Neoclassical Architecture
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE REVISION OF RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURAL STYLE • Revival and development of certain elements of Classical Greek and Roman Thoughts and culture. • Emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts . • 5 orders were used during the Renaissance, namely Doric, ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan and Composite. • Semi- Circular Arches, Barrel Vaults and Domes (First Brick domes later Concrete domes) • Modular latin cross plan, later circular themed plans were proposed. • Ashlar Masonary at external walls and white chalk paint and frescos in interior. REVISION OF BAROQUE AND ROCOCO ARCHITECTURAL STYLE • Color and Light contrasted • Rich Textures • Asymmetrical Spaces • Diagonal Plans • New Subjects: Landscape, Genre, Still life • They started to make bold, curving, and not at all symmetrical buildings, with ornate decorations. • They started to make curving facades, and used the double curve (in at the sides, out in the middle) on many different buildings. • Its art and architecture, often used to express emotion, & was very elaborate. • Complex architectural plan shapes, often based on the oval, star ARCHITECTURAL STYLE TIMELINE NEO-CLASSICISM ARCHITECTURE NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE • Neo-Classical means New Classical • Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid 18th Century, both as a reaction against the Roboco style of anti-tectonic naturalist ornament, and an outgrowth of some classicizing features of late Baroque. • It derived the architectural style from Vitruvian Principles and the Architecture of Italian Architect Andrea Palladio. • Neoclassicism in Architecture is evocative and Picturesque. • Intellectually Neoclassicism was a desire to return to the perceived “Purity” of the arts of Rome, Greek and Renaissance Classicism. NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE “Neoclassical architecture is characterized by grandeur of scale, simplicity of geometric forms, Greek—especially Doric (see order)—or Roman detail, dramatic use of columns, and a preference for blank walls. The new taste for antique simplicity represented a general reaction to the excesses of the Rococo style. Neoclassicism thrived in the United States and Europe, with examples occurring in almost every major city.” CHARACTERISTICS OF NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE • Grand scale of the buildings • Symmetrical: balance and symmetry are the most predominant characteristic of neoclassicism • Simplicity of geometric forms • The Greek (particularly Doric) detailing, dramatic use of columns, and blank walls. • Triangular Pediment • Domed Roof • Sculptural bas-reliefs were flatter and often framed in friezes, tablets or panels. • The flatter projections and recessions had different effects on light and shade. • Multiple windows; upper and lower levels NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE Monumental Architecture During the late 18th and early 19th centuries many of the foundational buildings of the United States government were constructed. The U.S. also looked back to antiquity as its prototype for a new democratic system. NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE Monumental Architecture • For most of history, temples and palaces served as the leading forms of monumental architecture. • During the Neoclassical era, these building types were gradually replaced by government buildings (e.g. courts, public service buildings, schools) and commercial buildings (e.g. office and apartment buildings, performing arts centers, transportation terminals). • Today, government and commercial buildings dominate cityscapes all over the world. NEO-CLASSICAL ARCHITECTS The leading Architects who practiced Baroque Architecture were: 1. Giovanni Battista Piranesi 2. Claude Perrault 3. Robert Adam 4. Henri Labrouste 5. Robert Smirke 6. Jacques Germain Soufflot TYPES OF NEOCLASSICAL BUILDINGS Neoclassical buildings can be divided into three main types: • Temple Style • Palladian Style • Classical Block TYPES OF NEOCLASSICAL BUILDINGS • Temple Style: features a design based on an ancient temple. Many temple style buildings feature a peristyle (a continuous line of columns around a building). Pantheon, Paris by Jacques Germain Soufflot NEOCLASSICAL TEMPLE STYLE BUILDING British Museum by Robert Smirke BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON • The British Museum, was established in 1753 and open, free of charge “to all studious and curious Persons.” • The building is a fine example of Neoclassical Architectural style. • Smirke designed the building in the Greek Revival style, which emulated classical Greek architecture. • The building is planned as quadrangle with four wings: the north, east, south and west wings. BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON • The monumental South entrance, with its stairs, colonnade and pediment, was intended to reflect the wondrous objects housed inside. • The