sign in sign up
<<
Home , Baroque, Fontana del Moro, Palazzo Poli

Space and Movement in High Baroque City Planning Author(s): Paul Zucker Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Mar., 1955), pp. 8- 13 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/987716 . Accessed: 08/10/2011 15:44

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

University of California Press and Society of Architectural Historians are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians.

http://www.jstor.org SPACE AND MOVEMENT IN HIGH BAROQUE CITY PLANNING

PAUL ZUCKER

DRAMATIZATIONand the suggestion of movementhave been This latter trend prevailed in , but in the generally accepted as characteristics of the Baroque Baroque dramatized the more formal schemes of the since the publication of Heinrich W6lfflin's Renaissance, thus relinquishing the basic idea of concin- and Baroque half a century ago. Numerous authors have nitas. This ideal, which implied organized regularity as developed this concept further and applied it to , the governing factor, faded and there developed an un- , and architecture as against the more static con- limited variety of freer solutions on a larger scale. cinnitas of the Renaissance. As the handling of light in German,Spanish, or Mexican The space concept of Baroque city planning as it appears churches of this period expresses the climax of Baroque in the shape of Baroque squares, for example, may be com- interiors, so "arrested movement" represents the climax pared but not identified with the concept of space in a of Baroque ideas in city planning. In both of these "super- painting by Rubens, in a sculpture group by Bernini, or Baroque" developments it is the new relationship and in- in the interior of a Baroque . tegration of mass and volume, a new employment of light The specific spatial elementswhich characterizeBaroque and shadow which adds a new element to those form- city planning have hardly been analyzed. Some authors 1 shaping factors which had defined the earlier Baroque. have touched these problems, but even Lavedan in his To define the meaning of "arrested movement," one comprehensive History of City Planning is as little inter- does best to compare works of the late 16th century, the ested in them as were Sitte and Unwin.2 This lack of inter- early Baroque-e.g., 's Campidoglio and the est might be explained by the impress left by the great original in -with creations of the French classicist tradition of the places royales as the . epitome of city planning all over Europe in the 17th and The Campidoglio (Fig. 1), the square before the Capitol 18th centuries. Hence the other expression of the Baroque in Rome, is not an entirely free and spontaneous creation style, the Berninesque trend, receded in the writers' con- of Michelangelo. He was bound by two already existing ception of the 17th and 18th centuries. structureson top of the CapitolineHill: the ancient Capitol The meaning of the term Baroque is twofold. Histori- (Palazzo dei Senatori), reconstructed 1389 under cally, the Baroque era stretches from about Michelangelo's Boniface IX as a kind of mediaeval town hall, and the death in 1564 to the middle of the 18th century, when the Palazzo dei Conservatori,built under in period called either Neo- or Classical Revival 1450.3 sets in. However, the aesthetic developmentdoes not coin- Commissionedby Pope Paul III in 1538, Michelangelo cide with the historical evolution. What is historically first leveled the irregular top of the Capitoline and brought called Baroque divides aesthetically into two tendencies. from the Lateran the famous equestrian of Marcus On the one hand it is the Baroque derived from Michel- Aurelius. He envisioned the future piazza as a trapezoid angelo, exaggerating and contorting the more placid forms because the two existing buildings there were placed at an of the , accentuating individual parts oblique angle to each other. Thus he planned a third within a whole, dramatizingand emphasizing volumes and palazzo, the present Capitoline Museum,facing the Palazzo masses. On the other hand, during the same centuries there dei Conservatori, and at the same angle to the Capitol. exists the classicist approach, based on Palladio and the Although the difference in width betweenthe Capitol build- Vitruvian Academy, leaning heavily on ancient examples, ing and the smaller entrance side of the trapezoid is about regular, reticent in expression, sometimes of a certain dry- 14 yards, the spectator becomes hardly aware of it. None- ness, which often leads to the reproach of "academicism." theless its perspective helps to monumentalizethe Palazzo dei Senatori. This stage effect already suggests a movement PAUL ZUCKER the Union Art School of Cooper and New School for towards the a trait. The Social Research gives us a preview of part of his forthcoming book, background, typically Baroque TOWNAND SQUARE-from the Agora to the Village Green. strongly emphasized horizontals of the two lateral

