Monday, January 29, 2007


NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE
Neoclassical architectureThe neoclassical movement that produced Neoclassical architecture began in the mid-18th century, as a reaction against both the surviving Baroque and Rococo styles, and as a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts of Rome, the more vague perception ("ideal") of Ancient Greek arts (where almost no Western artist had actually been) and, to a lesser extent, 16th century Renaissance Classicism.
There is an anti-Rococo strain that can be detected in some European architecture of the earlier 18th century, most vividly represented in the Palladian architecture of Georgian Britain and Ireland, but also recognizable in a classicizing vein of Late Baroque architecture in Paris (Perrault's east range of the Louvre), in Berlin, and even in Rome, in Alessandro Galilei's facade for S. Giovanni in Laterano. It is a robust architecture of self-restraint, academically selective now of "the best" Roman models.
Neoclassicism first gained influence in London, through the examples of Paris-trained Sir William Chambers and James "Athenian" Stuart, and in Paris, through a generation of French art students trained at the French Academy in Rome and influenced by the presence of Charles-Louis Clérisseau and the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann; it was quickly adopted by progressive circles in Sweden. In Paris, many of the first generation of neoclassical architects received training in the classic French tradition through a series of exhaustive and practical lectures that was offered for decades by Jacques-François Blondel.
At first, in thec 1760s and 70s, classicizing decor was grafted onto familiar European forms, as in Gatchina's interiors for Catherine II's lover Count Orlov, designed by an Italian architect with a team of Italian stuccadori (stucco workers). A second neoclassic wave, more severe, more studied (through the medium of engravings) and more consciously archaeological, is associated with the height of the Napoleonic Empire. In France, the first phase of neoclassicism is expressed in the "Louis XVI style" of architects like Ange-Jacques Gabriel (Petit Trianon, 1762–68); the second phase, in the styles we call "Directoire" or "Empire", might be characterized by Jean Chalgrin's severe astylar Arc de Triomphe (designed in 1806). In England the two phases might be characterized first by the structures of Robert Adam, the second by those of Sir John Soane.
Italy clung to Rococo until the Napoleonic regimes brought the new archaeological classicism, which was embraced as a political statement by young, progressive, urban Italians with republican leanings.
The center of Polish classicism was Warsaw under the rule of the last Polish king Stanisław August Poniatowski. The best known architects and artists, who worked in Poland were Dominik Merlini, Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer, Szymon Bogumił Zug, Jakub Kubicki, Antonio Corazzi, Efraim Szreger, Christian Piotr Aigner, Wawrzyniec Gucewicz and Bertel Thorvaldsen.
Karl Friedrich Schinkel's Elisabethkirche in Berlin (1832-1834)
Neoclassical architecture was exemplified in Karl Friedrich Schinkel's buildings, especially the Old Museum in Berlin, Sir John Soane's Bank of England in London and the newly-built "capitol" in Washington, DC. The Scots architect Charles Cameron created palatial Italianate interiors for the German-born Catherine II the Great in Russian St. Petersburg: the style was international.
Indoors, neoclassicism made a discovery of the genuine Roman interior, inspired by the rediscoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum, which had started in the late 1740s, but only achieved a wide audience in the 1760s, with the first luxurious volumes of tightly-controlled distribution of Le Antichità di Ercolano. The antiquities of Herculaneum showed that even the most classicizing interiors of the Baroque, or the most "Roman" rooms of William Kent were based on basilica and temple exterior architecture, turned outside in: pedimented window frames turned into gilded mirrors, fireplaces topped with temple fronts, now all looking quite bombastic and absurd. The new interiors sought to recreate an authentically Roman and genuinely interior vocabulary, employing flatter, lighter motifs, sculpted in low frieze-like relief or painted in monotones en camaïeu ("like cameos"), isolated medallions or vases or busts or bucrania or other motifs, suspended on swags of laurel or ribbon, with slender arabesques against backgrounds, perhaps, of "Pompeiian red" or pale tints, or stone colors. The style in France was initially a Parisian style, the "goût Grèc" ("Greek style") not a court style. Only when the young king acceded to the throne in 1771 did Marie Antoinette, his fashion-loving Queen, bring the "Louis XVI" style to court.
At the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (1822-26), Playfair employs a Greek Doric octastyle portico
From about 1800 a fresh influx of Greek architectural examples, seen through the medium of etchings and engravings, gave a new impetus to neoclassicism that is called the Greek Revival.
Neoclassicism continued to be a major force in academic art through the 19th century and beyond— a constant antithesis to Romanticism or Gothic revivals— although from the late 19th century on it had often been considered anti-modern, or even reactionary, in influential critical circles. By the mid-19th century, several European cities - notably St Petersburg and Munich - were transformed into veritable museums of Neoclassical architecture.
