Department of the History of Art and Architecture Fall Term 1998
University of Pittsburgh Mon-Wed 1:00--1:50 p.m., and sections
HAA 0040: CRN 10869 Frick Fine Arts Building, room 125
A SOURCEBOOK FOR HISTORY OF WESTERN ARCHITECTURE
Professor Franklin Toker
section instructors: Katherine Giberman, Erin Marr, Cornelie Piok Zanon
Section meetings: A: Thursday at 11: Frick room 204 B: Thursday at 12: Frick room 204 C: Friday at 10: Frick room 202 D: Friday at 11: Frick room 202 E: Friday at 12: Frick room 202 F: Friday at 1: Frick room 202 G: Friday at 2: Frick room 202 H: Friday at 3: Frick room 202
Writing practica ("W-sections") HA&A 0041, for optional 1 credit: 1: Wednesday at 2: Frick room 203 (CRN 15480) 2: Wednesday at 3: Frick room 203 (CRN 15485)
Text copyright c 1998 Franklin Toker
SCHEDULE OF LECTURES AND SECTION MEETINGS
Monday August 31: LOOKING AT ARCHITECTURE: WHAT OUR EYES CAN DETERMINE (ORDINARY AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE) Wednesday September 3: LEARNING FROM ARCHITECTURE: WHAT ONLY HISTORY CAN DETERMINE: (EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE) No Section meetings this week (including W-sections): instead, complete the "First Exercise" on page 16 of this Sourcebook and/or the website, and turn it in at your first Section meeting, next week
[Monday September 7: LABOR DAY: NO CLASS] Wednesday September 9: GREEK ARCHITECTURE First Section meetings, September 10 and 11: Turn in your "First Exercise," on the Frick Fine Arts Building. How to look at a building; description and analysis, using the "five factors"; the historical process; from a provisional to a learned critique.
September 14: ROMAN ARCHITECTURE: FOUNDATIONS September 16: ROMAN ARCHITECTURE: CONCRETE VISIONS Sections: Ancient architecture: Egyptian, Greek, and Roman.
September 21: EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE (this falls on Rosh ha-Shanah, but it will be recorded; e-mail me in advance if you will be absent for this class, and arrangements will be made for you to hear and view the recording later) September 23: BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE Sections: Development of Christian architecture; review for first midterm
September 28: EARLY MEDIEVAL, CAROLINGIAN, OTTONIAN, AND ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE September 30: FIRST MIDTERM TEST (this falls on Yom Kippur; e-mail me in advance if you cannot write this test today, and arrangements will be made for you to take it later) no sections this week
October 5: TRANSITION TO GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE October 7: GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AS ENGINEERING Sections: Discussion of two counter-views on Gothic: Robert Mark on technology and John Summerson on aesthetics (there are multiple copies on the reserve shelf holdings: see below). Bring a one-paragraph summary of either the Mark or Summerson article to section meeting.
October 12: GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AS POETRY October 14: TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE OF AFRICA Sections: Gothic architecture; the architecture of holiness
October 19: THE EARLY RENAISSANCE: BRUNELLESCHI October 21: THE EARLY RENAISSANCE: FILARETE AND ALBERTI Sections: Gothic and Renaissance
October 26: THE HIGH RENAISSANCE: LEONARDO AND BRAMANTE October 28: PERSONAL VISIONS: MICHELANGELO AND PALLADIO Sections: Transformations in Renaissance style.
November 2: BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY November 4: BAROQUE IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND Sections: Fundamental elements of Baroque style; review for second midterm
November 9: SECOND MIDTERM TEST November 11: ROCOCO no sections this week
November 16: NEOCLASSICISM: THE RATIONALIST ELEMENT November 18: NEOCLASSICISM: THE ROMANTIC ELEMENT Sections: Contradictions of the eighteenth century
November 23: ARCHITECTURE OF THE REVIVALS: ROMANTICISM AND REACTION [November 25: no class on Thanksgiving break; no sections this week either]
November 30: CHALLENGE OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES December 2: SULLIVAN, GAUDI, WRIGHT: ARCHITECTURE OF EARLY MODERNISM Sections: Ruskin, Viollet-le-Duc, Sullivan, Wright
December 7: GROPIUS, LECORBUSIER, MIES: THE TRIUMPH OF HIGH MODERNISM December 9: THE DISMANTLING--OR REFORMING?--OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE TODAY (LATE MODERNISM) Sections: Modern architecture, course review.
Wednesday, December 16, 4:00 to 5:50 p.m., Frick 125: FINAL EXAMINATION (I changed this from the official date of Saturday 19th, which I don't think many people want; but e-mail me in advance if this happens to conflict with another exam of yours). Corrected exams will be available at noon on Wednesday December 23 in the Department office, 104 Frick. They will be "pitched" on January 15, 1999. Grades are not available by telephone or e-mail, but hand in a stamped, self-addressed envelope if you want your results--or even the whole exam--mailed to you.
COURSE INFORMATION
Welcome to this introductory course in western architectural history. It is introductory in that I have crafted it for the vast majority of you who are not and will not major in the history of art or architecture, not because the course is somehow supposed to be simple. You have no idea how much you will learn from now through December in learning the history of architecture and how to make critical judgments on buildings. To accomplish that much by semester's end requires both the instructor and the students in this course to maintain high standards. But relax: about 2,100 students have preceded you in this class, and lived to tell about it. Many--most, in fact--have enjoyed it.
WHAT IS "HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE"? Each lecture and section meeting will be devoted to looking at buildings. But architectural history goes beyond the level of just enjoying the sublimity of the Pyramids or the exquisite lines of Greek temples. We do indeed start by describing the buildings and giving them a provisional critique ("Look at those elegant proportions"; "Isn't the marble lovely?"), but if we go no farther then we are merely engaging in architectural appreciation. Instead, the lectures and the texts you will read go on to research the history of the buildings and their community, and analyze the structures in an interdisciplinay way. Now we are engaging in history of architecture, or architectural history. Architectural history employs many methodologies, or approaches. Both the lectures and the texts are sometimes concerned with technology, at other times with politics, at other times with aesthetics, sometimes with astronomy and magical "keys" to plans, and still other times with the psychology of architecture. Some of my lectures will necessarily be concerned with archaeological evidence for buildings. Others will stress architects, or patrons, or architectural theory. I need to draw on all these methods to give you the richest possible understanding of architecture. Please, therefore, do not ask me at the end of a lecture which parts were "important." They all are.
CLASS MEETINGS. Class meets for lectures Monday and Wednesday at 1, and for a third hour in section meetings upstairs in rooms 202 or 204, on Thursday and Friday. Check your registration immediately to see to which section you have been assigned. Some students are also enrolled in the W-sections or writing practica, which are on Wednesday afternoons in addition to the regular sections.
ORGANIZATION OF THIS "SOURCEBOOK," AND ITS RELATION TO MY MONDAY AND FRIDAY LECTURES. The pages that follow have certain standard elements: the Reading indicated at the top of each unit indicates the pages in the Wodehouse and Moffett text. It is your responsibility to learn all that the text and I say about the general periods (Roman, Modern, etc.) and specific observations about the "Key Work" buildings. For each lecture, the Sourcebook then gives you my own notes on the development of architectural style and some historical context for the different periods. If you read this before my Monday and Wednesday lectures, these notes will help fix in mind the concepts I am bringing out. Below the text is the listing of the key works. Below these are "works in context," which are other buildings or works of art to which I may make reference in the lectures; below that are the Terms of reference that you are also responsible for. I will define the terms during my lectures; some of these are also listed on pp. 518--522 of your text.
KEY WORKS. Following student requests, I have gone back this year to designating certain buildings--and some theoretical writings on architecture--as "key works" for which you are responsible in the exams. For the exams, a "key work" should normally be one that is listed as such here, that I speak about in class or your section instructors discuss in sections, and which is illustrated either in the text or on the website. If you miss a class or section, it is essential that you get the list of key works from another class member (it's wise to gather up several telephone numbers as soon as the course begins).
THE CLASS TEXT. Neither the website nor the Sourcebook are substitutes for our text, Wodehouse and Moffett's A History of Western Architecture, which offers an excellent, in-depth view of western architecture. You will need to study the book closely, both for the quizzes and the exams. Please note that this is the first time I am using this text, since I am responding to student requests to find a substitute to the one I used for ten years, which students found heavy and dense. I'm certain you'll find the new text an improvement (should you compare the two) but Wodehouse and Moffett have many fewer illustrations: that means you are obliged to use the accompanying website to see those illustrations the book does not provide. For the non-technical minded, I will provide a hard-copy printout of the website illustrations, so you can make your own copy for study purposes. As soon as you buy the text, ask yourself how you will use it for greatest benefit. Read it in conjunction with this Sourcebook or website; pick out the "key works" and concentrate on those. Use the rest of the chapter as general background. You may skip over buildings that we are not covering in detail (we will look at just one English Gothic cathedral: the text looks at half a dozen), but looking at those additional buildings will give you more background for the tests. Why not shoot for an A+ in the course?
THE WEBSITE FOR THIS CLASS is at www.pitt.edu/~tokerism: click on "western architecture." This was probably the first large humanities course at the University to have a full visual component on the World Wide Web, but in some respects it got overly complicated. This year you will find just four elements on our website: a reproduction of this Sourcebook (without interactive links); "Illustrations by Period," which gives you all the essential images in chronological and stylistic order; "Thumbnail Images," which are good for reviewing; and "News from Toker," in which I will occasionally send out something of interest to the whole class. Otherwise, I will email you individually (in past years I "talked" with about a quarter of the class on email).
GRADING in this course is based on three components: 20% for special exercises and for quizzes during the lectures (see below); 20% for the first and 20% for the second midterm tests; 30% on the final exam; and 10% for participation and attendance at lectures and sections. Please note that exercises will be accepted for full value only on their deadline dates: a late exercise automatically loses half its potential grade. Attendance at the lectures and section meetings is not optional: in the past many students have lost most, or all, of the final 10% by poor attendance. The two midterms and the final will involve analytical skills as well as evidence of thought about the readings and lecture materials. At the last section meeting you will be given your grade standing up to that moment. The conversion of number grades to letter grades is: 90s are A's; 80s are B's; 70s are C's; 60s are D's; and below 60 is F. A strong performance on the final examination and the quizzes can offset weak grades on the midterm tests: your term grade will reflect your motivation, not just data-processing. Please note that W (withdrawal) grades are assigned by the Dean's office alone, not by professors, and that I give G (incomplete) grades only for documented illness, accidents, or emotional stress. There is no way you can earn "extra credit" from me, and I don't raise grades after the final examination for any reason other than mathematical error: the way to earn a good or brilliant grade in this course is to start working on it now. This course follows this Department's statement on academic integrity: "Plagiarizing is an act that violates the Student Conduct Code, and will not be tolerated in this class. Plagiarized assignments will result in a failing grade for that assignment." (Plagiarism is here defined as the use of six words in a row without a quotation mark and/or clear indication of their origin. Note that in the world of the Internet, plagiarizing has gotten ever more easy: it is mandatory that the full URL address be given for every website you draw upon for your research.) Cheating in any manner is not tolerated, as four students in another large class of mine learned last year to their regret.
QUIZZES are "occasional," and will come throughout the semester, without warning, except for those based on readings. Most, if not all, will be the fill-in-the-bubble type: bring a sharp #2 pencil with you for every class. Don't bother to put down your social security number, just last name followed by first and second initials in "bubble" form, and also spelled out. The quizzes will test on material given in the current or recent lectures, in the "required reading" selections in the textbook, and for key works and key terms listed in the Sourcebook. Quiz results will be given in class at the following lecture. These quizzes will prevent you from goofing off between one test and another: you will need to do regular reading and reviewing of the material, or else it will all become a jumble in your mind. For your term grade, we will count the best five of these quizzes only; you can therefore miss two or maybe three without a penalty. Consequently, we don't make excuses for missed quizzes or section meetings unless there is a great number of them. In that case, notes from deans and health or social work professionals, consistent with University policy, will be accepted if timely and if related to the specific classes or sections that were missed.
MEETING HOURS, LUNCHES, FIELDTRIPS. I would enjoy talking with you in my office (balcony of Frick Library reading room) on Wednesdays after class, from 2 to 4 p.m. (Note that these meetings might take place in room 118 instead: check ahead). That is also a good time to call me without the necessity of coming into the office. We can arrange other meeting times by if you telephone me at 648-2419 or e-mail me at ftoker@pitt.edu; I will quickly respond to any questions you leave me there. The section instructors for this course will be available in Frick room 151 (entrance to Frick Library) two hours a week, at hours to be posted on that door. The telephone number there is 648-2178. I will be happy to meet you for lunch preceding the Wednesday class, or to go on special fieldtrips, as we did not long ago to see two of Peter Eisenman's two new buildings in Columbus: just ask.
READINGS:
REQUIRED READINGS: 1) This Sourcebook, on sale at Copy Cat, 3945 Forbes, 8 am to midnight, or available to be printed out from our website.
2) The class text: Lawrence Wodehouse and Marian Moffett, A History of Western Architecture, on sale at the University Book Centre.
3) For the section meetings on Gothic architecture on October 8 and 9, you are required to read Robert Mark, "Structural Analysis of Gothic Cathedrals: Chartres and Bourges," in Scientific American 227 (1972):90-99; and John Summerson, "Heavenly Mansions: An Interpretation of Gothic," in Summerson, Heavenly Mansions, pp. 1-28. Both are on reserve in Frick Library.