8 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XIV, 1 are set lower than the corresponding horizontals of the facade of the Palazzo dei Senatori. Thus the height of the e::9MRL latter-8 yards above the eaves of the lateral structures- is visually increased. It is still more accentuated through the vertical of the tower behind. The verticals of the Co- rinthian tie together all three structuresas do the lateral arcades which face each other, accelerating the ...... movementtowards the background structure.The shorter entrance side is closed by a balustrade adorned by the ancient Dioscuri and it functions as an imaginary fourth wall. The access from the ramp of the so-called Cordonata (built by ) prepares for the movement into depth. The pavement whose oval pat- tern centers around Marcus Aurelius's statue, climbs FIG. 2. Rome. Piazza del Popolo. (G. A. Vasi. Raccolta delle piu belle vedute slightly towards the pedestal and increases further the antiche e moderne di Roma, 1803) spatial sensation. If this square looms much larger in our visual memory than it is actually, it bespeaksthe power of its scenic organization. Michelangeloemployed all artistic means to suggest movementand to dramatizethe backdrop though in a less regular form, determiningthe whole quar- -both typically Baroque devices. Yet, this movement ter betweenthe Pincian Hill and the Tiber River. which is forced upon the spectatoris still in a straight line In its original trapezoid shape, stretching from the and not arrested. towards the two symmetrically located Movementin one direction is also the principal motif of domed churches of Santa Maria in Monte Santo and Santa the Piazza del Popolo in Rome in its original form, prior Maria dei Miracoli, the square showed its force to Valadier's alterations of 1816 (Fig. 2). This first com- clearly. The stream of incoming travellers was split in prehensive Baroque town-planning project was not con- three different directions and dispersed all over the city fined to a single square but comprised a whole section of and the two churches served as a triumphalentrance arch. the Eternal City.4 The Piazza del Popolo with radiating This current is visualized as moving uninterruptedin one streets became the ancestor of all such fan-shapedcombi- direction, as on the Campidoglio,directed by the gradual nations of squares and streets in Europe. It was laid out broadeningof the trapezoid-no barrier,no arrests. under who defined the whole organization All this was to change fundamentallyin the later 17th in 1589 by setting up an obelisk as the hub of the radiating century. Then suspense and surprise were to become the streets. The basic system (the converging Via Ripetta, ultimate ends of architectural organization based on the Corso, and Via ) had already existed in antiquity, concept of arrestedmovement. Six Roman squares express best what seemed the ideal relationship between space and movementto the artists of the late Baroque: the Piazza di San Pietro, the , the , and-on a smaller scale- the squaresin front of Santa Maria della Pace, San Ignazio and the . The story of the Piazza di San Pietro (Fig. 3) is too well known to be repeated here." The scale of the colossal :: d•:: columns of the church's facade became the point of ref- 4iJI erence for the proportionsof Lorenzo Bernini's St. Peter's In with Francesco Rainaldi and other -- Square. competition :L.... . leading contemporaryarchitects, Bernini developeda series of projects rather wide in range. One ground plan, for in- stance, emulated the figure of the Crucified with the con- tortions of the arms as the pincers of the colonnades, the head outlining the basilica proper, etc.; in another sketch, with two-storied colonnades, buildings to the left of the church correspondedexactly to the Vatican on the right. The final commissioned Alexander VII was FIG. 1. Rome. Campidoglio, plan. plan by Pope (Letarouilly, Edifices de Rome moderne, 1840) executed by Bernini between 1656 and 1667. Space and Movementin High Baroque City Planning 9 Bernini6 had to take in considerationthe location of the obliqua meet with the closed corridors framing the piazza gigantic obelisk erected by Domenico Fontana in 1586 and retta there is a kind of narrows; a second visual barrier or the fountain on the right-handside (by Maderna, 1613- imaginary stop is created. its counterpartwas finished only after the completion of The piazza retta then rises towards the church and this the square). Bernini conceived of the square as subdivided difference in level is accelerated through the steps which into three units: the piazza retta, immediately before the protrude more than eighty yards into the piazza. Most church facade; the piazza obliqua, appearing as an ellip- decisive is the oblique direction of both side-wings,diverg- soid through the pattern of the pavement, but actually ing in the direction of the church-a device similar to that constructedas two half-circlesand a rectangle in between; employed by Michelangeloin the Campidoglio.Since any- and the third, the Piazza Rusticucci, never brought into a one approachingnaturally supposes that the framing wings definite artistic shape and today part of Mussolini's avenue meet the faqadeat right angles, Maderna'smuch too broad linking St. Peter's with the Tiber River. front (width to height, 2.7:1) is perceived automatically The Piazza Rusticucci collected and directed approach- as narrower than it actually is. This concentrating effect ing visitors toward the piazza obliqua. Surprisingly, the is further increased through the compactnessof the closed long (main) axis of the piazza obliqua does not lead to- lateral corridors, whose height decreases slightly towards wards the church but runs north and south, parallel to the facade.9 St. Peter's main facade. This change in direction aston- The spatial effect of the whole sequence-street-Piazza ished the contemporariesmost and arousedtheir criticism.7 Rusticucci - piazza obliqua - piazza retta-amounts to a Actually this very arrangementarrests the movement to- change from limited expansion to release arrested by the wards the church, thus creating the spatial tension so de- row of fountain-obelisk-fountain.Gradual concentration sirable from the viewpoint of the late Baroque. Bernini through the narrowing wings leads to a second visual bar- laid the piazza obliqua at right angles to the main spatial rier and beyond to final concentrationon the facade. thrust because he wanted to achieve a kind of brake in the One of the most beautiful squares of the world, the movementtowards the facade-not because of the existing Piazza Navona (Fig. 4), was created by Bernini out of an structures.8 He emphasized the longer north-south axis ancient circus whose contours were marked by surround- through the arrangement of fountain-obelisk-fountainin ing houses. To appreciatefully the originality of Bernini's one line, and especially through the sloping of the piazza transformationone has only to compare this square with towards its center. The pattern of the pavement with its the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro Romano in Lucca (Anfiteatro spikes radiating from the obelisk is not only of two-dimen- Mercato) which also occupies the site of an ancient circus sional importance,it also ties together the colonnades and and follows its form. Baroqueartists discoveredin the 17th the verticals of obelisk and and makes the floor century the eminent fitness of the area of Domitian's an- appear as a flat shell. The open colonnades around the cient circus for an impressive square, today the Piazza piazza obliqua consist of four concentric rows of columns. Navona. Girolamoand CarloRainaldi in collaborationwith Where these open pincer-like colonnades of the piazza Francesco Borrominio? built the Church of Sant'Agnese