In American architecture, neoclassicism was one expression of the American Renaissance movement, ca 1890-1917; its last manifestation was in Beaux-Arts architecture, and its very last, large public projects were the Lincoln Memorial (highly criticised at the time), the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the American Museum of Natural History's Roosevelt Memorial. These were white elephants as they were built. In the British Raj, Sir Edwin Lutyens' monumental city planning for New Delhi marks the glorious sunset of neoclassicism.
[Grafkapel de Loë in Heerlen (1848), Neoclassical architecture is also used on cemeteries

References
*Hakan Groth. Neoclassicism in the North
Hugh Honour, Neoclassicism
David Irwin, Neoclassicism (in series Art and Ideas) (Phaidon, paperback 1997
Stanislaw Lorentz. Neoclassicism in Poland (Series History of art in Poland)
Thomas McCormick, 1991. Charles-Louis Clérisseau and the Genesis of Neoclassicism (Architectural History Foundation)
Mario Praz. On Neoclassicism

In Italy and France
The Duomo, Syracuse, Italy: Andrea Palma, architect, 1728-1753
The sacred architecture of the baroque was mainly influenced by Italy, especially Rome and the paradigm of the basilica with crossed dome and nave. The centre of baroque secular architecture was France, where the open three wing layout of the palace was established as the canonical solution as early as the 16th century. But it was the Palais du Luxembourg (built 1615-1620) by Salomon de Brosse that established the paradigm of baroque architecture.
For the first time, the Corps des Logis was emphasized as the representative main part of the building, while the side wings were lower. The tower has been completely replaced by the central projection. The next step of development was the integration of the gardens in the composition of the palace, as is exemplified by Vaux-le-Vicomte (built 1656 - 1661) near Paris, where the architect Louis Le Vau and the gardener André Le Nôtre complemented each other. The same two artists scaled this concept to monumental proportions in the royal hunting lodge and later main residence of Palace of Versailles (extended 1661 - 1690). Versailles was the model of many other European residences including Mannheim, Nordkirchen, and Caserta, among others.
See also:Sicilian Baroque
In Central Europe
In Central Europe, the baroque period began somewhat later. Although the Augsburg architect Elias Holl (1573 - 1646) and some theoretists, including Joseph Furttenbach the Elder already practised the baroque style, they remained without successors due to the ravages of the Thirty Years' War. From about 1650 on, construction work resumes, and secular and ecclesiastical architecture are of equal importance. During an initial phase, master-masons from southern Switzerland and northern Italy, the so-called magistri Grigioni and the Lombard master-masons, particularly the Carlone family from Val d'Intelvi, dominated the field. However, Austria came soon to develop its own characteristic baroque style during the last third of the seventeenth century. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach was impressed by Bernini. He forged a new Imperial style by compiling architectural motifs from the entire history, most prominently seen in his church of St. Charles Borromeo in Vienna. Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt also had an Italian training. He developed a highly decorative style, particularly in facade architecture, which exerted strong influences on southern Germany.
Frequently, the Southern German baroque is distinguished from the Northern German baroque, which is more properly the distinction between the Catholic and the Protestant baroque.
Augustusburg, a typical baroque palace from Westphalia.
In the Catholic South, the Jesuit church of St. Michael in Munich was the first to bring Italian style across the Alps. However, its influence on the further development of church architecture was rather limited. A much more practical and more adaptable model of church architecture was provided by the Jesuit church in Dillingen (1610-17): the wall-pillar church, i.e. a barrel-vaulted nave accompanied by large open chapels separated by wall-pillars. As opposed to St. Michael's in Munich, the chapels almost reach the height of the nave in the wall-pillar church, and their vault (usually transverse barrel-vaults) springs from the same level as the main vault of the nave. The chapels provide ample lighting; seen from the entrance of the church, the wall-pillars form a theatrical setting for the side altars. The wall-pillar church was further developed by the Vorarlberg school, as well as the master-masons of Bavaria. The wall-pillar church also integrated well with the hall church model of the German late Gothic age. The wall-pillar church continued to be used throughout the eighteenth century (e.g., even in the early neo-classical church of Rot a der Rot), and early wall-pillar churches could easily be refurbished by re-decoration without any structural changes, e.g., the church at Dillingen.
The Church of St. Nicolas in Prague. Radical Bohemian Baroque
However, the Catholic South also received influences from other sources, e.g., the so-called radical baroque of Bohemia. The radical baroque of Christoph Dientzenhofer and his son Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer, both residing at Prague, was inspired by examples from northern Italy, particularly by the works of Guarino Guarini. It is characterized by the curvature of walls and intersection of oval spaces. While some Bohemian influence is visible in Bavaria's most prominent architect of the period, Johann Michael Fischer, e.g., in the curved balconies of some of his earlier wall-pillar churches, the works of Balthasar Neumann are generally considered to be the final synthesis of Bohemian and German traditions.