THE FOLLOWING IMPORTANT BOOKS AND ARTICLES ARE ALSO ON RESERVE:
Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman, Architecture, from Prehistory to Post-Modernism, a more detailed text than the Wodehouse and Moffett book.
Labelle Prussin, "An Introduction to Indigenous African Architecture," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 33 (1974):183-194 and 205;
Suzanne Preston Blier, "Houses Are Human: Architectural Self-images of Africa's Tamberma," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 42 (1983):371-382.
Christian Norberg-Schulz's Meaning in Western Architecture;
Steen Eiler Rasmussen's Experiencing Architecture (this is a required purchase for students in the Writing sections).
SOME MODELS FOR EFFECTIVE WRITING ON ARCHITECTURE, ON RESERVE:
-Robert Benson's article on Peter Eisenman's Columbus Convention Center, at the end of this Sourcebook (reproduced from The Inland Architect of August 1993, with permission)
-"The curious Walls of Larsen Hall," Architectural Forum 124 (March 1966):47-53 (consists of two critiques of the Harvard School of Education building: one on pp. 47-49 by Donald Canty; a second on pp. 50-51, by James Ackerman, with a reply by Canty on p. 52 and a site photograph on p. 53)
-Peter Barnett, "A Gateway for the Creative Arts," Connection (Winter 1967):7-11 (four copies)
-Franklin Toker, "In the Grand Manner: The P&LE Station in Pittsburgh," Carnegie Magazine 53/3 (1979):4-21
USEFUL BOOKS FOR ISSUES OF STYLE IN WRITING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE:
-Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art;
-John Blumenson, Identifying American Architecture
In addition the following books are in the regular Frick collection (those marked + are housed in the reference room) as supplementary reading for architectural traditions you may want to learn more about:
R. Branner, Gothic Architecture F. Brown, Roman Architecture Julius GlÅck, "African Architecture," in D. Fraser, ed., The Many Faces of Primitive Art, pp 224-243. L. Grodecki, Gothic Architecture +C. Harris, Historic Architecture Sourcebook +Harris and Lever, Illustrated Glossary of Architecture 850-1830 + International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture. 2 vols. In Reference Room at NA40.I48. A most useful set of sketches of major buildings and architects in the western tradition. +The dictionary of art (34 v., 1996: reference room N31 D5 1996): lists all major architects & building styles R. F. Jordan, Victorian Architecture S. Kostof, A History of Architecture H.E. Kubach, Romanesque Architecture B. Lowry, Renaissance Architecture S. Lloyd, et al., Ancient Architecture: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Crete, Greece W. MacDonald, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture +R. Mair, Key Dates in Art History C. Mango, Byzantine Architecture +Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects, 4 vols. R. Middleton, Neoclassical and Nineteenth Century Architecture H. Millon, Baroque and Rococo Architecture +H. Millon, Key Monuments in the History of Architecture P. Murray, Architecture of the Renaissance C. Norberg-Schulz, Baroque Architecture C. Norberg-Schulz, Late Baroque and Rococo Architecture J. Norwich, ed., The World Atlas of Architecture E. Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism N. Pevsner, Outline of European Architecture +N. Pevsner, Fleming, and Honour, Dictionary of Architecture +J. Pierce, From Abacus to Zeus: A Handbook of Art History (defines many art terms, including those used in description and analysis of architecture) R. Scranton, Greek Architecture J. Summerson, The Architecture of the Eighteenth Century J. Summerson, Heavenly Mansions J. Varriano, Italian Baroque and Rococo Architecture J.B. Ward-Perkins, Roman Architecture
BASIC METHODOLOGY OF THIS COURSE: ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION, ANALYSIS, AND CRITIQUE
The following is an outline of the personal methodology I have developed over the years for dealing with buildings. I will use it, modified where appropriate, for every building I discuss in this course. I will expect you to use it too, not to give the "right answers" about architecture (there are no right answers in this field, anyway), but to develop the strongest possible arguments for positions that you take, in class, in your written assignments, and on your tests.
Five steps in architectural history. Description, analysis, and criticism are the first three steps by which scholars or amateurs typically look at buildings (or any works of art). It seems to me that there are five steps in all: 1) describe the building 2) analyze it (show how it works both functionally and formally) 3) create a provisional criticism (judgment based on "just looking") 4) learn and incorporate facts of the building's history; this will lead you to create a learned criticism (based on facts as well as personal reactions) 5) expand into a theory of architecture
By acronym, the first three steps spell DAC; the first four spell DACH (German for roof); and all five spell DACHT, German for "think."
This may sound hard to grasp at first, but you will get experience on this at your first section meeting, in which you will describe, analyze, and render a critical judgment on the Frick Fine Arts Building.
Three definitions in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary may help: Describe: "To represent by words; to give an account of." Analyze: "To separate or resolve into elements or constituent parts. To separate mentally the parts of (a whole) so as to reveal their relation to it and to one another; as, to analyze an economic theory. To study the factors of (a solution, problem, or the like) in detail, in order to determine the solution or outcome." Criticism: "The art of judging with knowledge and propriety the beauties and faults of works of art or literature."
When you think about a building, and especially when you write on one, you are effectively dividing your critique into three separate parts (in written work, these should be indicated with subheadings):
Description Analysis Criticism
Let's look at the words description, analysis, and criticism in respect to light. Recently I told my optometrist: "You know, my father was right: I can read a lot better when my book is under a bright light." Dr. Morgan replied: "Of course: the pupil reacts to the bright light by getting smaller. When smaller, it creates a lens that is much sharper than it is when the pupil is wider. So you see better."
My observation was mere description, though it was valuable: both art and science begin with "mere" descriptions of phenomena. Dr. Morgan's reply was analysis: he put each step in a logical sequence, and explained how things work: he didn't just say what happened.
Criticism does not typically take place in science, at least not as an expression of preference. (Who would bother to say "Those cancer germs are really yukky"?: western civilization presumes cancer is yukky to begin with.) But there can be an expression of criticism, or judgment, on the consequences of what you have just observed. You can say: "The new dormitory at UPittsburgh has some excellent design features, but it falls down in terms of lighting. Students are constantly reading in dormitories; hence the dormitory rooms should have had bright lighting."
Then you can insert history into this line of questions: historically, when have people made good lighting available?, or, Why were dormitory lights formerly so weak? Why is the typical light bulb in Italian hotels about 15 watts? (High electricity costs, I guess, but maybe there is some other explanation: romantic atmosphere? proprietor doesn't want you to see that the wallpaper is peeling?)
Analysis and history feed on each other. When I got back to Pittsburgh from Princeton in 1986 after renting my house to seven Finns for a year, I was amazed to observe that numerous electric bulbs had burned out and had not been replaced; every curtain had been removed from every window in the whole house; and (to judge from what they left behind) the tenants must have kept burning hundreds of huge candles--the kind that burn one full week. Clearly "light" meant a very different thing to these Finns, who have midnight sun in the summer and near-darkness at noon in the winter, than it did to me.
Thus does light become an important factor in the history of architecture: you cannot describe, analyze, critique, or write a history of Gothic, Renaissance, or Baroque architecture without considering their use of, and cultural attitudes toward, light.
Finally, you are ready for a learned critique, which is a considered judgment on a building or group of buildings in the light of its or their history. You have looked at individual buildings and studied the history--including the cultural history--of a certain group of people in history. You can now look at their buildings the way they did. You are now looking culturally at light, not just looking at it as a detached scientific phenomenon.
Before jumping into architecture, practice by making a description, analysis, criticism, history, and learned critique, using some field OTHER than the history of architecture. The subject could be snow, for example. A description would say: "It sure snows a lot in Buffalo." The analysis would be: "Yes, because the air over Lake Ontario heats up and carries moisture with it, which it then dumps on Buffalo in the form of snow when it reaches the colder air over the lakeshore ground." What would the next steps in the sequence be?
In architecture, the description gives an account of the building, stressing its location, its scale, its materials, its interior space, and how people use it: this is how the eye (or a videocamera) sees the building.
Analysis is the point-by-point study of how architectural decisions (a term defined below) using architectural components (another term defined below) to make all the parts of a building work in relation to any other part. Buildings do not just happen, in the manner of mountains or sandy beaches. They are made to happen. Analysis does not merely ask "what happened?": it asks "why?".
In describing the Capitol in Washington, you would report that the building has a rotunda at its center and two wings, each with a large chamber.
But when you come to analyze the Capitol, you would ask why the building was laid out that way. Clearly, it is a symbolic as well as practical layout: the Senate chamber on the north balances the House chamber on the south, just as the two chambers "balance" each other in the process of making laws. The rotunda in the center symbolizes the essential unity of the members of both houses; in a practical way, it gives them a place to assemble together for occasional great events, and also a place in which, theoretically, they can meet the public. All of these observations you can make without knowing any but the most obvious historical facts about the building or its function.
As you learn more about architectural history, you would realize that the rotunda recalls the Pantheon in Rome, and so part of your analysis would be a discussion of the way in which the Capitol was designed to symbolize our debt to Roman law and civilization. As you really dig into the subject, you will understand still more architectural decisions: the fact that the Supreme Court formerly met right in the basement of the Capitol (better--or just different--symbolism from today, in which it now meets in a separate Greek-style temple). Think also that the Capitol architect expected that George Washington would be buried in the solid rock right below the rotunda: talk about symbolism! Think about the way the Capitol, which, like the whole plan of Washington, is precisely oriented to the points of the compass, acts as a microcosm of the United States: you enter from the east, and the great vista stretching out for two miles down the Mall is the (then) unexplored west. Architectural analysis asks exactly those sorts of questions: Why did the architect designate certain rooms in certain proportions and dimensions? Why did he or she designate different kinds of light and space to different kinds of users and functions in the building? You may not know the answers to these questions yet--some answers will never be known--but analysis demands that you ask the most profound questions.
Criticism is a good deal more complex than merely finding fault, the way you would criticize a roommate for spending too much time on the telephone. Architectural criticism is a process of evaluating the success of the architectural decisions taken years before. Your criticism should evaluate your building in terms of both aesthetics and function. Are the textures weak or lively? Is the building confusing or agreeable to walk through? (The way an architect makes you go through a building is called a circulation path.) In concluding with a criticism of the strengths and weaknesses of the building, you must be judicious and informed, as best you can.
Hint: criticism works best by comparison: why not compare your building to a building of similar use elsewhere in town that you feel is stronger or weaker? In writing this criticism the words "I" etc. should still not appear. Do not merely express an opinion ("this boiler plant really turned me on"); you need to convince your reader or audience to share your evaluation.
Architectural components are all those things that go into buildings, literally or figuratively. We have already encountered some of those components above: function, symbolism, proportions, dimensions, light, space, texture, circulation paths. Every building has changes in light levels (dark, well-lit, or brilliantly illuminated areas); different kinds of circulation (stairways wide or narrow; corridors public or private); and different configurations of space (low- or high-ceilinged).
The way an architect manipulates these and other architectural components are his/her architectural decisions. Architectural decisions can be good, bad, indifferent, or non-existent. (Did the architect decide that it would be fun to hide the elevators in Forbes Quadrangle, or did the obscure location of the elevators just "happen"?)
You will find yourself listing architectural components in all three parts of an architectural critique, but in different ways. In the description, you might note that your building is made of bright yellow brick. In the analysis, you would ask why the architect chose this kind of brick, and you might be able to provide some answers, such as "to make this church stand out in its neighborhood." In the criticism section, you ask whether that architectural decision was good or not. (Yes, it made the church stand out, but is it ever repulsive!)
Other architectural components to consider are design, image, composition, selection and handling of materials, color, relation to site, technology, how the technology was exploited, the quality of the lighting, the plan, circulation, use, and overall appropriateness of the building to its function. Ask yourself, What kind of "statement" does the building make within its setting? How do you approach the building? Does it "want" you to see it straight on, obliquely, or in a combination of views (think of the Cathedral of Learning). Which viewpoint seems to have been the main one in the mind of the designer? How does the building change as you approach it? Does the profile remain same, or change? What time sequence plays itself out? A building's plan gives you the "approach" once you are in the building. It encourages or prevents certain uses (circulation). Think of the plan of a bank: it makes you go or not go in particular directions. Is the plan of your building a compact block, or divided into parts? Can you guess the plan from an exterior view of the building, or does it turn out to be different?
Composition: what are the main parts of the building and how are they connected, symmetrically or asymmetrically? Architects sometimes speak of the parti (short for the French parti pris, or decision taken) of a building i.e. its most striking aspect that you could sketch out in a second. Think again of the Capitol at Washington and its distinctive three-part parti: even simple structures have one too.
Is the building "closed" or "open" to the exterior? What is the impression of the building envelope?: mass (closed) or open (volume:--space that is enclosed inside the building)? The thick-walled churches of Baroque Rome exhibit mass; Japanese temples, with their light walls, exhibit volume. Other components of composition include: size, shape, profile, color, materials, texture, rhythms (bay divisions, horizontal and vertical flow), details and ornament.
Symbolic meaning of the building, if any, would be an appropriate issue also. You are not expected to get your hands on the memo in which the architect wrote all this down years ago, but you are expected to make a reasonably learned analysis of why you think certain architectural decisions were made at the time.
If written or spoken, it would be excellent if you accompanied your architectural critique with a postcard or original photograph, and sketch plans--nothing fancy or professional.
