R EN AI SS AN C E A RC HI TE CT UR E THE ARCHITECURE OF THE RENAISSANCE AND POST ARCHITECTURES IN EUROPE AND RUSSIA I.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER IN ITALY
Coarse arenaceous limestone from Florence and grey sandstone from Fiesole and Settignano were used in monolithic columns as columns as well as carved in the fine detail required by the new architecture.
High Renaissance period was marked by greater understanding of the principles and physical remains of ancient architecture.
Milan Milan - the center of an area of brick building.
Wood, red marble, stone.
White and colored marbles were still pillaged from ancient ruins
Brunelleschi’s invention of linear perspective. perspective. Alberti observed in his De Re Aedificatora (1452) Aedificatora (1452) the need for plans, elevations and section.
evidence of a three-fold system of S. Peter’s – Peter’s –evidence orthogonal drawings on the same scale.
Use of wooden models.
A. CHURCHES
Planning was influenced by symbolism, liturgical change, reforming movements and the new religious orders as well as by t he aesthetics preferences of architect and patron.
Decorum was a fundamental rule of renaissance culture, and the function of the church was crucial to its plan.
Centralized plans based plans based on circle, square and Greek cross.
th
On the 15 century, the choir was removed to a chapel behind the altar.
The new religious orders on the second half of th
the 16 century, the Jesuits, the Jesuits, Barnabites, Barnabites, and Oratorians, Oratorians, tended to adopt single-nave plans often with interconnecting side chapels, abbreviated transepts and clear divisions of the parts.
B. LARGE URBAN DWELLINGS (palazzi)
Rectangular block of three storeys:
(i) First floor – central colonnaded courtyard and the pacing of the main apartments. Facing on the street. (ii) Vaulted ground floor – house shops, summer th
apartments and by the 16 century, stables. (iii) Second floor – children’s and servant’s room. (iv) Basement – wine, oil and fuel storage. C. PALACES
Ground floor shops tended to disappear from th
palace facades in the 14 century in Florence.
Continuous stone bench for public use.
Large pedimented windows supported on volutes (kneeling windows) appeared on the ground floor.
In 1581, oiled linen or paper used in the windows instead of glass.
In Rome cardinals’ palaces were larger, more loosely planned, and had loggias at upper levels for maximum air and shades.
Corner towers and cross-mullioned (Guelph) windows were common until the end of 16
th
century.
Grandeur of facade staircase ad courtyard was given precedence over size.
Courtyards are often replaced by gardens in Venetian palaces.
D. VILLAS
Agricultural center, hunting lodge, suburban retreat.
Villas vary so enormously according to function, region, patron, and architect that only a few common features, such as external loggias, can be discerned.
Vistas giving long perspectives, staircase ramps, niched exedrae and grottoes, influenced by Bramante’s Cortile Del Belvedere and Raphael’s Villa Madama, became features of garden planning. Water played an increasing part,
feeding fountains, cooing dining tables, and powering elaborate automata. II.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER IN FRANCE
Versailles is the supreme example of the garden as an adjunct to the house – laid out on its axes, continuing its lines across large areas of the surrounding country. The garden is an integral part of an architectural conception.
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The second half of the 18 century saw the emergence of new types of public buildings: for instance, markets, which often provided opportunities for novel structural techniques and theaters.
U-shaped auditoria with portico-fonts.
Return to basilican plan
Napoleonic era saw a brief preference for the antique temple form in Madeleine, Paris
Napoleon initiated a major programme of public buildings such as the Paris Bourse, General Post Office, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Large windows, high-pitched roof , and tall chimneys, developed in France in response to climate.
Rich in building stone and slate which could be transported by river.
The use of wood and plaster was widespread in vernacular architecture.
Gothic survived until nearly 1700 as a living form.
A. CHATEAU and HOTELS
Charles VII returned from Italy to the Château d’Amboise on
the Loire, the first royal
residence in France. He brought Italian artists and craftsmen with him and initiated the early period of château building.
Château remained a prime building type until the court was finally centralized in Versailles.
Paris saw the construction of large number of rich private residences – hotels – which became a characteristics building type exercising influence on domestic planning throughout the whole of Europe.
Most striking example was Antoine Le Putre’s Hotel de Beauvais.
French fashion sought to create a number of small rooms for private social activities.
Antichambre – a chamber in which formal receiving normally took place, with the host reclining on the bed; a more intimate cabinet where special friends would be received and if space permitted, a garderobe.
Stables were, if possible, banished to a se parate service court, servants’ quarters communicated with the principal apartments by hidden passages and stairs.
Architects were obliged to chow great ingenuity in fitting the necessary rooms into confined and irregular spaces.
B. CHURCHES
The new Counter – Reformation had an important impact on Roman Catholic church buildings, especially in the first half of the 17
th
century
Aisleless nave and two- or three – storey facades were initially predominant, but in the th
th
later 17 and 18 centuries there was a return to basilican plan, which continued around the apse as a semicircular screen.
Napoleonic era saw a brief preference for the antique temple form, as it was in the Madeleine, Paris (begun 1806).
III.