Protestant sacred architecture was of lesser importance during the baroque, and produced only a few works of prime importance, particularly the Frauenkirche in Dresden. Architectural theory was more lively in the north than in the south of Germany, e.g., Leonhard Christoph Sturm's edition of Nikolaus Goldmann, but Sturm's theoretical considerations (e.g., on Protestant church architecture) never really made it to practical application. In the south, theory essentially reduced to the use of buildings and elements from illustrated books and engravings as a prototype.
Palace architecture was equally important both in the Catholic South and the Protestant North. After an initial phase when Italian architects and influences dominated (Vienna, Rastatt), French influence prevailed from the second decennium of the eighteenth century onwards. The French model is characterized by the horseshoe-like layout enclosing a cour d'honneur (courtyard) on the town side (chateau entre cour et jardin), whereas the Italian (and also Austrian) scheme presents a block-like villa. The principal achievements of German Palace architecture, often worked out in close collaboration of several architects, provide a synthesis of Austro-Italian and French models. The most outstanding palace which blends Austro-Italian and French influences into a completely new type of building is the residence at Würzburg. While its general layout is the horseshoe-like French plan, it encloses interior courtyards. Its facades combine Lucas von Hildebrandt's love of decoration with French-style classical orders in two superimposed stories; its interior features the famous Austrian "imperial staircase", but also a French-type enfilade of rooms on the garden side, inspired by the "apartement semi-double" layout of French castles.
In Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Wilanów palace in Warsaw represents a modest type of baroque residence.
The first baroque church in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the Corpus Christi Church in Niasvizh, Belarus (1587). It also holds a distinction of being the first domed basilica with Baroque facade in the world and the first baroque piece of art in Eastern Europe.
In the early 17th century, the Baroque style spread over the Commonwealth. Important baroque churches include the Waza Chapel in the Wawel Cathedral, the SS. Peter and Paul, St. Anna and the Wizytek church in Kraków, SS. Peter and St. Paul church, St Casimir's Chapel and St Casimir's Church in Vilnius, Pažaislis monastery in Kaunas the Dominican and St George Church in Lwów, the Jesuit church in Poznań, the Xavier cathedral in Hrodno, the Royal Chapel in Gdańsk, and last but not least the Święta Lipka in Masuria. In Warsaw, which before WW2 was filled with Baroque residences, churches and houses, and where Tylman van Gameren was active, survived few important buildings - Wilanów Palace, Krasiński Palace, Bernardines church in Czerniaków and Late-baroque Wizytek church.
Architects such as Jan Krzysztoff Glaubitz were instrumental in forming the so-called distinctive "Vilnius Baroque" style, which spread throughout the region.
By the end of the century, Polish baroque influences crossed the Dnieper into the Cossack Hetmanate, where they gave birth to a particular style of Orthodox architecture, known as the Cossack baroque. Such was its popular appeal that every medieval church in Kiev and the Left-Bank Ukraine was redesigned according to the newest fashion.
In England and Russia
The church of the Sign near Moscow (1690-97) was one of the first baroque structures in Russia.
In England the culmination of Baroque architecture comes with Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Many examples of Baroque architecture and town planning are found in other European towns, and in the Spanish Americas. Town planning of this period featured radiating avenues intersecting in squares, which took cues from Baroque garden plans.
In Russia, the baroque architecture passed through three stages - the early Moscow baroque, with elegant white decorations on red-brick walls of rather traditional churches, the mature Petrine baroque, mostly imported from Low Countries, and the late Rastrelliesque baroque, in the words of William Brumfield, "extravagant in design and execution, yet ordered by the rhythmic insistence of massed columns and baroque statuary.
In Northern America: Mexico and California
Plateresque and Churrigueresque Baroque in Mexico: The baroque in Mexico derives from Plateresque and Churrigueresque architecture.
Late fifteenth-century Plateresque freely borrowed the decorative motifs of the intricately detailed work of silversmiths, the “Plateros.” In the seventeeth century, after the restrained Juan de Herrera interlude, decorated architecture in Spain reached an apotheosis in the exuberant —some would say capricious— Churrigueresque baroque, named after the Churriguera, a family chiefly known in its day for the design of altars.
Characteristic of both the Plateresque and Churrigueresque are the elaborate frontispieces that are then applied to an otherwise flat facade. The architectural elements in these decorations, columns, entablatures, pediments et al play a purely decorative role. With the Plateresque and Churriguerresque, Spain’s Gothic moment, based like all Gothic on structural purism, met its end.
The Spaniards eventually exported their decorated architecture to Southern Italy and to their colonies in the Americas. In the 18th century the Churrigueresque set roots in Mexico, while a native brand of Plateresque, the Mexican Plateresque, less exact in the carving of ornamental details than its Spanish forebear, emerged.
Being Mexico the most important colony of the New Spain, the trend of this Mexican Churrigueresque and Plateresque Baroque style in architecture would come to define Spanish Colonial architecture in North America with grand buildings masterfully carved, specially visible in the rich silver mining towns and the grand capital: Mexico City. This trend even included few, but much more humble and simplistic works of the small California Missions in the United States, when its territory still belonged to Mexico.

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