Pulling together your observations. By this point you will have made hundreds of observations, from the acoustical properties of your building to the changing nature of its light. Now you need to organize these observations into one coherent system. One of the most efficient ways to do that--I have learned from experience--is to present your building as the product of five factors, or agents of change. I use the acronym FACIT (Latin for "he/she/it makes") for this sequence. The five factors are: function aesthetics context (physical and social/historical) ideology (the idea or theory behind the design) technology and structure
Typically one can see these factors, or agents of change, at work. Anyone walking through the Capitol while Congress is in session will understand what the main function of the building is. An observer could figure out the materials and building technology of the Capitol fairly well by simply looking at it as a response to physical context (climate etc.) One could also make out the aesthetic of the various parts of the Capitol: the sobriety of color and plainness of texture of the oldest parts, and the gaudy decoration of the post-Civil-War rooms. One would not need to know the historical timeframe for the construction of the different parts of the Capitol--but you could guess at it--nor the social context of those years to make those observations.
What you cannot see is the historical context and the prevailing ideology of America during the years in which the Capitol was first designed and later added to. To know that, you would have to do extensive reading, not only on the history of the Capitol but on the history of the United States. This data you could not know from just looking at the Capitol: you need to consult history books to find that out.
To summarize the five factors: Function tells you what the building was designed to do. How is this revealed?
Aesthetics: what presuppositions or decisions of taste were made when the building was designed: rough rather than smooth; rounded forms rather than straight; irregular rather than regular?
Context. Ultimately, almost everything fits under the title of "context." The first context is geographical (land and climate) and specific to the setting of the building: urban, suburban, or rural; type of city or neighborhood etc.
The second type of context is the temporal, social, and cultural context of the building, as far as you can make it out. You can tell the cultural context of a neighborhood by such signs as ethnic traits or lifestyle: is the neighborhood clothes store a Brooks Brothers or a K-Mart? The cultural context and even the physical context of a neighborhood may have radically shifted with time, but architecture is like a portrait: what you see on the exterior conveys something about the interior too.
The five factors listed above, put together, will almost always explain why a building turned out as it did. Some buildings, such as the Gothic-style Cathedral of Learning on our campus, or Colonial-style supermarkets, are not so much indicative of change but of resistance to change: an architectural fashion that clung to Gothic or Colonial long after the original context for those styles had died off. In those cases, we have a triumph of aesthetics over technology: people can (and, perhaps, should) build in the contemporary style, but they are not obliged to.
Ideology: what mental image is propagated from the building just looking at it on the outside? Or feeling it inside? Does the building convey the personality of its patron? of its architect?
Technology, insofar as you can see it: lighting, heating, cooling, ventilating, plumbing, glass: what appears to make the building inhabitable or visitable? This includes structure, insofar as you can judge: what holds the building up, and how is this exploited for visual or even emotional effect? Can you guess about the expense of the materials or labor conditions in erecting the building?
A note on writing style. Whether you are writing a term paper, a quiz or exercise, an essay on an exam, or just speaking about architecture in a formal or informal presentation, your reader(s) or audience will typically judge your work half on content, half on expression. A superior presentation is characterized by: --good questions --good evidence --good arguments --good writing --good packaging.
Architectural history is a science. Writing or speaking on architectural history is a scientific process, not a narrative, so the words "I," "me," and "my" shall never appear in your responses. You don't need them, anyhow. "I think the front door of Buckingham Palace is too flashy" is a weak critique. You would do far better to say: "Compared to the greyness of the flanking walls, the front door of Buckingham Palace is too flashy," or, "Given that the residence of the Queen of England ought to be sober and dignified, the front door of Buckingham Palace is too flashy." Either of these new formulations are much stronger because they turn a mere opinion into a reasoned argument.
After drafting a paper, proof-read it and cut out run-on sentences. Avoid common errors, such as the confusion between its and it's (you don't write "hi's hat": why then should you write "it's facade"?); there and their; simplistic when you mean simple or basic.
A NOTE ON DIMENSIONS
The following basic dimensions of a few local landmarks should help you get a sense of scale for the buildings we will be studying this term. I will begin in the room we will be using all semester: the Frick auditorium, room 125, is about 45' (' is the standard symbol for feet) wide by 60' long to center stage. Its height is about 30', which suggests that it might have been designed in increments (or modules) of 15'. If so, the room would be three modules wide, four modules long, and two modules high, for a w:l:h ratio of 3:4:2. Classrooms 203 and 204 upstairs are about 25 x 30'. The main reading room of the library is about 35' wide and 58' long. The facade (main entrance) of the Frick Fine Arts Building [see plan in the Sourcebook and view on the website] is 122' wide and 177' long, except for the gallery that projects in the back.
By comparison, the main block of the Cathedral of Learning, without projecting wings, is roughly 225' square: that would be the dimensions of the first 20 floors of the tower portion. The building is 40 stories high, about 535'. The Washington Monument in Washington is 555' high, and the newer skyscrapers in New York and Chicago have exceeded 1000' feet (their stories are about 10' high: a 15-storey skyscraper would be about 150' high). The Commons Room at the base of the Cathedral of Learning is 128 x 175', and 60' high to the top of its vaults. Heinz Chapel, across from the Cathedral of Learning, is 253' high to the top of its spire. The lawn on which the Cathedral of Learning and Heinz Chapel sit covers 14 acres.
Now to some distances: it is approximately 800' from the Frick Building to Hillman Library, and some 1,200' from here to the Cathedral of Learning. It is 4,000' from here to Trees Hall--that's almost exactly three-quarters of a mile (1 mile = 5,280')--so don't schedule swimming after 0040 if you can help it. (From Frick to the "O" at the corner of Oakland and Forbes avenues is 1,600', if you're going to lunch after class instead.) The main "college" portion of Fifth Avenue, from the Cathedral of Learning lawn west to the Carlow College campus, is also 4,000'.
Now to some comparisons. The largest of the three Great Pyramids of Egypt is 756' long on each side. It is 480' high, and its base covers 13 acres. If moved to Oakland, it would fill up nearly all of the Cathedral of Learning lawn. It would be just 50' lower than the Cathedral top, and it would take you about as long to walk along one side as it does for you to walk from Frick to Hillman.
The main chamber of the Pantheon in Rome is about as wide as the Commons Room in the Cathedral of Learning: 143', but it is also 143' high, much taller than the Commons Room inside. Hence its total interior volume is much greater. The Pantheon walls are nearly 15' thick, so its main block measures 172' in length and width, plus its porch gives it an overall length of 228'. The Gothic cathedrals such as Chartres and Amiens were some 200' wide and as much as 500' long inside. The vaults of Amiens reach about 140': as high as a 14-storey modern skyscraper!
The most famous Renaissance building, St. Peter's basilica in Rome is about 700' long by 450' wide, bigger than all the Gothic cathedrals. But some of the richest monuments were surprisingly small. The Pazzi Chapel would nicely fit in our auditorium: 36' wide by 60' long, except that its inner volume rises to about 65', over twice as high as our ceiling. One of the most exquisite of all the buildings we will study in this course is, however, ideally dimensioned for this building. The Tempietto of S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome would fit perfectly in the rotunda of our building (in the Museum portion, just off the cloister): it is just 15' wide inside, about 27' in total exterior diameter, including columns, and rises to about 45', including its stepped base. That would just fit within the vaults in our rotunda, which is based--not coincidentally?--on Italian Renaissance architecture to begin with.
"FIRST EXERCISE" ON THE FRICK FINE ARTS BUILDING AND PREPARATION FOR THE FIRST SECTION MEETING OF THIS COURSE: There are no section meetings for the beginning week of this course. Instead, you will work on your own on an exercise in preparation for your first sections next week. Since architecture is interpreted through views and plans, this exercise will familiarize you with the plans of the Frick Fine Arts Building, which follow in both the Sourcebook and the website. Walk through the building until you recognize all features of the structure on the plans, and vice-versa. All buildings are composed of several factors, whose analysis yields their place and context in the history of architecture. Buildings are usually "documented" in some way also, with inscriptions, cornerstones, or plaques that help in their dating. The Frick building has about a dozen such inscriptions (not counting repeats).
On the plans themselves (rip them out, or photocopy), write your name and section letter, staple them together, then answer briefly the following questions: 1) Show the location of at least six inscriptions (not including those in the paintings), with a one-line summary next to each. Temporary inscriptions do not count: these must be carved into the walls, painted on, or affixed in the most permanent manner. List duplicates once only. 2) On the first floor plan, give compass orientation: North, east, south, and west. 3) On both plans, use red and black to draw two circulation paths--that is, lines showing how people move inside the building. Use red to indicate how the architect and patron probably expected the building to be used (you can determine that by the "natural flow" of room to room), and a second color to show how the building is actually used. This should also stimulate you to think about what kind of users the building gets. (The five rooms in the art gallery will probably not be open this early in the year, but I'll announce it if they open those rooms for us specially.) 4) What is a two-word definition for the shape of room A? (Use an arrow to point to A; write the definition nearby.) 5) What function is served at point B? 6) What function is served at point C? 7) What function is served at point D?
Be prepared to hand the plans in at your first section meeting. As you go through the building, read the preceding pages on methodology again. Use the opportunity to work on distinguishing description from analysis, and think about how architectural historians use historical materials.
On the website you will find some plans and views of the existing building, of the site before the Frick Fine Arts Building was constructed, and some proposed plans for it that were not built. These will be discussed at your first section meeting also. They give us a better understanding of some of the decisions--occasionally strange ones--that were incorporated in the final form of the building. The website illustrations follow:
1) Schenley Plaza before 1913. This old view shows Carnegie Library and Carnegie Mellon University (background left) and Phipps Conservatory (background right), looking approximately as you see them here. But it also shows the Forbes Field baseball stadium on the far right. This was destroyed a generation ago, and replaced by Forbes Quadrangle and Mervis Hall. St. Pierre's ravine (the depression in the center) has become a parking lot today. The bridge in the background of the old view is still standing exactly as it was, except that it is buried, and the Mary Schenley fountain stands on it. The Frick Fine Arts Building was constructed about where you see a formal garden with concentric walkways.
2) Frick Fine Arts Building in the context of Schenley Plaza and neighborboring buildings today.
3) Charles Z. Klauder's drawing of a proposed Frick Fine Arts Building in Baroque style, ca. 1932. This would have stood on the site of Heinz Chapel; compare it with its probable model, Francesco Borromini's S. Ivo della Sapienza, Rome, 1642: pp. 296--297 in the Wodehouse-Moffett text.
4) Eggers and Higgins, drawing for a proposed Frick Fine Arts Building in Renaissance style, 1960. How is this proposed building similar and how is it different from the building as constructed?
5) B. Kenneth Johnstone: external view of Frick Fine Arts Building as built, 1963. How does this differ from the Eggers and Higgins proposal? How were some deleted parts of the Eggers and Higgins proposal incorporated in the final design? What ethical problems are raised in the high degree of similarity between designs 4 and 5? There are also additional plans of the first and second floors, and other internal and external views.
LOOKING AT ARCHITECTURE, I: WHAT OUR EYES CAN DETERMINE (ORDINARY AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE)
Required reading: Sourcebook: the preceding section on methodology of description, analysis, and criticism.
Lecture abstract: Some very ordinary elements of the American (and world) architectural landscape are shown to be immensely rich in meaning, but one needs to ask the right questions in order to elicit the most profound possible answers. Most of these are about things one can see, but some aren't. The questions range from the structural and aesthetic to the social and intellectual. They spread out in concentric rings that encompass these ordinary buildings, their site, their region, their country, and the rest of the world. That is how rich architectural history is. We will see this even as we look at some very ordinary American architecture.
Key works: Ordinary American buildings, whose identity I am concealing until we discuss them in class.
LEARNING FROM ARCHITECTURE: WHAT ONLY HISTORY CAN DETERMINE (EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE)
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 1, pp. 10--18; Chapter 2, pp. 21--25.
Old Kingdom (c. 3200-2100 B.C.) Centralized political and economic organization. Kings (Pharaohs) of divine origin; powerful system of central and local officials.
Middle Kingdom (c. 2100-1800 B.C.) Feudal age of powerful landed nobility, with some centralized power in the hands of the Pharaohs.
New Kingdom (1570-1085 B.C.): Foundation of military empire extending south to Abyssinia, east to Euphrates. Corresponding expansion of foreign trade. Enormous wealth and luxury. Brief, unsuccessful attempt by Ikhnaton to establish monotheism. In the Ptolemaic period (c. 300 - 30 B.C.) centralized power was briefly revived.
Egyptian architecture is characterized by preference for simple cubic masses, sense of weight, solidity, permanence. Massive tremendous scale, heavy walls and supports. Repetition of similar geometric forms: rectangular and polygonal piers, columns with capitals and shafts in simplified plant shapes. All-over decoration in low or sunken relief or painting. Axial organization. Architecture symbolic of eternal order, reflects natural order of environment of the Nile Valley. Artistic conventions begun in Old Kingdom last 3000 years. Primary concerns were polytheistic religion and life after death.
