surface. Alberti used the name "ornamentum" ('decoration') for these architectural elements.

Projects: * On the art of building in ten books Andrea Palladio

Andrea Palladio is one of the giants of architecture of the 16th century, based his designs on the values of Greek architecture, and the traditions of Roman architecture as outlined by Vitruvius. He is regarded as one of the greatest architects in the history of Western art, best known for his architectural theories were laid out in his treatise Quattro Libri dell Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture), which had a profound impact on building design throughout Europe and America. His style of architecture - a blend of Greek, Roman and , later known as Palladianism - accorded the greatest priority to maintaining symmetry, perspective and overall harmony, in the manner of Greco- architecture, and was widely imitated during the 17th and 18th centuries.

A number of Palladio's buildings in and in the are protected as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In both his practical designs and his interest in architectural theory, Palladio had much in common with another great architect of the period, Giacomo da Vignola (1507-73).

Projects:

* The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore (1562, )

* (1552-54, , Treviso)

* Villa Capra (La Rotunda) (1566-91 Vicenza)

* The Church of (1577-92, Venice).

* Quattro Libri dell Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture)

19th Century architecture:

In the beginning of the19th century Neo-classical style was particularly well- suited to public buildings such as museums, law courts, and Neo-Gothic style to religious buildings such as churches and mausoleums. Greenhouses, covered markets and halls, exhibition pavilions, passages and utility buildings were built in a modern iron or steel.

The nineteenth century is a golden age of model collections of every kind, from the cottage to the city apartment block, from the church to the prison and hospital. Evolution of new styles, industrialization, population explosion, New material and engineering techniques had developed and transformed the architecture of 19th century. Evolutions of:

1- Materials

Beside the question of styles, the 19th century architects had high hopes of the newly introduced materials such as cast iron, wrought iron, glass steel and concrete.

2- Functions In the nineteenth century, the majority buildings would be governmental, municipal, private office buildings, museums, galleries, libraries, universities, schools, theatres, concert halls, banks, railway stations, department stores, hotels and hospitals. The 19th century was the era of the national monuments in Europe. They had inherited three types of commemorative structures from the Romans: the column of the type of Trajan’s column, the triumphal arch, and the equestrian statue, but the monuments were mostly built in Gothic style Similarly the government buildings such as houses of parliament, ministries, public offices, town halls, law courts had only a little preceding example from the past. 3- Engineering Architecture Mass production became possible in glass, iron and later steel. The machine tool industry introduced a precision in manufacture which, when applied to building, enabled the erection of large and safe structures built from uniform components. 4- Skyscraper Architecture During the second half of the 19th century the possibilities of cast iron and steel in the building of multi-story unit constructions and the installation of the first safety elevator by Otis, it became possible to use as well as build tall buildings. Chicago's Home Insurance Building (designed by William Le Baron Jenney) was the first steel-frame skyscraper in 1885, with a height of 138 feet.

Famous 19th Century Buildings and Architects:

1- Rotunda, University of , (1822-26) Designed by Thomas Jefferson. Neoclassical style of architecture.

2- Altes Museum, Berlin (1823-30) Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. A neoclassical which overlooks the Lustgarten (pleasure garden).

3- National Gallery, (Houses of Parliament, London (1839-52) Designed by Sir Charles Barry. Gothic architecture with Italian ground plan.

4- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1890-1902) Designed by Richard Morris Hunt. Renaissance Revival style with Victorian limestone facade.