FIG. 3. Rome. Piazza di San Pietro, aerial view. (Belvedere) FIG. 4. Rome. Piazza Navona, aerial view. (Alinari)

10 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XIV, 1 .-A:a ::'::::an

.-:::X.- W? ;..;?...... ~s~o :.:

~j~ji

FIG. 6. Rome. Square, Santa Maria della Pace. (G. A. Vasi, Raccolta ... , 1803)

the carriages of nobility to create a naval spectacle. After GII.~ I I I I ~~I 1 I I -P I I t IY~I I I L ?jonL the 18th no defined border- FIG. 5. Rome. Square, Santa Maria della Pace, plan. all, during century sharply lines existed between city planning and architecture, be- tween architectureand decoration,between decorationand (1652-77) whose facade became an essential element for stage design, between stage design and landscape architec- the Piazza. The expansion of the church facade in broad ture. horizontalsand especially the location of its cupola, rising This interplay between the concepts of city planner and immediately behind the facade in contrast to all other stage designer unfolds still more clearly in the squares of Baroque churches, show that the architects were fully Santa Maria della Pace, of San Ignazio and the Piazza di aware of the narrow width of the square. They counted on Spagna. It is more than a chronological coincidence that oblique perspectivesobtainable from various spots on the (1642-1709), Ferdinando Bibiena (1657- Piazza rather than on the usual central perspective. Con- 1743) and Francesco Bibiena (1659-1739) worked to- nected with the church on either side were small palazzi gether with the then leading architects and doubtlessly in- whose architecturewas integratedwith that of the church. fluenced each other strongly. Even one generation later But it is the ornamentingof the Piazza Navona by Bernini Piranesi in his engravingscreated visions of public squares that actually defines its spatial form. Bernini placed the and monumentalperspectives which elaboratedon the ideas Fountain of the Rivers (1647-51) crowned by the ancient of these preceding architects and stage designers." obelisk of Domitian on the longitudinal axis of the square, Much as the period indulged in the employmentand dis- but off the central axis of Sant'Agnese. The southerly play of large masses and vast expanses, its characteristic already existed at the end of the 16th tendencies expressed themselvesjust as originally in some century and Bernini remodeledit only with his ; solutions of a smaller scale. The little squares in front of the Fountain of Neptune on the north side with its sculp- the churches of Santa Maria della Pace and San Ignazio tures was also projected by Bernini but was executed from are actually parvis dominated by church facades and in- his models only in the 19th century. Through this arrange- separablytied to them. Here also, within smaller areas we ment of the three fountains Bernini turned the passers-by experience the same arrested movement, the spatial stac- towardsthe facade of the church, in this way changing the cato, which distinguished the organization of the larger direction of movement from a mere passing along an squares. In both instancespeople enteringthe squaresfrom avenue. the neighboring streets are not led directly to the church The singularly festive character of the Piazza Navona entrance, but their movement is diverted and broken by has been always apparent; it is based on the contrast be- the fluctuatingframe of the surroundinghouses. tween the dynamic sculptural volumes of the three foun- Opposite Santa Maria della Pace (originally built 1480, tains with their display of cascading waters and the rela- remodeled together with the piazza by Pietro di Cortona, tively quiet and neutral frame of the surrounding houses, 1657) the principal street runs into the piazza at an hardly interrupted by incoming streets. Only the facade oblique angle and two smaller streets unobtrusivelycut in of Sant'Agnese takes up the colorful orchestration of the close to the facade (Figs. 5 and 6). Out of these given, three focal points on the square. Small wonder that in the rather chaotic conditions only a Baroque architect could 18th century during the Roman carnival this