Key Works: 1) Saqqarah, near Cairo, Egypt: Step Pyramid of King Zoser, attributed to Imhotep, c. 2700 BC, and temple complex: reconstructed view; perimeter wall detail; contemporary sarcophagus form; interior with engaged columns; fake door with faience tiles; engaged columns; pp. 12--13. [NOTE: all illustrations are indicated by page numbers in Wodehouse and Moffett; you need to get used to the fact that the text illustrations, the website illustrations, and the illustrations in the class lectures will inevitably differ somewhat, even though they all portray the same buildings.] 2) Pyramids of Cheops, Chefren and Mycerinus, Giza (nr. Cairo), c. 2600--2500 BC: reconstruction; view today; detail of partial original casing; pp. 15--17. 3) Temple/Tomb of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir-el-Bahari, Egypt, attributed to Senmut, c. 1520 B.C.: plan; reconstructed view; views today; colonnade; p. 24.
Works in Context: Mastaba form; p. 11 Karnak: Temple of Khons in the precinct of Amon-Re, 12th century B.C.; pp. 25--26.
Terms: plan, section, elevation: Wodehouse fig. 1.13 is a plan of the pyramids; 1.14 is a section; fig. 3.12 is an elevation drawing. Post-and-lintel (trabeated system: illustrated on pp. 23--25); mastaba.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 2, pp. 28--36; Chapter 3, 41--58.
Minoan (c. 2000-1400 B.C.) Chiefly palaces. Destroyed c. 1700 B.C., rebuilt, destroyed again c. 1400. Great palace of the legendary King Minos at Knossos, Crete, featured complex plan around central court, maze-like store rooms, stairways with inverted column and air shafts, painted decoration, indoor plumbing. There is evidence of private houses as well. Mycenean c. 1400-1200 B.C. at Mycenae and Tiryns, Greek mainland. Became dominant culture as Minoan declined c. 1400 B.C. Fortress-like citadels featured cyclopean walls, massive gates.
Greece. Small city states on peninsulas and islands separated by mountain ranges and sea. Sea trade and colonization make for close connections with Asia Minor, the Near East, southern Italy and Sicily.
Doric order: massive members, strongly articulated with particular stress on relation of weight and support. Pronounced curve of echinus, entasis of shaft. Bold, vigorous profiles
Ionic order: highly ornamented with rich mouldings, extensive sculptural decoration. Lighter proportions, more delicate detail.
Early Classic (c. 480-450 B.C.) Overthrow of Tyrants; republican city states. Primacy of Athens. Chiefly Doric order, less extreme curves, more restrained in expression.
Classic (c. 450-400 B.C.) Age of Pericles. Period of peace. Greatest brilliance and wealth of Athens. Synthesis of Doric clarity and simplicity and Ionic delicacy of proportion and line. Use of sculpture.
Key Works: 1) Knossos, Crete: palace of legendary King Minos, c. 3000-1450 B.C., in its last phase c. 1600--1450 B.C.; pp. 30--31, and first colorplate. 2) Tiryns, Greece: citadel with megaron, c. 1500--1300 BC, p. 36. See website for reconstructed view of citadel; reconstructed Megaron plan; reconstructed Megaron exterior. 3) Paestum, Italy: temples (sometimes called basilicas) of Hera I, c. 550 BC and Hera Argiva II (or Poseidon), c. 450 BC; pp. 43--45. 4) Athens: the Acropolis with the Parthenon, by Ictinus (apparently over a foundation prepared by Callicarates), 442-437 B.C.: plan; restricted view from Propylaea; unrestricted view; pp. 46--49. Works in Context: Votive plaques representing houses: Crete, 3rd millennium B.C. Aegina: Temple of Aphaia (Athena), c. 500--490 B.C., or later Athens: Erectheum, Acropolis, 421-405 B.C.; p. 51. Athens: Temple of Athene Nike, Acropolis, 427-424 B.C.; p. 50. Private house plans from Olynthus, ca. 430 B.C. Miletus city plan, Turkey, attributed to Hippodamus of Miletus, c. 480 B.C.; p. 56.
Terms: stylobate, shaft, entasis, capital, entablature, pediment, the orders
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE: FOUNDATIONS
Reading (for both this and following lecture): Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 4, pp. 75--87.
Suggested: Norberg-Schulz, Chapter 3
Roman Republic (4th c. to 27 BC) Originally small republican city state, chiefly of free landowners. Expansion into entire Mediterranean basin with corresponding growth of commerical and financial power; world trade. Decline of small landowners, growth of landed aristocracy, wealthy commercial class, slave labor. Absorption of Greek culture.
Roman Empire (27 BC 476 AD) Empire established by Augustus. Conquests in Central Europe and north to England during first two centuries. Centralized and orderly world-wide organization around old and newly founded urban centers. Creation of overall administrative and legal framework comparable to modern. Extensive public works, imperial patronage of the arts.
Roman Architecture: Elements derived from both Greek and Etruscan traditions. An architecture of wall and enclosed tactile space. Individual column with entablature no longer the basic architectural unity. Orders used to articulate the wall, to clarify and dramatize the organization of interior and exterior by a framework of vertical and horizontal divsions: engaged columns, pilasters, arch order, superposed orders both free-standing and applied (engaged), painted architectural membering. Use of truss roof in trabeated construction, and extensive use of vaulted construction for large uninterrupted spaces. Vaults originally used only for purely utilitarian structures, gradually adopted in monumental public architecture.
Kew Works: 1) Nåmes, France: Pont du Gard, 1st c. BC; p. 64. 2) Nåmes: so-called Maison CarrÇe (properly called Temple of Jupiter), 1st c. BC; p. 73. 3) Pompeii: House of Pansa, p. 83, second century BC. (Similar to Vettii house, ca. 70 A.D. on website). [The house occupied a full city block, as your text says, but note that the section at the top of p. 83 has been erroneously enlarged, so that it seems to correspond to the garden as well.] 5) Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, written about 29 BC. 6) Colosseum (properly called Flavian amphitheater), Rome: c. 72-80 AD; pp. 79--81.
Works in Context: Rome: Round temple in the Forum Boarium (Temple by the Tiber), c. 120 BC Tivoli, nr. Rome: round temple of the Sibyl or of Vesta, 1st c. BC Palestrina (ancient Praeneste), near Rome: Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, c. 80 BC Domus Aurea (Golden House) of Nero, Rome, 64 AD Baths of Diocletian, Rome, 398-306 AD; p. 78. Split, Croatia, Palace of Diocletian, c. 300 AD
Terms: illusionism ("a perception that fails to give the true character of the object perceived"), dome (fig. 4.17), barrel vault (fig. 4.20), groin vault (fig. 4.24), pilaster, half-column, basilica, arch or vault (arcuated system); tensile and compressive forces
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE: CONCRETE VISIONS
Late Antique style (from 3rd c. AD): Increasing pressure from barbarians at frontiers (soldier-emperors). Shrinking economic prosperity. Gradual decline of landed aristocracy and wealthy commerical class, replaced by court aristocracy. Steady growth of proletariat and slave class, mercenary army. Disappearance of middle class. Emperor more and more despotic on pattern of oriental rulers, with complicated court ceremonial. Imperial policy frequently determined by demands of proletarial and by popular religious movements (such as Mithraism and Christianity). Christianity recognized in 313 (Edict of Milan); state religion in 380.
New materials for the sculptural and volumetric richness of late imperial or Late Antique architecture: concrete with brick and stone facing, marble veneers. Sculptural decoration usually free standing statues in niches. Walls painted in illusionistic fresco. Buildings axially organized, with logical relations of main and subordinate axes, from single units to large scale city plans. Spatially, Roman architecture shows a development from closed, simple space units and regular articulation to more complex spatial relations, more fluid interpenetration of spaces, more rhythmic organization of space and mass.
Key Works: 1) Pantheon, Rome, c. 118--128 AD: plan; view; reconstructed section; p. 73 and website. 2) Forum of Trajan, Rome, c. 111-117, attributed to Apollodorus of Damascus; p. 71--72. 3) Basilica Ulpia, the middle element in the Forum of Trajan, as in fig. 4.11). See also website for reconstruction views. 3) Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine, Rome, 307-312 AD: reconstructed plan; 18th-century interior view; p. 76 and website.
Works in Context: Constantinian Basilica, Trier, Germany, early 4th c.
Terms: "poured" concrete (actually laid on: it was too thick to be poured, as it would be today); cross-axial planning
EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE
Reading (combined with next lecture): Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 5, pp. 88--102.
The invention of the Christian church was one of the brilliant--perhaps the most brilliant--solutions in architectural history. This was achieved by a process of assimilating and rejecting various precedents, such as the Greek temple, the Roman public building, the private Roman house, and the synagogue. The Early Christian period saw the growth of Christianity, effectively an underground Eastern mystery cult during the first three centuries AD. It was established as the state religion of the Empire under the successors of Constantine. Ecclesiastical administration set up within the framework of the Roman Empire. Little change in social and economic order. Gradual split between Eastern and Western Empire in state and church. Political and economic breakdown of the West, ending in barbarian invasions.
By far the most common building type in Early Christian architecture was the basilical church, developed from the Roman secular basilica. There was also a centralized type developed from Roman tombs. Basilical plan modified for liturgical requirements; congregation and clergy segregated in nave and aisles vs. transept and apse. Different variants in East and West.
In Rome, classical marble wall membering and vocabulary, and emphasis on massive wall, gradually replaced by broad, flat surfaces, evenly lighted; plain brick exteriors; mosaic bands of interiors. Long planes with little articulation, either horizontal or vertical.
Kew Works: 1) Christian house-church, Dura Europos, Syria, 230 AD: see website, and compare with House of Pansa in earlier lecture. 2) [Old] St. Peter's basilica, Rome, c. 324--possibly 319--to 335: exterior reconstruction; reconstructed cutaway of basilica and atrium; interior reconstruction; reconstructed plans; recostructed interior view, painted while some of St. Peter's was still standing; p. 90 and website.
Works in Context: King Herod's temple, Jerusalem, Israel: first-century BC successor to King Solomon's temple: destroyed 70 AD; now with Dome of the Rock (p. 104) on same terrace. Synagogue, Dura Europos, Syria, about 230 AD: west wall with Torah (Bible) niche and frescoes, today in National Museum, Damascus. Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem, Israel, ca. 335: Church of the Nativity, c. 333, Bethlehem, p. 90. Ravenna: S. Apollinare in Classe, consecrated 549; pp 93--94. Ravenna: Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, consecrated 525, p. 89.
Terms: Transept, apse, nave, aisles, atrium, catechumen, clerestory, basilica, domus ecclesia ("house-church").
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE
Byzantine Empire (eastern): Eastern Roman Empire dominant from fifth century, reaching its highest point under Justinian (527-565). Extremely centralized and despotic personal rule. Brilliance and magnificence of court and court ritual.
Byzantine Architecture can be defined in a number of ways. Chronologically it extended from the sixth to the fifteenth century. Politically, it was the architecture of the Byzantine empire, directed from Constantinople, in that same chronological period. The main buildings were designed in Constantinople, no matter where they were built. Stylistically, Byzantine architecture tended to rich surfaces, plans and sections rich in spatial interplay, especially culminating in domes. Strong emphasis on vaulted central type as a result of variants in ritual. Structure: occasional basilicas with open timber roofs; more typically, central type with domes on pendentives or squinches and groin vaults supported by piers; walls have no structural function, become decorative screens. Free-flowing interior space, light continuous wall surfaces straight and curved. Coloristic treatment of surfaces, with all-over decoration: mosaic, marble veneer, lacy carved capitals, spandrels, and balustrades. Solidity of wall dissolved by shimmering light, frequently from hidden sources.
Key Works: 1) Rome, Sta. Costanza, fourth (more likely fifth) century; plan, section, interior view, p. 92. Not Byzantine, but showing that tendency to rich centralized space that would become the hallmark of Byzantine later. 2) S. Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, 526--consecrated 547: reconstructed plan; exterior today; cutaway of original appearance; pp. 98--99. 3) Hagia Sofia (=Santa Sophia), Istanbul (Constantinople), Turkey, 532-537, by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus: view; plan; section; axonometric section; note thinness of screen wall below the dome; pp. 95--97 and website.
Works in Context: Florence: sixth-century Early Christian cathedral of S. Reparata, built over the walls of a Roman domus; later rebuilt and finally replaced after 1296 by the cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore. [Not in book or website. See: Franklin Toker, "Excavations below the Cathedral of Florence, 1965-1974," Gesta 14/2 (1975):17-36.]
Terms: central-plan church, screen wall.
EARLY MEDIEVAL, CAROLINGIAN, OTTONIAN, AND ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 7, pp. 118--143, 154--158.
The Early Medieval period in architecture extended from about 550 to 1050, and covers three phases: Early Medieval itself (what used to be called the "Dark Ages," around 550--750; Carolingian, 750--950; and Ottonian, 950--1050. These are approximatations, of course. The Romanesque style dominated Europe for about a century, 1050--1150, after which it was supplanted by Gothic in France, but it held on in Italy, Spain, and Germany for another century.
Carolingian and Ottonian buildings epitomize the organization of the feudal, agricultural society formed on the ruins of the Western Roman Empire in Central and western Europe. Episcopal seats and especially monastic centers were the main cultural centers throughout the Early Medieval, Carolingian and Ottonian eras. The Carolingian Empire was formed on French and German soil by Charlemagne after 750 and reached its height to about 850. This was a period in which the Early Christian basilicas and the Byzantine structures in or near Europe were re-evaluated and in some cases replicated. Carolingian style declined with the decline of its political base, which was very rapid after the year 800. Ottonian refers to the architecture of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany and large parts of France and Italy) under the three emperors Otto I, II, and III, from 962 to 1002, and their successors to around the year 1050. Their architecture was conservative, once again based on a reformulation of the Early Christian basilica, but with sensitive changes of emphasis.
