Download The scale of human perfection_The renaissance

Hist12797 Architectural History
The Story of Architecture
Chapters 13 & 14
Renaissance in Italy and Europe
Background
• Changes in the 14th and 15th centuries:
– Hereditary nobles replaced by merchant princes
whose commercial empires spread throughout
Europe
– Trade, and banking, played a central role in society
– Gunpowder: changed the relations between nations
– Invention of compass + new shipbuilding methods
allowed for the expansion of the known world
– Movable type in printing helped spread ideas
2
Why Renaissance Architecture?
• Human history was realized, not as a divinely
ordained continuum, but as successive
overlapping periods
• Architectural styles were reaching a stage
where they could no longer yield anything new.
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Renaissance Architecture
• Architects and Patrons desired a new
architecture, not based on the traditions of
the church but expressing perceived
mathematical clarity and the rationality of
the divine order of the universe
• Harmonic ratios could be the same as physical ratios
= a rule on which to base proportions; buildings could
_ reflect the fundamental laws of nature
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Renaissance Architects
. . . endeavored to create new rational forms
based on what they understood of the
Classical architecture of ancient Rome
through the discovery of “De Architectura” , the
one surviving treatise by the Roman architect
Vitruvius.
New confidence in their intellectual capacity
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Humanist Architecture
• An architecture rooted in the human
intellect to provide human needs
• The artist (architect) as a humanist scholar
and philosopher in paint and stone, not
simply an artisan or a craftsman
• A “rebirth” of Classical solidity of form and
human expression. The Italian rinascinta
translates into French as renaissance
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Brunelleschi’s Dome, Florence
Donated by the Medici Family
An organized pile of 4 million bricks
Florence Cathedral
8-panelled dome
built in 2 layers
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Florence Cathedral
Masonry ribs tied together
at strategic points. Cupola
on top acting as a weight.
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Florence Cathedral
No centering to hold up the dome, just
scaffolding for the workmen
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Brunellesci
Foundling Hospital, Florence
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Foundling Hospital, Florence
.... simple, serene with graceful arcades of
round-headed arches above slim Corinthian
columns, plain rectangular windows with
simple triangular
pediments ...
Another inaugural
building of the
Renaissance
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Federigo da Montefeltro
Duke of Urbino
• He was a distinguished soldier,
but really a man of principle,
gentleness and humanity. A patron of the arts.
• His palace/castle contained state-rooms and
courtyards – one
based on the
Foundling Hospital,
and a vast library
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Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel
• Revolutionary shape: a square
covered by a dome.
The dimensions were all the
same.
• A precise treatment of wall
surfaces with decorative
bands in a darker tone
indicating proportions.
• The building seemed
complete from every
direction.
Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel
Interior looking down
Front entrance
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Church of
San Lorenzo,
Florence by
Brunelleschi
Basilican plan, same exact
dimensions and treatment 16
Church of
Santo Spirito,
Florence by
Brunelleschi
Basilican plan
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Leon Battista Alberti
• Book: “On Architecture” 1485
• Basic shapes – square, cube, circle, sphere
• Work out ideal proportions of these figures
by doubling and halving
• Beauty is the rational integration of the
proportions of all the parts where nothing
could be added or taken away without
destroying the harmony of the whole.
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di Giorgio
Renaissance 1
Leonardo da Vinci,
Ideal Vitruvian Man
Protogoras ‘ man is
the measure of all
things’
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Alberti
Santa Maria Novella, Florence
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Santa Maria Novella, Facade Detail
• Linking the nave with the lower aisles by
adding huge scrolls; strictly proportioned.
•
Became part of the
vocabulary of later
architects.
21
Alberti
Sant’ Andrea,
Mantua
• A Roman triumphal
arch in ABA motif.
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Sant’ Andrea, Mantua
Sant’ Andrea, Mantua
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Alberti
Palazzo Rucellai,
Florence, 1452
• Different orders on different
floors as on the Colosseum.
• Huge, jutting cornice hides
the roof and gives a
concentrated boxy outline.
Alberti, Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, 1452
Forbidding, prison-like exterior of palace.
Inside courtyard a scenario for
gracious, hospitable and
elegant living for very rich
people
Palazzo Farnese,
Rome (interior)
Palazzo Venezia,
Rome (Alberti)
Architectural Elements of a
typical Renaissance Palace
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Palazzo Medici 1444-60
28
Palazzo
Farnese,
Florence
1515-59
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Italian States
during the
Renaissance
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Tempietto of
San Pietro in
Montorio, Rome
• Bramante followed
Alberti’s prescription
for classicism modeled
on the ancient Roman
temple of Vesta
• A drum encircled by a
Doric colonnade with a
cut-out balustrade on
the upper storey.
Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio,
• Possibly architecture’s finest
gem: all the charm, elegance and
delicacy of an ideal building.
• Proportions in such harmony
that nothing could be added or
subtracted, yet the original
concept was immensely flexible.
