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Luxury and Architecture Luxury and Architecture FROM ANCIENT SYBARIS TO THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY Annette Nina Condello M.Arch. (by research), UWA A dissertation presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to The University of Western Australia Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts 2009 I declare that I am the sole author of all the work contained in this thesis. Many photographs and figures are reproduced from other sources and are acknowledged in the List of Illustrations. All of the work contained herein was produced during my PhD candidature and has not been submitted for any other academic record. _______________________ This thesis incorporates work from published papers of which I am the sole author. Annette Condello, ‘American Architects in Mexico,’ Cities of Tomorrow, 10th International Planning History Conference Proceedings, London, United Kingdom, July, 2002. Annette Condello, ‘An American Architect in Mexico City (1900-1910): Adamo Boari, the Steinway Hall Group and the Pan-American Identity,’ Planning History: Bulletin of the International Planning History Society, United Kingdom, Vol.24, 2002: 8-17. Annette Condello, ‘Sybaritic Mercato, Piazza Liberta’ (my translation in the Italian language), Workshop Internationale: Topografia della forma della cittá, Favara, al Castello dei Chiaramonte, a cura di Olivia Longo, Sicily, Palermo: Libreria Dante Editrice, 2004, pp.137-138. ISBN: 88-7804-249-8 Annette Condello, ‘Mexico City: Heartfelt Foundations,’ (translation in the Greek language), I Architektoniki os Techni, The Journal of the Architects’ Association of Thessaloniki, Greece, December, 2004. Annette Condello, ‘Amazon.luxury/remote,’ The Architect, Perth, Western Australia, No.1, Winter, 2006, pp.17-18. Annette Condello, ‘Sybaritic Panoramas: Hors d’oeuvres and Hospitable Spaces in Eighteenth-century France,’ Panorama to Paradise: Scopic Regimes in Architecture and Urban History and Theory Conference Proceedings, 24th Society of Architectural Historians Australia/New Zealand Conference, Adelaide, September 2007. Annette Condello, Chapter 3: Multicultural Tastes C. ‘“Architectural” Hors d’oeuvres,’ You Are What You Eat: Literary Probes into the Palate, ed. Annette Magid, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008, pp.190-205. ISBN: 1-84718-492-8. _______________________ Abstract Luxury and Architecture, from Ancient Sybaris to the Early Twentieth Century Annette Nina Condello What is luxury within architecture? Why has it become a contentious issue in architecture? This thesis explores the role and nature of luxury in architecture. Its scope spans from antiquity to the modern era—and studies some of the ethical questions it raised by the idea of the nature of luxury in architecture. The idea of the nature of luxury had a large impact upon architectural expressions and I concentrate on areas where representations of luxury were realised, in Western Europe, Latin America and the United States. The emphasis is placed upon how applicable the ideas of luxury to architecture were for these contexts—and argues that luxury within architecture changed from one context to another. There are distinctive types of luxury. Myths about the Sybarites’ lifestyle provided evidence of how places in antiquity were thought of as being luxurious. Instances of luxury within architecture include grand palaces, outlying buildings, entertainment venues and ornate skyscrapers. My argument is that luxury within architecture changed since the leisure class in particular fantasised different settings for pleasure. This resulted in a continuous prompt for indulging in luxury further. The sources for the study were theories of luxury, architectural accounts of luxury, moral philosophy and historiography. The dissertation is organised into five chapters. The first and second chapters concentrate on luxurious places in Italy, mainly Sybaris, Bay of Naples, Rome, Florence and Venice. The third chapter makes the link between luxury and space in France’s Ancién Regime, specifically Fontainebleau, Versailles and Chambourcy. The fourth chapter considers the idea of ‘neo-European’ luxury in Latin American countries, Mexico and Brazil. The last chapter focuses on instances of modern luxury in Chicago, which were motivated by sybaritic myths. Luxury…cannot be bought…it is the inevitable necessity of a human thought. —Michele Ciavarella, ‘Necessary, Not Superfluous: Reflections on Inevitable Luxury,’ 2002, p.444. Contents Acknowledgements [1] Introduction: Luxury within Architecture? [2] Terminology • Theories of luxury • Structure of the dissertation Chapter 1 Sybaris and the Sybarites [23] Historical reality of Sybaris • ‘Sybaritic’ luxury • Moralisation of sybaritic myths • Foreshadowing myths about