Romanesque architecture is marked by the integration and monumentalization of elements from Roman, Early Christian and provincial Byzantine architecture. Cathedrals and monastic churches, mostly basilican in type. Plan determined by liturgial demands: High Mass, antiphonal choirs of clergy, separation of clergy and people. Numerous altars with relics, etc. Massive and austere, with heavy walls, small windows. Usually vaulted: clearly defined tactile space and interior. Articulation on exterior and interior by vertical and horizontal members defining main and subordinate divisions. On the exterior, varying combinations of twin facade towers, crossing and transept towers, sharply marked nave, aisles and transept wings, apses with ambulatories and radiating chapels.
On the interior, clearly segregated bays, clearly marked stories and massive supports frequently set in alternating rhythms. Open timber roofs or ribs on vaults (barrel and groin), compound piers and heavy moldings accentuate interior divisions, horizontal and vertical; sometimes half-barrel vaulted galleries with vaulted aisles below; applied members in varied combinations (salient pier buttresses, pilaster strips, engaged shafts, arched corbel tables, string courses, etc.) mark exterior subdivisions. Wide variety of local styles in Tuscany, Lombardy, Rhineland, Burgundy, Normandy and England. Importance of pilgrimage routes (Southern France and Spain), sponsored by Benedictines (Cluny). The event that provoked the most dynamic change was the Crusades.
Key Works: CAROLINGIAN: 1) Lorsch, Germany: Torhalle (gatehouse) of the Imperial Abbey, 768-774 or later; p. 122. 2) Aachen, Germany (= Aix-la-Chapelle in French): Charlemagne's palace chapel, 792-805; pp. 120--121.
OTTONIAN: 3) Abbey church of St. Michael, Hildesheim, 1010 (though past the year 1000, and though placed in your text under "Romanesque architecture," this is entirely Ottonian rather than Romanesque in sprit); pp. 130--131.
ROMANESQUE: 4) St.-Philibert, Tournus, France, c. 1000: plan at ground floor level; nave; pp. 129--130 and website. 5) St.-Sernin, Toulouse, France, c. 1080-1120: plan; aerial view with radiating chapels, pp. 136--137. For a good impression of its galleries and ribbed barrel vault, see fig. 7.35 of Ste.-Foye at Conques. For a sense of the interior color of St.-Sernin, see the colorplate of Ste.-Foye at Conques and the Ste.-Madeleine at VÇzelay. Works in Context: Mausoleum of Theodoric, Ravenna, Italy, about 500-526; ?? Ideal monastery plan for St. Gall, Switzerland, about 820; p. 126 San Miniato al Monte, Florence, Italy, c. 1062-1090 and later, transitional Ottonian-Romanesque: plan; facade; nave interior, with view to raised presbytery above and crypt below; p. 133. [Third] Abbey Church of Cluny, France, c. 1088-1130: reconstructed view; remains of the abbey today; pp. 140--141.
Terms: gallery, ambulatory, radiating chapels, pier, feudalism
TRANSITION TO GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
Reading for all three lectures on Gothic: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 8, pp. 159--185. IMPORTANT NOTE ON THE READING FOR THIS WEEK: In addition to students are to consult special readings for the section meetings this week: Robert Mark and John Summerson (see reserve shelf listings at front of book). After you read both of the special readings, prepare a one-paragraph summary of either one, to be handed in in your section meeting.
The relationship between Romanesque and Gothic is rather special, though not unique, in the chronology of architectural styles. Nearly all the elements of Gothic architecture were in fact created in Romanesque churches. But by themselves they did not lead to Gothic: Gothic is the integration and aesthetic exploitation of these elements. Such a situation repeated itself in the transition from Renaissance to Baroque architecture, in the transition from Baroque to Rococo, and in the transfer of modern architecture from the U.S. to Europe around 1910.
This lecture focuses on what these transitional elements were, and how they were exploited by the early Gothic builders.
Key Works: 1) Speyer Cathedral, Germany, 1030--1182; pp. 131--132. From wooden roof to alternating support system (regular and compound piers) and groin vaults. 2) Durham Cathedral, England: Experiments in rib vaulting c. 1093ff, vaulted ca. 1130; prototype "flying buttress" (actually quadrant arch in gallery); pp. 156--158. 3) Caen, France, St.-Etienne (Abbaye aux Hommes), c. 1068-1120: "folded" square bay shape; true six-rib vaults around 1100 or 1120; pp. 155--156.
Work in context: St.-TrinitÇ, Caen, France, c. 1062, vaulted around 1135: pseudo-sexpartite vaults in domical square bays with false six-rib configuation.
Terms: bay (a vertical division, or unit of a building), alternating support system, diaphragm arch; transverse arch, barrel vault, quadrant vaults, mass-loading, point-loading, rib vault
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AS ENGINEERING
Suggested reading: Norberg-Schulz, Chap. 6; Erwin Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (on reserve)
This second look at Gothic architecture will concentrate on its development as a technical system. EARLY AND HIGH GOTHIC (c. 1150-1300): Dominance of France; cultural center in royal domain of north-east France (Ile-de- France). Revival of commercial activity during and after the Crusades; growth of new merchant class and guilds. Importance of cities as centers of cultural as well as economic life (cathedrals, universities). Systematization of doctrine: resolution of conflicts between pagan and Christian authorities, theology and secular knowledge, faith and reason in a grandiose synthesis. Thomas Acquinas: the Summa Theologiae.
Architecture: limited almost entirely to cathedral cities of north-east France. Plan determined by liturgical function (cf. Romanesque), greater concentration on the high altar. Climax of skeleton construction; ribbed vaults, applied shafts, flying buttresses, stepped pier buttresses, all in delicate adjustment, form extremely light, thin, skeletal framework. Walls reduced to diaphanous screens of tracery and glass; facade wall dissolved by sculptural decoration, enormous recessed portals, tracery and glass. Verticality through tall, thin proportions, pointed arches, continuity of vertical members. Opposing principles of logical clarity of vertical and horizontal divisions and emotional quality given by dim light (stained glass), and fluid vertical continuity, reconciled by extreme thinness and delicacy of divisions. Materials: ashlar masonry, glass. Rib-vaulted structure adapted to meet new requirements. Elimination of alternate support system calls for oblong rib vaults. Full explication of concentrated weight and thrust; thin shafts and piers, flying buttresses from spirelike stepped pier buttresses at outer edge of aisles to haunch and springing of nave vaults.
LATE GOTHIC world (c. 1300-1500): Formation of a new international culture supported by courtly and patrician upper classes: the Papacy; great nobles; bankers and business men. Combination of practical business sense and romantic revival of chivalry. Scholastic logic and system replaced by realism and sentiment, often merged with mysticism. Humanization of religious experience: growth of practical religion (Franciscans, Dominicans). Impoverishment of lower classes, accelerated by plague, civil and foreign wars (Hundred Years' War). Religious and social rebellions. Late Gothic period overlaps the beginnings of the Renaissance in Italy (c. 1400-1500).
Late Gothic Architecture: influenced by the requirements of new monastic orders and wealthy burgher class. Plan: frequent elimination of transept, numerous altar niches; hall churches. Adapted to needs of individual worship and to new emphasis on sermon and secular types. Plain exteriors; wide, often low interiors, broad spreading space. Emphasis on wall surfaces. Surface decoration: multiplication of ribs, shafts, etc., for decorative purposes; wall paintings. Little articulation on exterior or interior: rejection of High Gothic logic. Wide windows, often with plain glass.
Key Works: 1) Abbey church of St.-Denis, outside Paris, east end, 1140-1144: plan of Abbot Suger's new ambulatory and apse; facade (website has interior view of new ambulatory); p. 162. 2) Amiens Cathedral, begun 1220, completed about 1275: transverse section; interior nave elevation; aerial view; p. 160 (Amiens, but unidentified: see marked parts of church), pp. 178--180. See also colorplate for the interior facade of the similar cathedral of Reims, and colorplates of the vaults of Reims and Beauvais. 3) Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, 1243-48: old exterior view; interior section and view today; pp. 181--182.
Works in Context: Laon Cathedral, begun ca. 1160; p. 163--165. Notre-Dame, Paris, first real flying buttress, ca. 1180; facade ca. 1200--1250; pp. 166--168. Bourges Cathedral, best buttresses developed around 1200, but not copied; pp. 174--175. Beauvais Cathedral, collapsed after 1225, perhaps because of poor intermediate buttressing pier; pp. 180--181.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AS POETRY
(See preceding lectures for readings and certain key works that will be revisited)
This lecture looks again at Gothic architecture, here from the standpoints of artistic composition, cultural expression, and spiritual meaning. The final result was dematerialized structure: the architecture of transcendence.
Key Work: 1) Chartres Cathedral, interior, begun 1194: nave interior; side aisle view; detail clerestory, triforium, and springing of rib vaults; pp. 169--173. 2) Review of St.-Denis, Sainte-Chapelle, Amiens Cathedral
Works in Context: NÅrnberg, Germany: Sankt Lorenz, parish church, 14th-15th c., with choir ca. 1480. Villard de Honnecourt sketches, pp. 183--185. City planning in Siena, Italy, and the Piazza del Campo, 13-14th c.: p. 207 and see colorplate.
Terms/Names: Abbot Suger, St. Thomas Aquinas, Scholasticism, clerestory, triforium, flying buttress
TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE OF AFRICA
Recommended Reading: Labelle Prussin, "An Introduction to Indigenous African Architecture," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 33 (1974):183-194, and 205; and Suzanne Preston Blier, "Houses are Human: Architectural Self-Images of Africa's Tamberma," JSAH 42 (1983): 371--382. (Both on reserve). Other sources: Frank Willett, "African Architecture"in African Art, chap. 4, pp. 115-137; Julius GlÅck, "African Architecture," in Douglas Fraser, ed., The many Faces of Primitive Art: A Critical Anthology, Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1966.
Lecture abstract: Looking at "ordinary" architecture in Africa, tells us about one of the world's oldest and richest architectural traditions--almost the only one that still survives from the dawn of human history--and reinforces the description-analysis-critique methodology that informs this course.
African architecture works on a traditional village scale, rather than following global architectural styles: the representative works chosen for today may lead us to some root concepts of African style. It is difficult to look at architecture in Africa and to hope to cover the entire continent: my personal experience has been with traditional architecture in East Africa, among the Geriyama, but the literature is massively slanted to West Africa, especially to the architecture of the Dogon, Ashanti, Hausa, and Yoruba peoples. This literature is indeed informative, but only regionally. Trying to use it to discuss all of Africa would be like using Taos Pueblo in New Mexico as representative of all American housing.
African architecture is a direct evocation of its physical environment, and takes its style--and it is extremely stylish--not from abstract aesthetic notions but from the basic need and image the building has to serve. The climate of Africa is extremely varied, from forests to grasslands to desert. Thus the available building materials are also varied, from mud to stone to thatch, and they change region by region (the way American architecture once changed regionally, until shipment of materials by railroad "nationalized" American style in the 1850s).
Sub-Saharan Africa produced some large-scale works, such as the Great Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe, but on the whole we do not find "architects" in traditional African building: what we find instead are traditional builders, who combined a certain priestly function as well. One is impressed above all by the symbolic imagery of traditional African building. Using mud may have certain technical disadvantages, but it is probably the most expressive of all materials. It not only lends itself brilliantly to surface decoration, but the very shapes of the buildings express their functions and their ideology. The facades of Dogon houses, for example, have many similarities to their masks. Much village housing is marked by anthropomorphism: the house not only houses its owner (and maker), it expresses his or her stage in life, and is closed down at his or her death.
Key Work: 1) Traditional earthen roundhouse, Tamberma (Batammaliba) region of Togo and Benin: view and cutaway diagram and elevation, with traditional names for house parts (figs. 1, 5, 12 in Blier article), and website.
Works in Context (most on website): Houses of the Geriyama tribe, Kenya, E. coast of Africa, 20th century Traditional mud architecture, Bozo region of Mali; fig. 1 in Prussin. Traditional wood openwork screen house, Ghana; fig. 4 in Prussin. Traditional earthen roundhouses, Tallensi and Konkomba regions of Ghana; fig. 5, 12 in Prussin. Traditional stone construction, Dogon region of Mali; fig. 8 in Prussin. Mud mosque, Kawara, Upper Volta (ex-Ivory Coast) Decorated house facades, Zaria, Nigeria: painted facades and mud relief, including a bicycle Ribbed beehive clay houses, Musgu tribe, northern Cameroon Mud wall and thatched roof house, Congo, Central Africa Wood-ribbed house, Cameroon The Great Zimbabwe (stone fortress), 14th-15th c., Zimbabwe Cave-house in shape of a human face, Bomarzo, Italy, 16th c. Frank Toker in the Geriyama village of Chonyi
Terms: vernacular, anthropomorphic, traditional
THE EARLY RENAISSANCE: BRUNELLESCHI
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 9, pp. 209--219, 222--229.
Historical background: Growing importance of the upper bourgeoisie (especially merchants, bankers). Expansion of industry and world trade; voyages of exploration begin. Commercial and financial dominance of Flanders and Italy. Increased patronage of the arts by wealthy individuals.
