Hist12797 Architectural History The Story of Architecture

Chapters 13 & 14Renaissance in Italy and Europe

Background

• Changes in the 14th and 15th centuries:– Hereditary nobles replaced by merchant princes

whose commercial empires spread throughout Europe

– Trade, and banking, played a central role in society

– Gunpowder: changed the relations between nations

– Invention of compass + new shipbuilding methods allowed for the expansion of the known world

– Movable type in printing helped spread ideas2

Why Renaissance Architecture?

• Human history was realized, not as a divinely ordained continuum, but as successive overlapping periods

• Architectural styles were reaching a stage where they could no longer yield anything new.

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Renaissance Architecture

• Architects and Patrons desired a new architecture, not based on the traditions of the church but expressing perceived mathematical clarity and the rationality of the divine order of the universe

• Harmonic ratios could be the same as physical ratios = a rule on which to base proportions; buildings could _ reflect the fundamental laws of nature

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Renaissance Architects

. . . endeavored to create new rational forms based on what they understood of the Classical architecture of ancient Rome through the discovery of “De Architectura” , the one surviving treatise by the Roman architect Vitruvius.

New confidence in their intellectual capacity

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Humanist Architecture

• An architecture rooted in the human intellect to provide human needs

• The artist (architect) as a humanist scholar and philosopher in paint and stone, not simply an artisan or a craftsman

• A “rebirth” of Classical solidity of form and human expression. The Italian rinascinta translates into French as renaissance

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Brunelleschi’s Dome, Florence Donated by the Medici Family

An organized pile of 4 million bricks

Florence Cathedral8-panelled dome built in 2 layers

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Florence CathedralMasonry ribs tied together at strategic points. Cupola on top acting as a weight.

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Florence CathedralNo centering to hold up the dome, just scaffolding for the workmen

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BrunellesciFoundling Hospital, Florence

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Foundling Hospital, Florence.... simple, serene with graceful arcades of round-headed arches above slim Corinthian columns, plain rectangular windows with simple triangular

pediments ...

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Another inaugural building of the Renaissance

Federigo da Montefeltro Duke of Urbino

• He was a distinguished soldier, but really a man of principle, gentleness and humanity. A patron of the arts.

• His palace/castle contained state-rooms and courtyards – one

based on the Foundling Hospital, and a vast library

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Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel

• Revolutionary shape: a square covered by a dome.

The dimensions were all the same.

• A precise treatment of wall surfaces with decorative bands in a darker tone indicating proportions.

• The building seemed complete from every direction.

Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel

Interior looking down Front entrance

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Church of San Lorenzo, Florence by Brunelleschi

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Basilican plan, same exactdimensions and treatment

Church of Santo Spirito, Florence by Brunelleschi

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Basilican plan

Leon Battista Alberti

• Book: “On Architecture” 1485• Basic shapes – square, cube, circle, sphere• Work out ideal proportions of these figures

by doubling and halving• Beauty is the rational integration of the

proportions of all the parts where nothing could be added or taken away without destroying the harmony of the whole.

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di Giorgio Renaissance 1Leonardo da Vinci, Ideal Vitruvian ManProtogoras ‘ man is the measure of all things’

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AlbertiSanta Maria Novella, Florence

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Santa Maria Novella, Facade Detail• Linking the nave with the lower

aisles by adding huge scrolls; strictly proportioned.

• Became part of the

vocabulary of later architects.

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AlbertiSant’ Andrea, Mantua

• A Roman triumphal arch in ABA motif.

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Sant’ Andrea, Mantua

Sant’ Andrea, Mantua

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AlbertiPalazzo Rucellai, Florence, 1452

• Different orders on different floors as on the Colosseum.

• Huge, jutting cornice hides the roof and gives a concentrated boxy outline.

Alberti, Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, 1452

Forbidding, prison-like exterior of palace.

Inside courtyard a scenario for gracious, hospitable and elegant living for very rich

people

Palazzo Farnese, Rome (interior)

Architectural Elements of a typical Renaissance Palace

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Pa

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Ro

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Palazzo Medici 1444-60

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Palazzo Farnese, Florence

1515-59

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Italian Statesduring theRenaissance

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Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome

• Bramante followed Alberti’s prescription for classicism modeled on the ancient Roman temple of Vesta

• A drum encircled by a Doric colonnade with a cut-out balustrade on the upper storey.

Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio,

• Possibly architecture’s finest gem: all the charm, elegance and delicacy of an ideal building.

• Proportions in such harmony that nothing could be added or subtracted, yet the original concept was immensely flexible.

