Karlskirche

Vienna

1715

Fischer von Erlach

Characteristics:

Karlskirche

- many obvious influences:

    - minarets (Hagia Sophia)

    - columned portico (Roman temples - Pantheon)

    - Trajan's Columns (Rome)

    - drum and dome (papal Rome)

- interior ceiling frescoes (instead of coffering or ribs)

- unusual shape, unique

    - like mash up of different elements (probably not acceptable today)

    - building is a composition of Roman splendor, Gothic verticality,

      and Baroque persuasive power

    - elongated oval nave

- facade:  dominated by dome and drum rising above

    - pedimented portico

    - two columns

- synthesis of forms, qualities, and symbolism

- chimerical character of architecture

London

1725-1729

Boyle

Characteristics:

Chiswick House

- based on Palladio's Villa Rotunda, though many differences

    - smaller

  - one portico (not 4)

  - octagonal drum and dome

  - exterior staircases different - important question of entering the

      building

    - more corridors - forced movement through certain rooms

  - Palladian organization and proportion, but more variation

- obelisks at edge of roof

- interior exhibition of artifacts = historicism manner

- less formal and more spacial, though used for library and

  entertainment only (not as a house)

- forced encountering with the landscape and building

Ste.-Genevieve (Panthéon)

Paris

1756-90

Soufflot

Characteristics:

St. Genevieve CHURCH (Pantheon)

- central plan lengthened by choir and portico

- openwork structure

  - freestanding columns and lintels

  - concealed flying buttresses

  --> spacious effect of Gothic architecture

  - TOO open --> had to be modified

  - windows filled in to appear more monumental

- composition of elements from past arch. languages 

    - Greek Portico

    - Roman Dome

    - Gothic feel

- slender elements --> light interior --> undercurrents of Enlightenment

Berlin

1823-28

Schinkel

Characteristics:

Altes Museum

- 1st public museum in Europe

- creates a civic court between the museum, trees, and existing palace

- facade:  giant ionic colonnade across the entire length

- central rotunda flanked by open courts and gallery spaces

--> idea of entering through Greece into Rome (colonnade to dome)

- panoramic views

- manipulates picturesque vocabulary of Romanticism

- orthogonal simplicity creates sense of urban dignity

- traveling through time 

1784

Boullee

Characteristics:

Cenotaph for Newton

- cenotaph = monument to a deceased person; does not house body

- never built -- too big, structurally impossible

- "emotivism" - new understanding of proportions

  - no longer strict ratio, but the effect of a combination of elements

  - regularity, symmetry, variety

- hollow perforated sphere represents heavens and stars

- enormous lamp inside = the sun

London

1851

Paxton

Characteristics:

Crystal Palace

- for World's Fair

- use of new materials:  glass and iron structure

    - cheaper and faster production

    - first demonstration of prefabrication - individual parts repeated to

      create whole --> mass production; preassembled

- breaking up classical trends of architecture

- vast, airy interior space

- intended to exhibit plants; actually exhibited much more

Paris

1858-1868

Labrouste

Characteristics:

Bibliotheque Nationale

- like a tent structure, membrane

- Neo-Classical masonry exterior, iron frame interior

- very modern architecture

    - not yet accepted by public, so even more strongly expressed in

      private spaces

- central reading room

    - nine 35' diameter domes with clerestory and oculus openings 

    - slender column grid (16)

- separate book stack

    - first time this had been done

    - iron structural framework separate from masonry wall

Bexleyheath

1859-60

Webb

Characteristics:

Red House

- absence of the formality expected for such a prominent house

- made of local clay, earth - not a precious stone

Chicago

1885-87

Richardson

Characteristics:

Marshall Field Wholesale Store

- disinterest in ornamentation and classical notions

- not entirely metal-framed

    - rusticated masonry exterior hides internal metal structure

    - use of steel rather than iron

- significance:  departure from convention such that grandeur,

  strength, and distinction could be achieved without ornamentation;

  reduction of design to function rather than an elaboration of form.  

- strong influence on the Beaux Arts style, Louis Sullivan, and Frank

  Lloyd Wright

a METHOD to comprehend the world; method of design

**NOT a particular art/architectural style

1750-1860

practical undercurrent - the world is expanding

influences from new/different areas (outside Europe)

increased interest in finding roots, discovery

Significance of...

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

Subjective meaning - emphasis on "the eye"

-- the actuality of the individual experiencing something

Relative meaning -- emphasis on "the beholder"

-- experiences may be different - depends on who the beholder is

** demonstrates Subjective vs. Relative meanings

Historicism Theory

(2 Claims)

1.  there is an organic succession of developments

2.  local conditions and peculiarities influence the results in a decisive way

- synthesis of forms, qualities, symbolism

- connecting of oppositional style-elements

- to achieve something NEW

- the synthesis weaves motives, style elements, and meaning together

social discourse is mediated by language, which is rooted in etymology and unique character

you must put an individual in a society in order to understand him/her

Movements of the

Era of Enlightenment and Humanism

Neo-Classicism*

Neo-Palladianism

Ecole des Beaux-Arts Tradition

Pituresque

Gothic Revival

Neo-Romanesque, -Gothic, -Renaissance, -Baroque

concept of individuality

inwards quality of conciousness

importance of temporal matters

intuition

unity of "I" and "Universe"

key for radical concept of individuality that was emerging

Rationalist vs. Subjectiveness:

Concept of Time

Newton's Concept:  absolute, mechanistically moving in one direction

Kant's Concept:  time is not absolute, but bound to human perception

Chiswick House

to the tune of "London Bridges"

London Boyle Chiswick House, 

    (London Bridge is falling down,)

1725, 1729

    (falling down, falling down)

London Boyle Chiswick House, 

    (London Bridges falling down,)

25 to 29

    (my fair lady)

yeah... the years are a stretch, but go with it :)

Chimerical Character

of Architecture

- Fischer von Erlach and the first history book ever

    - fantastical drawings of historical architecture

    - uses a lot of imagination

- hybrid connections and composition (NOT eclecticism)

    - creativity of combining the existing

    - individual elements can be discerned

- architectural art-form deducted from the building itself, without

  unnecessary ornamentation

- no longer symbolic architecture

- structure is only a small part of tectonic architecture

Carl Boetticher

and

Tectonic of the Hellens

Philosophy of balanced support and burden related to the column and entablature

    - column and beam = abstract, no ornament

    - column, beam, and plate = rational, with ornament (used for load

      distribution)

    - beam and columns, no ornament on front (because no stress there)

    - beams, columns, ornament on bottom side (indication of structural

      reinforcement)

- question of ornamentation and how to maintain the artistic nature of

  building when architecture is construction-based

- the "dressing" of a figure

- examples:  ancient Greek sculpture vs. blue sculpture; Blue House

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin

and the Gothic Revival

- saw medieval/gothic as the total visual and religious environment; full

  of the proper values missing in the present

- thought industrial was the detestable degradation of humans

- saw gothic as the only correct expression of the faith, wants and

  climate

Proportion in Emotivism of

French Historicism

- proportion is the result/effect of regularity, symmetry, and variety

- no longer based on arithmetic ratio

- product of a combination of elements