• It has been successfully copied
throughout the world. p183
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Bramante design for St. Peter’s
• The building which symbolizes all the spiritual
pomp and worldly power of Renaissance Rome
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St. Peter’s
Rome, Plans
Bramante
Sangallo
34
St. Peter’s
Rome
Maerten van
Heemskerck
sketches
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St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome
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St. Peter’s
Basilica, Nave
37
St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome
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Michelangelo, Laurentian Library,
San Lorenzo, Florence 1558-71
• Emphasized perspective by lines in moulding
and decoration to create a room like a tunnel.
It has a light-filled, calm atmosphere essential
to a reading room (model for many university
libraries since)
Design Task: to design
a library in a long wing
with access from a
vestibule on the lower
level
Michelangelo,
Medici Chapel
San Lorenzo
by Alberti
Library
Stair to
Library of San
Lorenzo
The Anteroom has a triple
staircase with pillars
halfway up the wall
supporting nothing
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Michelangelo, Laurentian Library,
San Lorenzo, Florence 1558-71
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Michelangelo,
Medici Chapel to
San Lorenzo,
Florence 1520-26
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Michelangelo,
Capitoline Hill
Piazza del Campidoglio
1536
• Creation of giant orders:
columns running up
through two or more
storeys or the entire
height of a façade
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Piazza del Campidoglio
44
Giulo Romano
Palazzo del Te, Mantua
• Mannerist in-joke in a classical detail: dropping a
few wedge-shaped stones below the architrave
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Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome
by Baldessare Peruzzi 1532
• Mannerist: curved façade, broken in the middle by
an irregular portico. The upper rows of windows are
horizontally rectangular holes cut out of the façade
and framed as if in stone picture frames with the
lower row having
scrolled curves like
sheets of parchment.
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Giacomo da Vignola
Façade of the Gesu
built by della Porta
1573-77
• It became the model for many later
churches as part of the Catholic
Church’s Counter-Reformation
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Andrea Palladio
a precise and exact classicist
• His architectural treatise had an
enormous influence.
• “... as if he distilled the essence of
classicism from Vitruvian rules”
• His buildings are secular rather
than religious; and exhibit two of
the most prized qualities of
Renaissance architecture:
exactitude and centralized plans
Andrea Palladio,
Villa Capra (Rotonda), Vicenza 1550
• Central circular room covered by a dome set within
a raised square, with even steps on all four sides;
... not particularly comfortable to live in
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Andrea Palladio, Villa Capra
(Villa Rotonda), Italy 1550
Beauty and dignity of its exterior;
commanding view of the countryside
... not particularly
comfortable to
live in ...
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Villa Badoer
Andrea Palladio
Extension of a regular
building to embrace
outbuildings and the
landscape
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Palladio, Basilica Vicenza
[Palazzo della Ragione]
• Palladian motif: a central arched window or opening
flanked by a flat-topped window on each side
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Palladio, Il Redentore, Venice
• Dome set between two pointed
turrets rises above an extraordinary
West front made up of a series of
interlocking temple fronts.
• What are the giant and minor orders
in this unique composition?
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The Spread of the Renaissance
• Italian Renaissance forms were slow in
crossing the Alps. The Catholic temperament
demonstrated in the Italian Renaissance held
no attraction for northern Protestant countries.
• Northern Europe was in a nationalist phase
racked by religious conflict and wars
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• Map of Europe 1500 -1600 showing wars
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The Spread of the Renaissance
• Renaissance details spread slowly, first in
France and elsewhere later. They were adapted
and often copied and added incongruously.
• While Mannerist Italian architects were
enjoying themselves breaking the rules, the
rest of Europe did not know that there were
classical rules or that they could be broken
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Chateau de Chambord 1519-47
One of François 1’s chateaux on the Loire River
• Symmetry of its plan: square in a rectangle
although not concentrically placed
• The plan is basically an English Gothic castle
with the corps de logis as the keep
•
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Chambord
• There is a ground-floor arcade but the horizontal rows of
windows, instead of the Italian variations, are tall and
equal creating vertical stripes in the façade.
• Rather than hidden behind a parapet, the roof is steep,
dormered, with a host of Renaissance details: gables,
chimneys, lanterns
and crowns that
jostle against each
other:
very medieval,
very French
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Chambord
• A unique, free-standing,
double-spiral staircase.
Supporting piers like
Gothic buttresses but a
plan out of Renaissance
intrigue.
• (A similar sketch was made
by Leonardo da Vinci.)
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Chateau de Blois
• A sophisticated open
spiral staircase built
into an octagonal tower
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Mansart, Chateau de Maisons,
near Paris 1642-46
• Roofs were very important to the French. The mansard
with a steep boxy side allows a full-height row of rooms
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Mansart, Chateau de Maisons
63
Galerie Francois 1, Fontainebleau,
decorated by Francesco Primaticcio
• First use of
strapwork –
stucco that is
shaped like
curled leather
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• Classical ground
floor arcade with
horizontal rows of
punched windows
above
Chateau de
Chenonceaux, Loire
Bridge by Philibert de l’Orme;
Gallery by Jean Bullant 1576
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Spread of Renaissance Architecture
• The wars between Spain and France in Italy
and the patronage of François 1, caused artists
to go to the French court and elsewhere.