east and west residences (to the left and right of the entrance) have a more modest exterior. This is an example of mid-nineteenth century domestic architecture and reflects the domestic purpose of these wings. They housed the Museum’s employees, who originally lived on site. Entrance to South Wing Entrance to West Wing BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON • Neoclassicism has been surely influenced Smirke’s design of the main entrance, which is modelled on Greek temple design and shares the same number of eight columns as the Parthenon itself. • In scale though it is almost double the size, while the austere doric order is replaced by the based and slender columns and scrolled capitals of the ionic order. • Smirke, for instance, was one of the first architects to make extensive use of concrete, laying it as a base for the cast iron frame that underpins the entire structure. BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON • The building is topped with a flat roof, the pediment therefore being false, in the sense that its function is decorative rather than structural. • This explicit nationalist message is illustrated in the pediment sculptures, designed by Richard Westmacott and given the grandiose name, The Rise of Civilization. BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON • The floor of the entrance hall—the Weston Hall—being paved with York stone, the staircase balustrade and ornamental vases carved from Huddlestone stone and the sides of the Grand Staircase lined with red Aberdeen granite. • The electric lamps in the hall are also replicas of the original, installed in 1879, making the Museum one of the first public buildings in London to be electrically lit. NEOCLASSICAL TEMPLE STYLE BUILDING Church of Sainte-Geneviève (the Panthéon) in Paris by Jacques Germain Soufflot CHURCH OF SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE (Panthéon) • Panthéon, building in Paris that was begun about 1757 by the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot as the Church of Sainte-Geneviève to replace a much older church of that name on the same site. • Its design exemplified the Neoclassical return to a strictly logical use of classical architectural elements. • The Panthéon is a cruciform building with a high dome over the crossing and lower saucer-shaped domes (covered by a sloping roof ) over the four arms. CHURCH OF SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE (Panthéon) • Panthéon, building in Paris that was begun about 1757 by the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot as the Church of Sainte-Geneviève to replace a much older church of that name on the same site. • Its design exemplified the Neoclassical return to a strictly logical use of classical architectural elements. • The Panthéon is a cruciform building with a high dome over the crossing and lower saucer-shaped domes (covered by a sloping roof ) over the four arms. CHURCH OF SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE (Panthéon) The facade, like that of the Roman Pantheon, is formed by a porch of Corinthian columns and triangular pediment attached to the ends of the eastern arm. The pediment has sculptures by Pierre-Jean David d’Angers of post-Revolutionary patriots. CHURCH OF SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE (Panthéon) • The interior is decorated with mosaics and paintings of scenes from French history, some of which were executed by Puvis de Chavannes. • Inside, the unusually abundant rows of free-standing columns support a series of Roman vaults and the central dome in a remarkably clear and logical expression of space and structure CHURCH OF SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE (Panthéon) “The purity and magnificence of Greek architecture with the lightness and daring of Gothic construction.” It is being referred to the way in which its classical forms, such as the tall Corinthian columns and the dome, were joined with a Gothic type of structure that included the use of concealed flying buttresses and relatively light stone vaulting. TYPES OF NEOCLASSICAL BUILDINGS • Palladian: Andrea Palladio was an Italian architect who admired ancient Roman architecture. His influence is still seen today and he is the best known neo- classical architect in the western world. A well known Palladian detail is a large window consisting of a central arched section flanked by two narrow rectangular sections. White House, USA TYPES OF NEOCLASSICAL BUILDINGS Palladian Window PALLADIAN ARCHITECTURE Andrea Palladio (1508 - 1580) • Palladio's work was strongly based on the symmetry, perspective and values of the formal classical temple architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. • He wrote 4 books: Vitruvius Britannicus (Colen Campbell 1715), Palladio's Four Books of Architecture (1715), De Re Aedificatoria (1726) and The Designs of Inigo Jones... with Some Additional Designs (1727). EXAMPLES OF PALLADIAN ARCHITECTURE Villa Rotunda: One of his most famous residential design. It is square in plan with central 2