Cultural history: Fifteenth century, first half: Principal center, Florence. Organization of civic life in Florence with guilds playing dominant role, often under leadership of wealthy families (the Medici). Patronage of arts, literature, poets, philosophers, etc., by merchant princes. Intensification and redefinition of humanism as a philosophy assigning man a rational place in the cosmos--religious, ethical, political, and economic. Emphasis on fusion of rational and practical viewpoints, drawing on ancient philosophy, literature, and art as examples of the humanistic viewpoint.
Architectural history: In terms of formal analysis, the Renaissance in architecture marks a return to the vocabulary and (in part) the compositional principles of classical architecture, and hence a return to the foundations of western art. The importance of this achievement can hardly be overemphasized, because the return to rationality and modular linkage in building prefigures the emphasis on rationality and scientific method so characteristic of the modern world. But in terms of human significance, we are indebted to the Renaissance architects for instilling "self-awareness" in their buildings, parallel to the self-awareness of Renaissance painting, sculpture, and philosophy. These themes are first enunciated by the two co-founders of Renaissance architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi and Leon Battista Alberti. Brunelleschi represents self-awareness in his concern for architecture as a system of mathematical co- ordinates rather than an arbitrary or irrational selection of forms. Highly important is the new kind of architect envisaged and encouraged by Alberti, who wrote in his treatise On Building, around 1452: "Painting and mathematics are as indispensable to the architect as the knowledge of metrical feet and syllables is to the poet, and I doubt whether a superficial knowledge of these arts will suffice." Both the Early and High Renaissance popularized two new formal approaches to architecture. One is the central-plan church (as opposed to the longitudinal basilica), in which the altar is set in a circular or polygonal building, or one with four equal arms (the so- called Greek Cross). The other is the module--the basic unit of measure in a modular plan, generally derived from the human body. The module is then repeated numerically throughout the building. This numerical system, popularized around the time of Brunelleschi, replaced the geometric basis of most Medieval architecture, which could not be expressed in terms of whole numbers.
Key Works: 1) Arnolfo di Cambio: original plan for S. Maria del Fiore, Florence, with Gothic cupola, 1296; pp. 212--213 illustrates existing building, which is a development from Arnolfo's plan. For Arnolfo's conception, see the website. 2) Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446): Dome (cupola) for Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, Florence, 1420-36; pp. 212--214. 3) Brunelleschi: S. Spirito, Florence, designed 1434, begun 1444 to the 1470s; p. 217; hypothetical reconstruction of original project and hypothetical reconstruction of modular units in original plan: see website.
Works in Context: Brunelleschi, Masaccio, and Alberti: experiments in perspective, 1419--1440. Brunelleschi: S. Lorenzo, Florence, begun about 1420; pp. 215--216. Attributed to Brunelleschi: Pazzi Chapel at S. Croce, Florence, 1429-61; pp. 218--219.
Terms: Quattrocento (15th century), humanism, perspective, ratio, "proportion in perspective," central-plan building, module
THE EARLY RENAISSANCE: FILARETE AND ALBERTI
Readings: see preceding lecture
Cultural history: Fifteenth century, second half: Decline of the merchant class in Florence, except for a small group of bankers. Concentration of wealth in a few great families, establishment of a new landed aristocracy. Refined court life under Lorenzo de Medici. New mystical philosophy (Neo-Platonism) in court, and religious mysticism in popular sphere (Savonarola). Growing importance of other middle and northern Italian courts (Urbino, Mantua, Milan, etc.) and papal court. Fall of House of Medici and French conquest of Italy at end of century.
Alberti expands on Brunelleschi's experiments by stressing walls rather than points in his buildings, and by enwrapping architecture in a wider urban and social context. Ancient Rome was for Alberti a far more potent design source than it was for Brunelleschi. Alberti is crucial also for the social history of architecture, since he moved it from a technical art to a branch of the humanities, where it has remained--rather ambiguously--ever since.
Filarete, a Florentine architect working in Milan, is an enigmatic figure who nonetheless played an important role in the evolution of High Renaissance style.
The early projects by Leonardo da Vinci drew on the same spirit of enquiry of Alberti, and developed some of the schemes in the notebooks left behind by Filarete in Milan.
Key Works: 1) Leonbattista Alberti: Ten Books on Architecture, ca. 1450, published 1470s. 2) Alberti: S. Andrea, Mantua, 1472--18th century; pp. 226--227. 3) Filarete's treatise on architecture, ca. 1462 (unpublished until modern times): buildings for the ideal city of Sforzinda: see website. 4) Leonardo's architectural sketchbooks from Milan, 1480s and 1490s: p. 233; represention of a church interior in anti-perspectival rendering (website). Works in Context: Alberti: Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, 1450s--1470s; p. 224. Alberti: S. Maria Novella facade, Florence, ca. 1455; pp. 224--225.
THE HIGH RENAISSANCE: LEONARDO AND BRAMANTE
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 9, pp. 229--241.
The High Renaissance (c. 1495-1520): Rise of strong central governments all over Europe, parallel with growth of large-scale capitalistic enterprise. Accession of Henry VIII in England (1509), Francis I in France (1515), and Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor and heir to Spain, Netherlands, Austria, Naples and Sicily, etc. (1519).
In Italy, during the brief interlude of peace between two foreign invasions, shift of political and cultural center to Rome with expansion of papal territory and sphere of influence, especially under Julius II (1503-1513). Republic of Venice only competing power in Italy.
State patronage of the arts replacing private patronage. In Italy, romantic cult of antiquity replaced by rational recreation of classic principles in classic vocabulary for modern purposes: systematic balance between Christianity and paganism, with the two mutually complementing each other.
In the High Renaissance the focus of architecture moved physically from Florence to Rome and Venice, while its aesthetic objectives became the search for an all encompassing spatial experience. The three major architects of the century were Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, and Andrea Palladio. Bramante expanded on the Quattrocentro idea of self-awareness, which he transformed into a perception of one's position in a complex by response to mass and volume. (For Michelangelo and Palladio, see following notes.)
Key Works: 1) Donato Bramante: S. Maria presso S. Satiro, Milan, c. 1485; p. 236, and colorplate of interior. 2) Bramante: Tempietto of S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome, 1502++; p. 237, with reconstructed plan and section as intended to be built (website). 2) Bramante and others: New St. Peter's, Rome, founded 1506, reconstruction of proposed plan, p. 238; see website for fragment of proposed plan and views of construction underway.
Works in Context: Leonardo da Vinci: Adoration of the Magi, Florence, 1481 Leonardo: Last Supper, Milan, 1495--97 Bramante: S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, c. 1490 Raphael: School of Athens fresco in papal apartments, The Vatican, 1509 Raphael: The Expulsion of Heliodorus (same location), 1511-12. Bramante: Belvedere Palace, the Vatican, 1505; p. 239.
Terms: Cinquecento (16th century), orthogonal section and elevation; harmonic proportion; positive-negative concept of mass and space (the play of mass and void in which space emerges not merely as a vacuum but as an almost tangible positive force); sequentiality, simultaneity, Mannerism.
PERSONAL VISIONS: MICHELANGELO AND PALLADIO
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 9, pp. 242--262.
The sixteenth century certainly produced an exceptional number of masterpieces in architecture. While the first decades of the century were marked by the same optimism that had characterized the fifteenth century, the later decades were not. The years after 1520 were marked by intense conflict on a religious, political, and social basis. The mercantile powers, predominantly Protestant, in the North ranked themselves in opposition to the Catholic, aristocratic, agricultural states of Southern Europe. The Protestant Reformation, beginning in 1517, led to religious and political wars in Germany and Netherlands and the English defeat of Spain in the aborted Armada expedition of 1588. The temporal power of the Papacy were eclipsed in wars against Francis I of France and Charles V, head of the Holy Roman Empire. The traumatic event in Italy was the Sack of Rome by imperial troops in 1527. Henceforth the century was marked by reactionary causes and the rise of rigid political and religious absolutism. The mid-century Catholic Counter-Reformation was dominated by Spain and implemented by the Inquisition. The Medici family (for whom Michelangelo worked) reestablished itself in Florence under the autocratic Grand Dukes of Tuscany. The state and individual magnates of Venice (for whom Palladio worked) quite successfully kept aloof from these conflicts, though change was threatening the ancient republic as well. (Only recently we have learned that several of Palladio's clients were, or were accused of being, secret Protestants.)
Mannerism in the arts appears to have been an expression of the social tensions enumerated above. Both Michelangelo and Palladio were certainly touched, at least, by this current. It was a variant of Late Renaissance style that used a classical vocabulary to create an anti-classical ambiance of conflict and doubt. Tensions are created by means of spatial ambiquities, contrasts of open and shut or rough and smooth, conflict between architectural, or disintegrating forms. Axes show new interest in movement in space towards a goal. Use of colossal order. Sometimes tensions are ignored in favor of a deliberate, cold, classicistic perfection. This disturbing style reflects the unresolved political, philosophical, social and religious conflicts of the sixteenth century.
At St. Peter's, Michelangelo completed the work of his three predecessors with a mastery of scale and organizing powers--characteristic of all High Renaissance artists--and in addition returned to architecture some of the expressionistic qualities that had been downplayed in the Early Renaissance.
The extent to which Michelangelo was able to impose his personal style upon St. Peter's without essentially altering the interior is astonishing. We can see in comparing his plan to Sangallo's that a few strokes of the pen were sufficient to change a complex and confused form into a simple and cohesively organized unit. Sangallo, in taking from Bramante the scheme of a major cross echoed in four lesser crosses at the corners, had expanded the later to constitute isolated pockets of space. . . . Michelangelo, by merely walling off the entrances to each of Sangallo's disconnected spaces, made one church out of many; he surpassed the clarity that he admired in Bramante's plan in substituting for the concept of major and minor crosses a more unified one of an integrated cross-and-square, so that all circulation within the Basilica should bring the visitor back to its core. The solution was strikingly simple, and far more economical than any proposed before: it even seems obvious, once it is familiar; but in a generation distinguished for great architects, it took one trained as a sculptor to discover a form that would express the organic unity of the structure. Unity was Michelangelo's contribution to St. Peter's; he transformed the interior into a continuum of space, the exterior into a cohesive body. James Ackerman, The Architecture of Michelangelo, 1961
In chronological terms, Michelangelo is also highly important as a bridge to Baroque architecture. Seventeenth-century Rome would be unthinkable without his precedents a century earlier. From Michelangelo, Gianlorenzo Bernini took the scale and grandeur of his piazza and colonnade at St. Peter's. Francesco Borromini was inspired by Michelangelo's sculpted surfaces and molded interior volumes as he designed S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, a design so "alive" that it suggests (in the words of critic Siegfried Gideon) an architecture that has mastered not only space but time.
Andrea Palladio's architecture was concerned with self-awareness through a reduction of building components into a refined harmony. In human terms, Palladio fashioned houses and churches of such grandeur that the men and women who use them might indeed take on the god-like appearance we read of in Renaissance philosophy and literature.
Harmonic Proportion: Renaissance architecture stressed the consistent ratio of all parts of their buildings, one to the other and from each part to the whole in height, width and depth. Alberti and Palladio especially favored harmonic proportion, in which all parts in a building stood in arithmetical ratios which were derived from muscial harmony.
That the house may be commodious for the use of the family, without which they would be greatly blame-worthy, far from being commendable, great care ought to be taken, not only in the principal parts, as the loggia, halls, courts, magnificent rooms, and ample stairs, light and easy of ascent; but also, that the most minute and least beautiful parts be accomodated to the service of the greatest and more worthy...As our Blessed Creator has ordered the members of our bodies in such a manner, that the most beautiful are in places most exposed to view, and the less comely more hidden; so in building also, we ought to put the principal and considerable parts, in places the most seen, and the less beautiful, in places as much hidden from the eye as possible... in the remaining part of the fabric there may be great, middle-sized, and small rooms, and all near one another, that they may reciprocally be made use of. Andrea Palladio, Four Books of Architecture, 1570
Key Works: 1) Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564): substitute plan for St. Peter's, 1546, built through 1590 (compare Antonio Sangallo proposed substitute plan; exterior and interior views as modified after Michelangelo); pp. 250--251. 2) Michelangelo: Laurentian Library at S. Lorenzo, Florence, 1524ff; p. 247. 3) Palladio: S. Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 1565++; plan; exterior view and facade elevation; p. 260 and colorplate. 4) Palladio: Villa Rotonda, or La Rotuonda, properly called the Villa Almerico-Capra, near Vicenza, c. 1567; pp. 258--259. Works in Context: Michelangelo: New Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, Florence, 1524ff; p. 246. Michelangelo: piazza del Campidoglio, Rome, designed 1538; pp. 248--249. Mannerist garden at Bomarzo, Italy: cave-house in shape of a human face, 16th c.; Frank Toker and the monster statue Baldassare Peruzzi, Palazzo Massimi alla Colonna, Rome, 1535. Bernardo Buontalenti, Porta delle Suppliche, Uffizi Palace, Florence, 1574. Andrea Palladio: Basilica, Vicenza, 1546s; p. 253. Palladio: Il Redentore church, Venice, 1577 Palladio: twelve plans for palaces and villas, 1550s--1570s. Palladio: Villa Barbaro, Maser; ca. 1560; p. 255--256. Palladio: Olympic Theatre (Teatro Olimpico), Vicenza, begun about 1580; pp. 261--262.
BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 10, pp. 280--302.