exceptionally create a unified spatial shape. The two stories of the church festive piazza was often flooded, with gondolas replacing facade form contrasting curves, the upper part bent back- Space and Movementin High Baroque City Planning 11 wards, while the lower one with its semi-circular porch ment of the Piazza. From this fountain the stairs climb protrudes into the square. This mutual penetration of straight up the hill continuing the direction of the incoming volumes is mirrored in the ground plan of the square. The Via Condotti. They are stopped by the obelisk at the top symmetry of the wings extending from the church facade and run into the center of the church facade at an oblique is entirely unfunctional, the right wing framing the en- angle. The slight deviation from the axis of the church is trance to a street, the left pasted before a closed wall. In not perceptible in three-dimensional reality but can be this way the unification of the area and the correspondence seen only on the ground plan. The unique spatial and visual of its individual architecturalelements are achieved-only experience is the integration of staircase and piazza. The to be broken up again and almost negated by the protrud- Scala di Spagna is the only example in the history of city ing porch and the staggering forms and angles of the planning where a staircase does not merely lead to a monu- piazza's confines. mental structure (e. g., the Campidoglio) but where the Very similar is the stage-like effect of the small piazza stairs themselves become the visual and spatial center. The before the Jesuit church of San Ignazio (begun 1626 by free-flowing stairs are framed at both sides by houses of Orazio Grassi, facade by Algardi, 1649, completed after average height and articulatedthrough landings which in- Grassi's design, 1686) (Fig. 7). The architecturalelements terrupt the successive steps. After the initial four sections of the surrounding houses are dictated by the overwhelm- of curved steps a larger landing provides a major stop ing facade of the church. The triangular building opposite around which the stairs divide. A platform extending over the church functioning as its counterpart represents little the whole width collects the movementto split it again into more than a stage wing, although it actually contains two ramps which end on the upper street level in front small apartments. Niches created by the curved walls of of the church. the houses opposite conceal the incoming streets so that The three-dimensional organization of the stair-piazza the facades seem to be uninterrupted.Again, as with the with its curved subdivisions, clearly marked by banks and square before Santa Maria della Pace, the symmetryis kept balustrades,each time insert a fermata in movementwhich up by fake openings. Because of the size of the church front shifts the direction of the advancing visitor and his vista with its stairs, the by-passing street becomes visually neg- continuously. This organizationrepresents the last stage of ligible, which makes the square appear completely closed. the High Baroque: the introduction of a forceful bilateral If ever the idea of Baroque space with its fluid limits over- counter-movement,more than a mere arrest, against the flowing into each other is realized, it is here on this civic earlier unilateralmovement which was the ideal of the 17th stage-just as inside the church. century.12 The Piazza and Scala di Spagna (by Alessandro Specchi The piazza in front of the Fontana Trevi (by Niccolo and Francesco de' Santis, 1721-25) represent the climax Salvi and the sculptor Pietro Bracci after an earlier project of stage effects in Roman city planning on a larger scale (Figs. 8 and 9). The triangular area of the Piazza, into FIG. 8. Rome. Piazza and Scala di which five streets run, serves as the starting point for the Spagna, plan. stairs which lead to the church of S. Trinitt dei Monte (built 1459, facade by Domenico Fontana 1595, rebuilt 1816). Lorenzo Bernini's father, Pietro, had built a foun- tain, the so-called Barcaccia (1627-29) in the shape of a boat, repeating an ancient motif, and sunk it into the pave-