• It has been successfully copied throughout the world. p183

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Bramante design for St. Peter’s• The building which symbolizes all the

spiritual pomp and worldly power of Renaissance Rome

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St. Peter’s Rome, Plans

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Bramante

Sangallo

St. Peter’s Rome

Maerten van Heemskerck sketches

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St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome

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St. Peter’s Basilica, Nave

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St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome

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Michelangelo, Laurentian Library, San Lorenzo, Florence 1558-71• Emphasized perspective by lines in

moulding and decoration to create a room like a tunnel. It has a light-filled, calm atmosphere essential to a reading room (model for many university libraries since)

Design Task: to design a library in a long wing with access from a vestibule on the lower level

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The Anteroom has a triple staircase with pillars halfway up the wall supporting nothing

San Lorenzo by Alberti

Michelangelo, Medici Chapel

Stair to Library of San Lorenzo

Lib

rary

Michelangelo, Laurentian Library, San Lorenzo, Florence 1558-71

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Michelangelo, Medici Chapel to San Lorenzo, Florence 1520-26

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Michelangelo, Capitoline Hill Piazza del Campidoglio

1536

• Creation of giant orders: columns running up through two or more storeys or the entire height of a façade

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Piazza del Campidoglio

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Giulo RomanoPalazzo del Te, Mantua

• Mannerist in-joke in a classical detail: dropping a few wedge-shaped stones below the architrave

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Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome by Baldessare Peruzzi 1532• Mannerist: curved façade, broken in the middle by an irregular portico. The upper rows of windows are horizontally rectangular holes cut out of the façade and framed as if in stone picture frames with the lower row having scrolled curves like sheets of parchment.

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Giacomo da Vignola Façade of the Gesu built by della Porta 1573-77

• It became the model for many later churches as part of the Catholic Church’s Counter-Reformation

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Andrea Palladio

a precise and exact classicist

• His architectural treatise had an enormous influence.

• “... as if he distilled the essence of classicism from Vitruvian rules”

• His buildings are secular rather than religious; and exhibit two of the most prized qualities of Renaissance architecture: exactitude and centralized plans

Andrea Palladio, Villa Capra (Rotonda), Vicenza 1550• Central circular room covered by a dome set

within a raised square, with even steps on all four sides; ... not particularly comfortable to live in

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Andrea Palladio, Villa Capra (Villa Rotonda), Italy 1550

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Beauty and dignity of its exterior; commanding view of

the countryside

... not particularly comfortable to live in ...

Andrea Palladio

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Extension of a regular building to embrace outbuildings and the landscape

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Palladio, Basilica Vicenza[Palazzo della Ragione]

• Palladian motif: a central arched window or opening flanked by a flat-topped window on each side

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Palladio, Il Redentore, Venice

• Dome set between two pointed turrets rises above an extraordinary West front made up of a series of interlocking temple fronts.

• What are the giant and minor orders in this unique composition?

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The Spread of the Renaissance

• Italian Renaissance forms were slow in crossing the Alps. The Catholic temperament demonstrated in the Italian Renaissance held no attraction for northern Protestant countries.

• Northern Europe was in a nationalist phase racked by religious conflict and wars

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• Map of Europe 1500 -1600 showing wars

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The Spread of the Renaissance

• Renaissance details spread slowly, first in France and elsewhere later. They were adapted and often copied and added incongruously.

• While Mannerist Italian architects were enjoying themselves breaking the rules, the rest of Europe did not know that there were classical rules or that they could be broken

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Chateau de Chambord 1519-47 One of François 1’s chateaux on the Loire River

• Symmetry of its plan: square in a rectangle although not concentrically placed

• The plan is basically an English Gothic castle with the corps de logis as the keep

•

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Chambord• There is a ground-floor arcade but the

horizontal rows of windows, instead of the Italian variations, are tall and equal creating vertical stripes in the façade.

• Rather than hidden behind a parapet, the roof is steep, dormered, with a host of Renaissance details: gables, chimneys, lanterns and crowns that jostle against each

other: very medieval,

very French59

Chambord• A unique, free-

standing, double-spiral staircase. Supporting piers like Gothic buttresses but a plan out of Renaissance intrigue.

• (A similar sketch was made by Leonardo da Vinci.)

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Chateau de Blois

• A sophisticated open spiral staircase built into an octagonal tower

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Mansart, Chateau de Maisons, near Paris 1642-46

• Roofs were very important to the French. The mansard with a steep boxy side allows a full-height row of rooms

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Mansart, Chateau de Maisons

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Galerie Francois 1, Fontainebleau, decorated by Francesco Primaticcio

• First use of strapwork – stucco that is shaped like curled leather

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Chateau de Chenonceaux, LoireBridge by Philibert de l’Orme; Gallery by Jean Bullant 1576

• Classical ground floor arcade with horizontal rows of punched windows above

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Spread of Renaissance Architecture

• The wars between Spain and France in Italy and the patronage of François 1, caused artists to go to the French court and elsewhere.