The Baroque: Grandeur of popes revived by affirmation of their supreme authority in Council of Trent, and by vigorous campaigns of new Counter-Reformation orders (especially Jesuits) for the expansion of the political influence of the papacy and for the firm entrenchment of Catholicism in Flanders, South and West Germany, Austria and Poland as well as in Italy and Spain.
Increasingly powerful absolute monarchy in France, (Louis XIII, XIV), organizing all branches of activity under the state, from industry to art and literature (foundation of the academies). Predominance of classicism in all the arts. France the dominant political and military power on the continent, but less important commercially and industrially than England and the Netherlands.
Intellectual context: Resurgence of philosophical discussion (Spinoza, Descartes) and scientific investigation, notably in astronomy (Galileo), physics and mathematics (Newton), physiology (Harvey), and optics. Perfection of telescope and microscope.
Architecture: An international style of great range and power characterized by great variety in individual expression. Subordination of parts to total dynamic organization of masses in space, for dramatic climax. Manipulation of light and shade enhanced by sculpture, frescoes on walls and ceilings, altarpieces, rich decoration.
Italy: A monumental style, particularly under Bernini, in which buildings are created for popes, kings, Roman nobility. Classical types and forms used for highly dynamic and dramatic large-scale schemes, integrating building with surroundings and with whole city plan. Also small-scale buildings for intellectual monastic orders. Inventive modification of classic vocabulary used with taste and precision in free combinations. New concept of fluid space and malleable mass (Borromini). Imaginative and sophisticated variations on themes of solid geometry.
Key Works: 1) Replanned streets of Rome, begun by Domenico Fontana for Pope Sixtus V, 1580s; p. 284. 2) Bernini: St. Peter's Square (piazza S. Pietro), Rome, begun 1656 (reconstruction of Bernini's project; exterior view); pp. 292--293, and colorplate. 3) Bernini: Cornaro Chapel in Sta. Maria della Vittoria, Rome, 1646; on website only. 4) Francesco Borromini (1599-1667): S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane ("S. Carlino"), 1634-66; pp. 294--295, and colorplate of dome interior.
Works in Context: Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680): Baldachin (1624-33) and Cathedra Petri (1660s; fig. 535) in St. Peter's; pp. 287--289. Borromini: Palazzo Spada court passageway, Rome, 1650s. Borromini: S. Ivo della Sapienza, Rome, 1643-48; pp. 296--297.
Terms: forced perspective (architectural setting in which a building element seems farther away than it actually is), indirect lighting, Gesamtkunstwerk
BAROQUE IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 10, pp. 318--332.
Historical context: Tremendous expansion of commercial and industrial activity in Holland and England, and of their colonization and world trade, with England taking the lead toward the end of the century despite internal conflicts between king and parliament. Industrial prosperity of Flanders. Decline of Germany and Spain.
Classicizing Baroque in France: Greater reticence, and increased emphasis on classical clarity and correctness, corresponding to the rational and monumental absolutist scheme of values. Baroque spatial expansion.
England in the Seventeenth Century: Architecture tended to be purely classicizing (Inigo Jones), building in the tradition and spirit of the High Renaissance and of Palladio; or more eclectic (Wren), showing French and Dutch influences as well as those of Italian Baroque and High Renaissance architects.
Key works: 1) Bernini: rejected plans for the redesign of the Louvre, Paris, 1666 (website) 2) Louis Le Vau, Charles Le Brun, and Claude Perrault, East facade of the Louvre, c. 1667; p. 319. 3) Versailles: Palace and gardens: garden facade, 1669-85 begun by Louis le Vau (1612-70); completed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646-1708); park, 1661-68 by Andre le Nìtre (view with pre-Mansart core of Versailles, with new gardens); Hall of Mirrors (Gallerie des Glaces), c. 1680 by Hardouin-Mansart and le Brun; whole complex 1660s--18th c. Plan, aerial view of chÉteau and gardens, interior, pp. 322--324. 4) Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723): St. Paul's Cathedral, London, 1675-1710. Greek cross plan, 1672; "Great Model" design 1673; Warrant design 1675; redesigned 1675 as is; pp. 329--331, website, and colorplate of interior at crossing.
Works in context: Inigo Jones, (1573-1652): Queen's House, Greenwich, begun 1616. Jones: Banqueting House, Whitehall, London, 1619-22; projected expansion, 1638.
Terms: Ecole des Beaux-Arts, academic architecture, French classicism
ROCOCO
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett do not have a separate chapter on "Rococo," preferring to place certain buildings under the heading "The Spread of Baroque Architecture." I have no quarrel with that, but in the context of our course I find it more useful to select out certain 18th-century buildings as Rococo, rather than merely "late Baroque". These are found on pp. 314--318.
Rococo, Neoclassicism and Romanticism are three influential movements from the eighteenth century, a pluralistic century of "movements" rather than of period styles (in that respect, much like our own times). These movements are not sequential developments, but constantly overlapping.
The Rococo style of the first half of the eighteenth century represents a continuation of the High Baroque style. It matters little whether Neumann, for example, was a Rococo or Late Baroque architect. Italy, Southern Germany, and France remained tied to the Baroque tradition in its last manifestation, the Rococo, in which the interaction of space and form in movement remained a basic element of design.
The French architect Germain Boffrand (1667-1754) was one of the most distinguished designers in Paris of private palaces and town houses (hìtels) for the aristocracy. In his designs for both exteriors and interiors, an impression of elegance and refinement is given by the use of smooth, light-colored surfaces, occasionally curved, and extensive areas of glass (windows and mirrors). Exterior decoration comprises restrained patterns of horizontal grooves, variations in the curved crowns of window openings, and occasional accents of sculpture in low relief. On the interior, mirrors, wall panelling, and window openings are united by rocaille ornament: a free, curvilinear two- dimensional pattern of crisp stucco plant and shell forms, in arabesques and cartouches, open and lively in contour and occasionally asymmetrical. Furniture and painted panels pick up the rhythms of this architectural ornament. Such Rococo decoration was particularly popular in Germany, as represented here by Amalienburg.
Johann Balthasar Neumann (1687-1753) was the most important Rococo architect in Germany. He was later than the French and English Baroque architects, and was thus influenced by the decorative vocabulary of French Rococo. But overall his architecture was a Late Baroque German development of Borromini's style. Intersecting ovoid spaces and interpenetrating vaults create a sense of weightlessness and of lively movement. White walls, the extensive glass surfaces of large windows, and the illusionistic decoration of walls and ceiling produce an impression of openness and lightness. The delicate web of thin mouldings and crisp, curvilinear patterns, the stucco figures perched casually on architectural members or floating above them, and the rhythmic designs of the paintings give decorative liveliness to the curving surfaces. (The interior design at Vierzehnheiligen was mainly by Johann Jakob Michael KÅchel, after Neumann's death.) Neumann's variations on classical vocabulary continued the tradition begun by Borromini.
Key works: 1) Johann Baltasar Neumann: WÅrzburg Residenz (palace for the prince-bishops of WÅrzburg, Germany), designed 1722; center block with Kaisersaal and grand staircase, 1735 and later; pp. 314--316. 2) Frescoes in the Kaisersaal and grand staircase, painted by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1750-53; partially visible p. 316; see website. 3) Neumann, Vierzehnheiligen (country pilgrimage church in Bavaria), Germany, designed 1738; redesigned by Neumann 1744, completed 1772, pp. 317--318. See website for reconstructed cutaway model, showing longitudinal section.
Works in context: Franáois CuvilliÇs, Sr.: Amalienburg, near Munich, 1734--39 Germain Boffrand: Salon de la Princesse, Hìtel de Soubise, Paris, 1735-40 Domenikus Zimmerman, pilgrimage church at Wies, near Munich, 1745-1754 John Wood the Elder and Younger, Circus (1764) and Royal Crescent (1767), Bath, England
Terms: reflected ceiling plan, stucco, al di sotto in su
NEOCLASSICISM: THE RATIONALIST ELEMENT
Reading (both lectures): Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 11, pp. 336--345; Chapter 12, pp. 352--363.
Eighteenth-century archeological studies, combined with a reaction in taste against the decorative Rococo style and a desire to revive certain of the historical connotations of the ancient world (such as the heroic virtues of the Roman Republic) produced a Neoclassical revival in the second half of the eighteenth century in Europe and the United States--although the brilliant villa at Chiswick was much earlier. Classicizing works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (especially those of Palladio) often served as models. In general, earlier Neoclassicism uses Roman models and emphasizes their republican associations. The Greek Doric order is revived, and we speak specifically of the Greek Revival style.
As the product of the 18th-century Enlightenment, there must always be a rationalist element in Neoclassicism: one can certainly trace it in Germany, France, England, and the United States, although it almost never loses its romantic appeal as well. The distinction between rationalist and romantic is made here in the hope of pedagogical clarity and helpfulness, rather than as a hard and fast distinction.
Thomas Jefferson (American, 1743-1826), an architect as well as a statesman and a scholar, was well read in the classicist theories of architecture and acquainted with the famous models of European classicism. His desire to establish a sense of cultural tradition in this new country is reflected in his architecture. For his own country house (Monticello), he modified a Palladio design to meet local practical needs, and "translated" it into local materials. He was one of the first architects to adapt Roman building types to the functional requirements of public and academic buildings.
Key works: 1) Abbe Laugier: Essai sur l'architecture (Essay on Architecture), 1753, with frontispiece for 1755 edition, showing the "natural" state of architecture. Website only. 2) Germain Soufflot: The PanthÇon, Paris (ex-church of Ste.-Genevieve), 1755-92. Website only. 3) The Earl of Burlington (Richard Boyle) and William Kent: Chiswick House, near London, begun 1725; p. 338. 4) J.-N-.L. Durand, "Lectures on Architecture," Paris, 1802: the modular basis for rational architecture. Several pages on the website. 5) Karl Friedrich von Schinkel: Altes Museum (Old Museum), Berlin, 1824-30; pp. 354--355.
Works in context: Juste-Auräle Meissonier, proposed facade for St.-Sulpice, Paris, 1726, on website. Giovanni Niccolï Servandoni, winning design for the facade of St.-Sulpice, 1732--77, on website. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826): Monticello, Charlottesville, VA, 1770-84 and 1796-1806; p. 360 Jefferson: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1814; 1817--1826; pp. 360--362.
Terms: Enlightenment, Primitive Hut, rational architecture, functionalism, en suite
NEOCLASSICISM: THE ROMANTIC ELEMENT
Neoclassicism was one aspect of the wider Romantic movement (c. 1750-1850) which began--above all in England and Germany--as an urge towards simple, sincere feeling and natural behavior as opposed to court etiquette. All historical styles were thought to be natural and desirable as antidotes to the unpleasant reality of Rococo artificiality and the industrial revolution. The word "romantic" was applied to whatever might call forth "sublime" associations: ruins and other reminders of past grandeur and of the melancholy passage of time; manifestations of the forces of nature and man's impotence before them; and expressions of extreme emotion, reflecting the uncontrolled forces in man's nature, from passion to insanity. The Gothic style--used by Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill--was considered one to bring out these associations; but there are buildings reflecting the exotic styles of China, Egypt, and, in the nineteenth century, North Africa. Although the outward forms of the revival styles are copied, sometimes fancifully, sometimes exactly, the content is never that of the original style, but always "romantic". The French architects of the era of the French Revolution, especially BoullÇe and LeDoux are superficially rationalists, but carry their works to such extremes of scale and severity that their final effect is romantic, too.
Key works: 1) Horace Walpole: Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, England, near London, 1749--1777 (the vaults in the long gallery are only plaster); p. 347. 2) Robert Adam: Syon House, near London, 1761-76; website only. 3) Thomas Jefferson: Virginia State Capitol, Richmond, 1785-89, p. 359. Website shows it as photographed by Matthew Brady during the Civil War, with a distinct Acropolis effect. 4) Etienne-Louis BoulÇe, cenotaph for Newton, 1783; p. 343. 5) Claude-Nicolas Ledoux: Royal Saltworks at Chaux (the Salines de Chaux), Arc-et-Senans, France, 1775-79; p. 345. Website has gatehouse and director's house, as built and standing today; also saltworks as developed later into an ideal city plan. 6) Ledoux: Inspector's House at the Source of the Loue, project, ca. 1790s (published 1804 and 1847); p. 346. 7) Robert Mills, Washington Monument, Washington DC, 1836--1880s (website; or go visit).
Works in context: Franáois Barbier for Racine de Monville: Column-house and other exotic designs at Le DÇsert de Retz, France, 1774. Richard Mique, Hameau (dairy) for Marie Antoinette, Versailles, 1778, p. 348. Etienne-Louis BoulÇe, project for a Library, c. 1781; p. 344. Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806): Barriäre de la Villette, and other tax-gates for Paris, 1785--89.
Terms: romantic architecture (well defined on p. 346 in text), speaking architecture, architecture as social engineering
ARCHITECTURE OF THE REVIVALS: ROMANTICISM AND REACTION
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 12, pp. 352--372, 410--415.
The nineteenth century continually lamented the fact that it had no style of its own: it seemed a prisoner of earlier styles, particularly Greek-based and Gothic-based. The century never came to terms with two revolutionary building materials it had spawned: steel and glass. It used them, but could not acknowledge them as "proper" architecture. The nineteenth century was also the first moment in architecture marked by freedom from architectural constraints. All architecture throughout history had been constrained by local conditions: local building materials, local workmen and their traditions, local taste, specifics of the local climate (hot or cold, dusty or damp, daytime and nighttime), local architectural iconography. But the nineteenth century was the first period of architecture to begin to free itself from such constraints.