ARCHITECTURAL HARACTER IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
Turkish domination of the eastern Mediterranean trade routes encouraged in Spain Portugal the spirit of more broadly based maritime enterprise, which is powerfully reflected in the architectural symbolism of the buildings of the Convent of Christ at Tomar.
Territorial expansion heralded the dissemination of Spanish and Portuguese architectural styles in the New World.
Philip II, during whose reign the Escorial , one of Europe’s greatest palaces was built, inherited the problems of this vast empire.
Muslims and Jews had been converted or expelled, resulting to the loss of many architect ural craftsmen.
Its architecture generally seems to be best suited to hot climes.
Low-pitched roofs and small windows pre-dominate, as do open staircases and courtyards ( patio) for internal circulation.
Granite – principal material. Dark color, grey in Spain and grey green in Portugal. Limestone and sandstone on the south. Bricks from the Muslims. Iron ore and woods were also used.
IV.
AUSTRIA, GERMANY AND CENTRAL EUROPE
The area considered here is present-day Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic with parts of Poland and Hungary.
Uniform alluvial plain, where moulded brickwork continued to be used in great variety.
Large windows, steep roofs, and prominent chimneys.
Baroque period is characterized by family teams often of brothers, working together to produce a church complete with its decorations.
V.
THE LOW COUNTRIES
Calvinist Protestantism became the basis of the Dutch Reformed Church, while Belgian provinces remained catholic.
Followed Lutheran pattern established in Germany.
Dutch churches make use of galleries and give a prominent role to the baptismal front .
Experimentation with central plans.
Religious tolerance in Amsterdam is found in the Portuguese-Israeli Synagogue, an interesting structure with a plastered exterior and three equal barrel vaulted spaces internally.
The Palladian style of Jacob Van Campen became a symbol of Dutchness.
Holland is the lowest part of the low-lying region around the mouths of the Rhine, Maas and Scheldt.
The work of drainage and reclamation, enclosing land (polders) in networks of dykes and canals helped of the rotating turret windmill to operate water pumps.
Shifting foundations made lightweight open str uctures advisable.
Lacked of building stone led to expertise in brick work.
Flemish Bond method of brick-coursing is well known.
Wood construction.
Freestone, limestone, slate and timber from flat lads of Flanders in Belgium.
VI.
BRITAIN
Workshop of the World.
Henry VIII’s deliberate important of Italian, French and Flemish craftsmen for work on the royal palaces largely brought about the introduction of Renaissance style.
The break of Rome and the adoption of P rotestantism were less important in church planning.
Elizabeth I encouraged the construction of country houses by her courtiers as an indirect expression of sovereignty.
Auld alliance meant strongly French architectural characteristics in castle building which were still functionally necessary.
Restoration of Charles II emphasized architecture as an expression of centralized monarchical power in French style.
The glorious Revolution reinforced the Dutch influences already present in English architecture.
Prosperity produced greater demand for houses, and a ready market for a speculative building.
England followed France and Italy in formal planning for much of the period, in the middle of the eighteenth century English country houses pioneered the informality that marked a new sensibility.
The apartment system broken up for the first time, and the reception rooms were arranged around a central staircase.
More time was spent in the common ar eas of the house and the private apartments shrank in size.
Greater rapport between houses and countryside brought about looser plan arrangements.
The main rooms were placed asymmetrically at ground level to obtain views of landscape features of better sunlight penetration.
A. HOUSES 1. PLAN
Influence of Palladio’s centralized house plans
The hall and parlour were placed c entrally on the ground floor and the saloon replaced the great chamber on the floor above. Symmetrical group of rooms of diminishing size
- with-drawing chamber, chamber, closetcabinet - opened of central rooms. 1.
FAÇADE
The symmetrical façade of Elizabethan houses frequently mask an internal asymmetry where the great hall is set off to one side
2.
GALLERY
Became important features of Elizabethan houses and began to be used to display painting and sculpture as in France and Italy.
3.
STAIRCASE
Began to be made of wood rather than stone.
B. CHURCHES
Screens were not destroyed.
Stone altars replaced by wooden tables.
Emphasis in prayer brought the lectern and pulpit into the nave and made good acoustics a prime requirement.
Communion rail was introduced to protect the altar.
Lutheran invention became a lasting feature of church design until the Gothic revival.
Interiors had high box pews, multi-level pulpits and Classical screens. Almost all of which were removed and lost during the Gothic Revival.
VII.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER IN RUSSIA
Ivan the Great’s ambition led to the employment of Italian architects.
Italian architects were imported to design buildings.
Church planning followed Byzantine models
Primitive Orthodox – native Russian architectural elements such as the tent roof, an attitude reflected both in the simplicity of the Church of the Twelve Apostles in Moscow and the use of the Holy Sepulchre Church as a model for the mo nastery of the New Jerusalem, Istra.
S. Petersburg, the first modern c apital built to a predetermined plan.
Dependent on wood
Timber was used for monumental buildings
Tent roof in masonry
“Sateri” (manor-house or Italian) roof – two roofs with a small break or a clerestory between, the lower part being usually curved in section.
VIII.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER IN SCANDINAVIA
Country houses replaced the castle-like dwellings.
Wood construction.
Copenhagen and Stockholm (two capitals) reflect centralization of court life.
Neo-Classical Character.