Sybaris and the Sybarites in architecture Chapter 2 Luxury Architecture in Ancient Rome and Renaissance Italy [62] Luxury in Ancient Rome—Lucullus’ luxury buildings • Lucullus’ imitators • Luxury architecture in Renaissance Italy • Immorality of grand buildings • Governance of Italian Renaissance buildings Chapter 3 Spatial Luxury in the Ancién Regime [104] Tracking luxury in French spaces • Spatial luxury in places of public entertainment • Spatial luxury in country house hors d’oeuvres • Charges of excess Chapter 4 ‘Neo-European’ Luxury in Latin America [150] Indigenous luxury in Tenochitlan (Mexico City) • Myths about El Dorado • Injecting ‘neo- European’ luxury in Brazil • Injecting ‘neo-European’ luxury in Mexico City Chapter 5 Modern Luxury in Chicago [190] Luxury in a suburb of Chicago—Riverside • Modern luxury hotels in urban Chicago • Commercial skyscrapers as representations of modern luxury • Ornament as means of refinement • Competition entries for modern luxury skyscrapers Conclusion [232] List of Illustrations [238] Bibliography [243] Acknowledgements I started to think about writing a dissertation on luxury seven years ago, when I was flipping through an old Condé Nast Traveller magazine. There, in a review of New York’s Carlyle Hotel entitled ‘Suite Dreams’ (1998), I pondered the term ‘sybaritism.’ One year later, after my colleague Christopher Vernon asked me to translate an article written in the Italian language on the work of Italian architect Adamo Boari, I became fascinated with Boari’s work in Mexico, Chicago and Brazil. Then, in 2003, I received a scholarship from the government of Mexico for a period of one year to research Boari’s works in the Spanish language at its National University (UNAM). This invaluable opportunity in Mexico City led me to think and write about a different topic in another language and it further enriched my outlook on the chosen topic studied in this dissertation. I am grateful to The University of Western Australia for offering me financial support for my research and its completion. For their critical comments on the drafts I would like to thank my supervisor Professor William Taylor and co-supervisor Professor Michael Levine. Their advice has been helpful in the writing of this dissertation. Special thanks goes to my fiancé Christopher for whisking me away to Sybaris and other amazing places, for his overall emotional support and comments on the drafts. For the generosity in offering me advice on the sources and other useful information during the research phase of this study I want thank Australian scholars, Clarissa Ball and Catherine Kovesi, and many scholars overseas: Wim de Wit, Rebecca Earle, Marco Frascari, John Dixon Hunt, Terry Kirk, Donald Kunze, Neil Leach, Fernando Moreira, Kristine Miller, Jeffrey Needell, Styliane Philippou, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo and Allen S. Weiss. I would like to thank other people who commented on various parts of this study in conference, lecture or seminar form at Favara Castle in Sicily, Old Tate Gallery in London, the universities of Mexico City, Bordeaux, Boston, Brasilia, Pernambuco, Canberra, Perth and Adelaide. Finally, for the generosity in offering me their hospitality I would also like to thank Bibi Leone, Fernando Moreira, Jon Notz, Carmen Popescu and Nancy Steiber. 1 Introduction: Luxury within Architecture? Sybaris, the ancient Greek city of Lucania, has for centuries represented the extreme of profusion and luxury. The name kindles the imagination by suggesting a degree of epicur[ean]ism that may not be attained in modern times…The luxury of old was necessarily more or less barbarous; it needed for perfection and the largest significance the refinement and exhaustless resources of to-day…Sybaris is buried in mo[u]ld, its history steeped in myth…. Luxury has come to have a new meaning with us; it enters every crevice of our embroidered homes, and rounds our commonest needs with elegant convenience. We pamper ourselves to excess; we have lost the art of ordinary living; we hourly demand what we would have been miracles in the early half of the [nineteenth century].1 The quotation above from a New York Times’ article, ‘Modern Sybaris’ (1881), illustrates an important part of this dissertation. Historically, the concept of luxury is thought to have originated in one ancient Greek city, Sybaris, now itself a mosaic of largely unexcavated ruins in southern Italy. The citizens of Sybaris were famously, though not entirely accurately, believed to live luxuriously in sumptuous buildings and surrounds. Even today as evinced by the proverbial term ‘Sybarite’ luxury remains associated with the now legendary vanished city and its inhabitants. The quotation also shows how the term ‘luxury’ applies to ‘every crevice of our embroidered’
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