REVIVALS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE: Successive and simultaneous revivals of historical styles are symptomatic of a desire for a stable and continuing tradition in the midst of the revolutionary changes of the industrial age. The neoclassical (Roman and Greek) revivals were paralleled and followed by a romantic neo-medieval revival; these styles continue throughout the century. The revivals of Renaissance and Baroque are somewhat more limited.
THE PITTSBURGH COURTHOUSE AS EXEMPLAR OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY REVIVAL ARCHITECTURE. One can enjoy the Pittsburgh Courthouse of H.H. Richardson immensely just from looking at it, and it is very rewarding. But to "unlock" the richness of the Courthouse, you would need to think about it as the nineteenth century would have thought about it: its architect Richardson, the Allegheny County Commissioners who were the patrons of the building, the way the architect sought to convey the function of the building, and about its iconography (the meaning that is conveyed through its visual "text"). Columns, for example, instantly evoke Greece and Rome, and what they stand for: antiquity, justice, reason, imperial power. Gothic towers evoke the Middle Ages: Christianity, faith, emotion, mystery, the supernatural. (Hollywood probably learned how to use the latent symbolism of architecture better than anyone.)
Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886) exemplified a creative use of historical style that became known as "Richardson Romanesque." His plans reflected the differentiation of function in each unity; particularly in his early works, spatial units were arranged in imaginatively asymmetrical designs to open onto each other with increasing freedom. At the Pittsburgh Courthouse, Richardson was more strongly influenced by classical architecture, and he produced a fully symmetrical oblong design. The plan reflects Renaissance palaces, while the elevations (the wall designs) owe much to Romanesque and Gothic precedent. Richardson's Romanesque vocabulary was generally consistent with his basic principles of architectural planning: aggregation of simple units and emphasis on the massiveness of construction in stone. Richardson always stressed the positive contribution of natural materials to the design: gigantic rough-hewn granite blocks, brought to Pittsburgh pre-cut from Massachusetts.
When we understand the function of the Courthouse, Richardson's aesthetic ideals, the physical and social context in which the building was conceived, the idea or image of Justice held by post-Civil-War America, and the technology of the building's construction, then we are far along in the history and analysis of the monument. But that analysis is in one way incomplete: nineteenth-century architecture (but architecture in virtually every period, really) was a public art. A major building, especially the most important building in town, could not exist as an architectural orphan. An amateur builder or an overbearing patron can always put up an eccentric building that cares little about prevailing architectural style. (Indeed, our own Frick Fine Arts Building is such an example: does it look typical of buildings erected in 1965?) But every building by a professional architect is part o f a dialogue with what went before, and possibly with what came after it. The Pittsburgh Courthouse is probably the second most imitated building in the country, after Independence Hall. Even Frank Lloyd Wright recalled it, in his 1959 design for the Marin County Civic Center in California.
So a complete understanding of the Courthouse means we have to go outside Pittsburgh, even outside the United States, to understand where the building "fits" as a nineteenth-century building. We can, and must, apply FACIT analysis not merely to a building but to a whole architectural style. When we do, we see that the Courthouse, a fairly "backward" building technologically, is nonetheless tremendously influenced by technology. Richardson, like most nineteenth-century architects, was liberated from purely local materials: the Pittsburgh Courthouse uses nothing local: the exterior granite is from Massachusetts, the interior limestone from Indiana, all brought by railroad). No longer need the architect pay heed to the local climate: heating, ventilating, air-conditioning, plumbing, and lighting created a completely new artificial climate for the first time in history. Local workmen could be supplanted by outside crews: the builder of the Pittsburgh Courthouse came from New England, and most of the material was prefabricated anyway. The invention of photography, and the proliferation of books and magazines on architecture meant that style had become universalized. "Local" architecture had come to an end: what was to replace it?
Looked at this way, we see infinitely more to the Pittsburgh Courthouse than what is visible from the corner of Forbes and Grant streets.
Key works: 1) Sir Charles Barry & A.W.N. Pugin: Houses of Parliament, London, designed 1836, built 1840--1860s, p. 364--365. 2) A.N.W. Pugin, Contrasts, 1836; p. 363. 3) John Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849. 4) William Butterfield: All Saints', Margaret Street, London, 1850-59: exterior and interior on website. 5) H.H. Richardson: Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail, Pittsburgh, 1884-1888: Sourcebook carries plan of main courtroom floor and facade; other views on website, including Toker geometric analysis of facade. 6) H.H. Richardson: Marshall Field Wholesale Store, Chicago, 1885; destroyed ca. 1935, p. 412.
Works in context: John Nash, Royal Pavilion, Brighton, England, 1815-18 Pugin, True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, 1843. Andrew Jackson Downing, Architecture of Country Houses, 1850. Lewis Cubitt: King's Cross Railway Station, London, 1851. George Gilbert Scott: St. Pancras station and Midland Hotel, London, 1863--1876 (W.W. Barlow and R.M. Ordish, engineers). Charles Garnier: Opera House, Paris, 1861-74: section, exterior, interior of grand stairhall on website.
Terms: Gothic Revival, "Beaux-Arts" design philosophy.
CHALLENGE OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 11, pp. 349--351; Chapter 12, pp. 366--389
Along with the use of historical styles, the nineteenth century was marked by new structural methods--the result of the industrialization of architecture through the Industrial Revolution. Undisguised by any ornamental overlay, new structural systems appeared in purely utilitarian and temporary buildings. In these, steel framework and often glass walls replace traditionally masonry designs with framed openings. Exhibition buildings like the Crystal Palace in London (1851) and the Eiffel Tower in Paris (1889), and greenhouses, bridges (Brooklyn Bridge, opened 1883), factories, and railroad stations show a variety of such applications of the steel framework construction.
These buildings were not without problems, however. They were regarded by contemporaries as engineering, not as architecture. Partly this was the result of old prejudices of what a building should look like. But in part this resulted from the thinness and lack of aesthetics of the new "greenhouse" buildings. Joseph Paxton, the creator of the Crystal Palace, did not really regard that marvel as architecture, either. He went on to create Victorian country houses in traditional styles and technology, which was perhaps what he thought "proper" architecture was.
It remained for an architectural theorist of the highest order, Eugäne-Emanuel Viollet-le-Duc, to bridge the gap between the new materials and old expectations of "proper" architecture. His "Discourses on Architecture" of 1858-72 proposed how the new materials could be used to give nobility to architecture, without taking away either from its richness or its technical modernity. Interestingly, Viollet-le-Duc used Gothic as his model, not for its emotional or spiritual side, but for what, he believed, was its "rationalism": i.e., its use of building materials for highest economy.
Viollet-le-Duc's writings and illustrations had wide impact. Gustave Eiffel's Eiffel Tower and Dutert and Contamin's Galerie des Machines, both for the Paris Exposition of 1889, were two widely copied exemplars of the new style. The Eiffel Tower, at 300 meters by far the highest structure ever attempted, was so economically designed that a model of it at 1:100 scale, would weigh mere ounces.
Key works: 1) Sir Joseph Paxton: Crystal Palace, London, 1851 (moved and enlarged; burned 1936): exterior appearance when opened; interior view in 1851; pp. 379--380. 2) Eugene-Emanuel Viollet-le-Duc: Entretiens, or "Discourses on Architecture," 1858-72: illustration of iron-based vaulting; p. 367. 3) Gustave Eiffel: Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1889; p. 385.
Works in context: Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, England, designed 1829, completed 1864 Robert Howlett: photograph of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, ca. 1843. Charles-L.-F. Dutert and Victor Contamin: Galerie des Machines (Machine Hall), Paris, 1889.
Terms: rationalism
SULLIVAN, GAUDI, WRIGHT: ARCHITECTURE OF EARLY MODERNISM
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 12, pp. 393--410, 415--425; Chapter 13, pp. 426--437, 470--477.
"Modern architecture" is here for convenience divided into its early, high, and late phases (we are still in the latter). Modern architecture begins in the late nineteenth century with a reaction against the artificiality of traditional architecture. In Europe, Art Nouveau was decorative rather than structural; its sinuous, organic curves suggested primarily aquatic plant life. In the U.S. the reaction was led by the Chicago School. These architects rejected the traditional vocabulary of historical ornament, sometimes inventing new ornamental forms which expressed new principles of architectural design, especially in their emphasis on the wall as surface rather than mass. For the use of structural steel and ferro-concrete eliminates the traditional load-bearing wall: the resulting curtain wall becomes a "light" surface enclosing spatial volumes. New building types (especially the skyscraper) and the free interpenetration of interior spaces are also made possible by the new construction. Louis Sullivan (imbued with his French Beaux-Arts training, which put high stress on clear relationships between the different rooms in a plan) formulated the principle of making every part of a building--elevations as well as plans--express its function. Thus was born a new architectural principle: functionalism.
Sullivan's dictum of "form follows function" became a basic principle of twentieth century architecture. The "style" of the Chicago School was the result of the natural use of new materials and of the function of their buildings. There was no reference to a historical past. A similar, but different, rigorous aesthetic philosophy pervaded the contemporary skyscrapers of John Root. Modern architecture was almost born in late nineteenth-century Chicago, particularly in the buildings of Root and Sullivan. But that movement lost its strength, partly because Sullivan's pupil Frank Lloyd Wright took it in another direction.
Wright was the major precursor of Modernism. His special contribution, drawing on an idea originally born in England, and expressed in this country in Andrew Jackson Downing's Architecture of Country Houses, 1850, was that architecture ought not merely to fit in a natural setting, but that the creation of a building ought to follow Nature's rules of economy, simplicity, and structure. Wright thus popularized the theory of "organic" planning. In his desire to relate his buildings to their natural environment his architecture was more romantic than his intellectual European counterparts. His Fallingwater, the most famous private house in the world, is not just a building but an important chapter in American cultural history. It is a clichÇ to say that we are privileged to have that great building so near to Pittsburgh. Rather, my personal research on Fallingwater suggests that the building could have gone up nowhere else but in the region of Pittsburgh.
Key works: ART NOUVEAU 1) Antonio Gaudi: Casa Mila, Barcelona, 1905-07; p. 398.
CHICAGO SCHOOL 2) Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler: Wainwright Building, St. Louis, 1890-91; pp. 418--419. 3) Adler and Sullivan, Guaranty Building, Buffalo, 1894-95, p. 420 4) Sullivan: Carson Pirie Scott (built as Schlesinger and Meyer) Department Store, Chicago, 1899-1904, original exterior, p. 422.
EARLY MODERNISM 5) Frank Lloyd Wright, Larkin Building, Buffalo, 1904; p. 435. 6) Wright: Robie House, Chicago, 1909, p. 433. 7) Wright: Fallingwater, Bear Run, PA, 1934-37, view and plan, p. 472--473 and colorplate of exterior, plus website.
Works in context: Gaudi, Church of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 1884, mainly 1903-26, incomplete. Burnham and Root: Monadnock Building, Chicago, 1891. Burnham and Root: Reliance Building, Chicago, 1894.
Terms: Art Nouveau, functionalism, reinforced concrete, Chicago School, load-bearing wall, curtain wall.
GROPIUS, LECORBUSIER, MIES: THE TRIUMPH OF HIGH MODERNISM
Reading: Wodehouse and Moffett, Chapter 13, pp. 447--469.
Architecture in the early twentieth century was marked by problems (and opportunities) created by new technology, new kinds of urban planning, and social and environmental issues. Among the fascinations of the modern skyscraper is the fact that modern technology gives it a completely artificial physical environment: it need respond to none of the climatic parameters that limited architecture in the past. Early 20th century architects built on the functionalist tradition of the Chicago School, creating the first genuinely new style in two hundred years.
The roots of the modern architecture of the later twentieth century are found more in France and Germany than in Wright and Sullivan, however. The turning point came after World War I, in the work of LeCorbusier and Mies (see notes to next lecture). Theirs was an abstract architecture of simplified, geometric shapes. Known as the International Style, it was characterized by a poetic minimalism.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe got his start in architecture in the ferment of the transferral of modern architecture from Chicago to Germany and France just before World War I. But he had a spiritual precursor, too, in Karl Friedrich von Schinkel and the rationalist side of Neoclassicism. In his famous dictum of "less is more," Mies stated his belief in a universal architecture in which particulars of site, materials, etc., are meaningless. The resulting works were as abstract in their way as was contemporary painting before and after World War I. But these buildings were no mere functionalist products: they had a richness, almost a spirituality, that is hard to evoke in our Post-Modern age.
One sees this best in two of Mies's masterpieces: the Barcelona Pavilion of 1929, and in the austere perfection of Mies's Seagram Building of 1957. It is ironic that a skyscraper erected on Park Avenue in New York less than half a century ago is today seen as "historic." But that is what the Seagram Building is. The Seagram Building illustrates that no building can ever be entirely "functional," and no building entirely without function. The Seagram Building is the logical conclusion of a set of architectural forces that had their roots in the mid-nineteenth century, but at the same time it is an arbitrary creation of an individual artist. One of the many ironies to the Seagram Building is that a work in such a radical tradition became a great icon (along with Elvis?) of the conformity of Late Capitalism in the Fifties.
Key works: 1) Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer: Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany, 1925-26; p. 457. 2) LeCorbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret): Towards a New Architecture, 1924 (English trans. 1927) 3) LeCorbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, near Paris, France, 1929