• Treatises and pattern-books were produced in abundance in Italy. Sometimes an inventive individual incorporated the classical rules, mostly they were misapplied; transplanted out of context with no reference to structure, proportion or scale.

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Philibert de l’Orme, Screen (jubė) at St-Etienne du Mont

• On the basis of pattern books, de l’Orme built an incredible screen with a balcony across an

unaltered Gothic nave reached by

a swelling, curving staircase

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Philibert de l’Orme, Screen (jubė) at St-Etienne du Mont

• It owes its sweeping concept to Renaissance freedom of approach, yet the fretwork patterning remains Gothic in origin

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Ottheinrichsbau, Heidelberg Castle,

• Misapplication of Renaissance pattern-books

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Claude Perrault, Louvre, Paris 1665

• A flat elevation straight out of the pattern books

• It is not enough to copy the 2-D drawings but to understand the relationship of outside to inside; the ability to think in three dimensions.

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Elias Holl, Arsenal, Augsburg, Germany 1602-07

• Tall narrow height; gable end set to road; mannered in the way window frames are wrenched apart on either side of window; broken pediment on gable end has odd bulbous ornament in the middle

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University of Salamanaca, Doorway in the main façade 1514-29

• The Plateresque-style of low relief on a flat wall surface was carried over in Spain with no pause – just a further mixture of motifs

• Another example of an undiscriminating adoption of Renaissance motifs

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Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera, Escorial Palace, Madrid, Spain 1562-82• A palace centred around a chapel with a monastery and a college. A bleak expression of religious feeling rooted in Counter-Reformation

Catholicism. Simple in form, severe in the whole, noble without arrogance, majesty without ostentation

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Robert Smythson, Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, England 1580

• Distinctive English type: striped vertically down its wide frontage with slightly projecting bay windows/oriels; emphasized horizontality with slim string courses separating the ranks of mullioned windows.

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Diego de Siloe, Escalera Dorada, Burgos Cathedral, Spain 1524

This example is one of four stair types:

1. T-shaped stairs where the bottom flight splits into two arms, left and right.

2. Stairs that spiral around a rectangular stair well

3. Stairs set around a rectangular well with each flight bent backward sharply to run parallel to the lower flight

4. A free-standing flight fixed to the wall at one end only and supported on an arch (Palladio)

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Louis Le Vau, Hôtel Lambert, Paris 1639

• Central gateway on the street façade with concierge on guard, gave way to a courtyard with stables, service wings and

• later coachhouse wings. Behind the courtyard was a formal garden. The living quarters were later set across the back of the service court with the salon and display rooms overlooking the garden.

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Hotel de Matignon, Paris 1722-24

Houses on the Amstel, Amsterdam, Nederland

• Varied skylines. Narrow frontage means few rooms per floor; large windows to haul up furniture or goods.

• Renaissance town houses on a large scale. Tall and narrow, gable ends to canal or road

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Jacob van Campen, Mauritzhuis, The Hague,

Netherlands1633

An outstanding example of a Northern translation of the Renaissance in a small-scale palace that is neat and compact with dignity and elegance

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Rooms are set symmetrically around a central stairway; exterior appearance of natural and quiet imperiousness by the use of giant pilasters.The inspiration: Palladio.

Inigo Jones, Queen’s House, Greenwich, London 1616-62

• Jones discovered Palladio at age 40 and after becoming Royal Surveyor returned to Italy for serious study.

• In the two wings, he used three cubes each.

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The building straddled the Main London to Dover RoadPlan and façade conceived in a Palladian unity of proportion and design

Inigo Jones, Queen’s House, Greenwich, London 1616-62 • Flat-roofed

colonnade connecting two wing pavilions later added where road had been

• Internally, the rooms are beautifully proportioned.

• The Tulip Stair spirals upward with a wrought-iron balustrade composed of swaying tulips

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Inigo Jones, Banqueting Hall, Whitehall, London 1619-22

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Inigo Jones, Banqueting Hall, Whitehall, London 1619-22

• Exterior appears as two storey with rows of Ionic and Composite columns, but inside is a superb double-cube room with a ceiling painted by Rubens.

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Inigo Jones, Wilton House, Wiltshire, 1647

• He was involved in the reconstruction with John Webb.

• Two state rooms were created, a single and a double cube, to show off a collection of Van Dyck portraits. To balance the excessive height, Jones used a coved ceiling. 85

An Architecture of Humanist Ideals

• New architecture to be rationally comprehensible

• Formed of planes and spaces organized to show clear, numerical proportions

• Edges and intervals delineated by crisp elements of ancient architectural orders [classical]

• A celebration of human intellectual powers and inviting pleasurable human response

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