FIG. 7. Rome. Square, San Ignazio, plan. MINOR PillH

I HU7AM

12 Journal of the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians, XIV, 1 by Bernini), an overwhelming interplay of architecture Richard Norton, Bernini and other Studies in the History of New (static), sculpture (semistatic), and water (fluid), melting Art, York, 1914. A. E. Brinckmann, Baukunst des 17., und 18. Jahrhunderts in into one brilliantly orchestrated three-dimensional com- den Romanischen Liindern (Handbuch der Kunstwis- position, represents a last echo and condensation of these senschaft), Berlin-Neubabelsberg, 1919. three-dimensionalconcepts of the High Baroque (Fig. 10). Stadtbaukunst (Handbuch der Kunstwissen- schaft), 1920. The wall of the Palazzo more than 50 Berlin-Neubabelsberg, gable Poli, yards , Plastik und Raum als Grundformen kiinstle- broad, offers the background for an illusory facade whose rischer Gestaltung, Berlin, 1924. Hans columns and niches, architraves and aedicula are genuine Rose, Spiitbarock, , 1922. H. Willich and Paul Baukunst der Renaissance in but whose window are Zucker, openings faked, partially painted, Italien (Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft), Berlin- partially in relief. From this fagade'sgigantic central niche Neubabelsberg, 1927. Neptune descendsin his chariot, drawn by prancing horses T. H. Fokker, Roman Baroque Art, London, 1938. Nikolaus An Outline New and lead Tritons. The with its severe architec- Pevsner, of European Architecture, by fagade York, 1948. tural order rises from seemingly natural rock which at 2. Pierre Lavedan, Histoire de l'urbanisme, Renaissance et the same time serves as the playground for the dramatic temps modernes, , 1941. Art and of the and ani- Camillo Sitte, The of Building Cities, New York, 1945. lively performance sculptured figures Raymond Unwin, Town Planning in Practice, New York, 1932. mals-all envelopedinto the movementof the falling water. 3. Thomas Ashby, "The Capitol, Rome. Its History and Develop- The piazza proper, small as its two-levelled space is, must ment," The Town Planning Review, Vol. XII, No. 3, 1927. 4. Thomas Ashby and S. Rowland Pierce, "The Piazza del be perceived as a kind of secular for the fountain. parvis Popolo. Its History and Development," The Town Planning Review, It is subdivided into an area opposite the fountain, actually Vol. XI, No. 2, 1924. not much more than a broadened street, and a level, ten Guglielmo Matthiae, Piazza del Popolo, Rome, n.d. 5. Heinrich de Geymiiller, Les projets primitifs la basil- steps below, framing the surface of the basin which pour quiet ique de Saint-Pierre de Rome par Bramante, Sanzio, Fra- arrests the thundering whirl of sculptures, rocks, and Giocondo, Les Sangallo, etc., Paris, 1875-80. (Basic.) water. Since none of the small incoming streets prepares Paul Marie Letarouilly, Le Vatican, Paris, 1882. Andrea La di San Pietro in for the sudden effect, here the element of Busiri-Vici, piazza Vaticano, grandiose stage Rome, 1893. visual surpriseis most effectively employed. 6. Stanislao Fraschetti, Il Bernini, la sua vita. .. , 1900. Richard cit. COOPERUNION Norton, op. Heinrich Brauer and Rudolf Wittkower, Die Zeichnungen des , Berlin, 1931. 1. Corrado Ricci, and Sculpture in Italy, 7. , Il Tempio Vaticano e la sua origine, Rome, New York, 1912. 1694. 8. A. E. Brinckmann, Platz und Monument, Berlin, 1923. (Of opposite opinion.) 9. Hans Rose, op. cit. 10. Eberhard Hempel, Franscesco Borromini, , 1924. Hans Sedlmayr, Die Architektur Borrominis, Berlin, 1930. FIG. 9. Rome. Scala di Spagna. (EPC, Rome) 11. Paul Zucker, Die Theaterdekoration des Barock, Berlin, 1925. Corrado Ricci, La Scenografia Italiana, Milan, 1930. A. Hyatt Mayor, The Bibiena Family, New York, 1945. 12. T. H. Fokker, op. cit.

FIG. 10. Rome. . (G. B. Piranesi)

Space and Movement in High Baroque City Planning 13