• Treatises and pattern-books were produced in
abundance in Italy. Sometimes an inventive
individual incorporated the classical rules,
mostly they were misapplied; transplanted out
of context with no reference to structure,
proportion or scale.
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Philibert de l’Orme, Screen (jubė) at
St-Etienne du Mont
• On the basis of pattern books, de l’Orme built an
incredible screen with a balcony across an
unaltered Gothic
nave reached by
a swelling,
curving staircase
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Philibert de l’Orme, Screen (jubė) at
St-Etienne du Mont
• It owes its sweeping
concept to Renaissance
freedom of approach, yet
the fretwork patterning
remains Gothic in origin
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Ottheinrichsbau, Heidelberg Castle,
• Misapplication of Renaissance pattern-books
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Claude Perrault, Louvre, Paris 1665
• A flat elevation straight out of the pattern books
• It is not enough to copy the 2-D drawings but to
understand the relationship of outside to inside;
the ability to think in three dimensions.
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Elias Holl, Arsenal,
Augsburg, Germany
1602-07
• Tall narrow height; gable
end set to road; mannered
in the way window frames
are wrenched apart on
either side of window;
broken pediment on gable
end has odd bulbous
ornament in the middle
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University of Salamanaca,
Doorway in the main façade
1514-29
• The Plateresque-style of low
relief on a flat wall surface
was carried over in Spain
with no pause – just a
further mixture of motifs
• Another example of an
undiscriminating adoption of
Renaissance motifs
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Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera,
Escorial Palace, Madrid, Spain 1562-82
• A palace centred around a chapel with a monastery
and a college. A bleak expression of religious feeling
rooted in Counter-Reformation
Catholicism. Simple in form, severe in
the whole, noble without arrogance,
majesty without ostentation
73
Robert Smythson, Wollaton Hall,
Nottinghamshire, England 1580
• Distinctive English type: striped vertically down its
wide frontage with slightly projecting bay
windows/oriels; emphasized horizontality with slim
string courses separating the ranks of mullioned
windows.
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Diego de Siloe, Escalera Dorada,
Burgos Cathedral, Spain 1524
This example is one of four
stair types:
1. T-shaped stairs where the
bottom flight splits into
two arms, left and right.
2. Stairs that spiral around
a rectangular stair well
3. Stairs set around a rectangular well with each flight bent backward
sharply to run parallel to the lower flight
4. A free-standing flight fixed to the wall at one end only and supported
on an arch (Palladio)
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Louis Le Vau, Hôtel Lambert, Paris 1639
• Central gateway on
the street façade
with concierge on
guard, gave way to a
courtyard with
stables, service
wings and
• later coachhouse wings. Behind
the courtyard was a formal garden.
The living quarters were later set
across the back of the service
court with the salon and display
rooms overlooking the garden. 76
Hotel de Matignon,
Paris 1722-24
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Houses on the Amstel,
Amsterdam, Nederland
• Renaissance town houses on a
large scale. Tall and narrow,
gable ends to canal or road
Varied skylines. Narrow
frontage means few
rooms per floor; large
windows to haul up
furniture or goods.
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Jacob van Campen, Mauritzhuis,
The Hague, Netherlands
1633
An outstanding example of a Northern translation of the
Renaissance in a small-scale palace that is neat and compact
with dignity and elegance
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Rooms are set symmetrically
around a central stairway;
exterior appearance of natural
and quiet imperiousness by
the use of giant pilasters.
The inspiration: Palladio.
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Inigo Jones, Queen’s House,
Greenwich, London 1616-62
• Jones discovered Palladio at age 40 and after
becoming Royal Surveyor returned to Italy for
serious study.
• In the two wings, he used
three cubes each.
The building straddled the Main London to Dover Road
Plan and façade conceived in a
Palladian unity of proportion and
design
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Inigo Jones, Queen’s House, Greenwich, London
1616-62
• Flat-roofed colonnade
connecting two wing
pavilions later added
where road had been
• Internally, the rooms are
beautifully proportioned.
• The Tulip Stair spirals
upward with a wroughtiron balustrade composed
of swaying tulips
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Inigo Jones, Banqueting Hall,
Whitehall, London 1619-22
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Inigo Jones, Banqueting Hall, Whitehall,
London 1619-22
• Exterior appears as two storey
with rows of Ionic and
Composite columns, but
inside is a superb doublecube room with a ceiling
painted by Rubens.
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Inigo Jones, Wilton House, Wiltshire, 1647
• He was involved in
the reconstruction
with John Webb.
• Two state rooms were
created, a single and a
double cube, to show off
a collection of Van Dyck
portraits. To balance the
excessive height, Jones
used a coved ceiling.
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An Architecture of Humanist Ideals
• New architecture to be rationally comprehensible
• Formed of planes and spaces organized to show
clear, numerical proportions
• Edges and intervals delineated by crisp elements
of ancient architectural orders [classical]
• A celebration of human intellectual powers and
inviting pleasurable human response
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