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2.2 – Architects and Engineers 2
Vitruvius’ Legacy
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Don’t know too much about Roman architecture except for Vitruvius, lots of unknown guys
Did create the Pantheon, Rome, 117-125
Who Suspends a Golden Dome from Heaven?
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Hagia Sophia: by a mechanic (Isidorus of Miletus) and a mathematician (Anthemius of Tralles)
Drama of the church: complex geo for miraculous effect
Structural ambition: collapsed in 558, rebuilt
After Rome
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Western Europe: no imperial system
Two types of medieval builder:
o Monks (self-sufficient); early
o Master masons in guilds
Ars Mechanica (craft), not “science”
Builders knew geometry, drawing
o Plan, Monastery of St. Gall, Switzerland, ca. 820
o Vitruvius? Survived; influential
Confidence and Ambition
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1000: world didn’t end soooo… stability
Cities, trade, wealth = building
Increasing experience, expertise
Bigger, more ambitious works
Speciality: tall, soaring interiors
Gothic Mythology
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Gothic Architecture: ambitious, daring, spectacular
Cathedrals: anonymous, collective products of faith?
o Entire group of people sharing design and construction, no need for everyone knowing
YOU did it
o Cathedral at Amiens, France, c. 1220-1280 (Nave: 42 m)
Evidence: created by skilled architects, not crowds
Anonymous?
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“Here lies Hugh Libergier, who began this church in the year 1229 and died in the year 1267”
Tomb of Hugh Libergier in Reims Cathedral, Labyrinth, Cathedral of Reims, France
Portrait with compass, right angle, measuring rod, model: geometry and pride
Documents, inscriptions, records all show Gothic builder as “professional”
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Typical: sequence of masters, not just one
Labyrinths: active memory of Daedalus
The Gothic “Architect”
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Educated: literate, great engineering, artistic skills
Villard’s notebook: architectural drawings, analysis
“Architect” or “master-builder”???? Social distinction
Suger’s story: gives credit to patron, not architect
“Architects” in Italy
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Gothic: Pan-European style; traveling architects, workshops
Milan Cathedral: French and local architect/engineers
Florence: architects = craftsmen; not always “builders”
o Unusual: entrust major public buildings to painter (Giotto)
Stone, Wood, and Pride
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Florence: sculptor-builders= local tradition
Arnolfo Di Cambio: new cathedral; design enlarged
Crossing dome design = established, but unfinished
Problem: too big to build!!! Civic embarrassment
From Jewelry to Building
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Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446): goldsmith, sculpture, painter
Model: won competition to build the dome; go the job in 1420
Innovations: masonry technique, shell and rib structure, hoists
Brunelleschi’s Dome
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16 years later, the dome was complete
Creativity: engineering, construction management
“Education”? studying ruins of ancient Rome
“All”Anticia Architecture
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Brunelleschi: became major architect in Florence
Major shift: undisputed design credit as individual
Renaissance: rebirth of antiquity in culture
“All”Antica – “ancient style” – things should look like what the ancient Romans built
The Renaissance Project
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Revive “ancient style” architecture after 1000 years?
What did ancient architecture look like? BURIED RUINS
Is ancient architecture right for contemporary needs?
Leone Battista Alberti (1404-1472)
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University-educated lawyer, clergyman
Papal Bureaucrat, wrote Latin documents
Professional author and intellectual
“Humanist”:
o Scholars of ancient culture, history, literature
o Impressed by ancient achievements
o Can modern culture surpass antiquity?
1434-1443: exiled papacy in Florence
Alberti and the Arts
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Brunelleschi’s dome: surpassed the ancients
Alberti was BLOWN away by the work
Alberti observed painters, sculptors, architects
Books on painting, sculpture: “applied humanism”
Alberti’s friend “re-discovered” virtues
Alberti’s New Project
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Plan A: become the modern Vitruvius expert. BUTTTTTT:
o Copies: rare, inconsistent; no illustrations!!
Plan B: write a guide, commentary on Vitruvius
Hopeless: incoherent, badly written, confusing
Plan C: write is own book
Alberti’s De Re Aedificatoria: (on the Art of Building; 1440-1472)
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Source: both Vitruvius and buildings
Formal Latin (now for elite readers)
Audience: wanted PATRONs, and their advisers
Copies Vitruvius’ structure, material
Goal: make Vitruvius’ ideas clearer
Organized with Vitruvian Triad:
o Book 1: Defintions
o Books 2-3: Materials and Construction (Firmitas)
o Books 4-5: Building Types and Uses (Utilitas)
o Books 6-9: Uses of ornament, theory of proportion (Venustas)
o Book 10: Building restoration
Alberti’s Architect
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Architecture: provides safety, community, comfort and pleasure
Glory, fame and honor to PATRONS
Defines the architect:
o Builder: “an instrument in the hands of the architect”
o Creative, rational thinker with informed imagination
o “active scholar”: intellectual who “directs” construction
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Alberti: becomes design consultant, expert on ancient style
Architecture without theory = mere trade, not a “disciple”
Architect: “fluent” in ancient design
Architecture and the Book
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Technological revolution: Gutenberg printing press = 1440
First mechanically printed books: 1454-1455 (bibles)
Impact: books no longer luxury items; spread of knowledge
First printed architecture books:
o Alberti (1485); Vitruvius (1486)
o Best seller? Vitruvius:
 1511: with illustrations (Fra Giocondo)
 1521: in Italian (Cesariano)
o Trend= “architects” as authors and consumers of books
Professional Literature
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Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1553): painter-architect, finished mentor’s book draft
Practical design guide (in Italian); balances text and images
Giacomo da Vignola (1507-1573): painter-architect; 1562 book
Big drawings, almost no text; Vignola used into 20th century
Worldwide Bestseller
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Palladio’s Four Books on Architecture (1570)
Unusual: stonemason to educated architect and author
Practical handbook; more illustrations, less “theory”
Argument: learn architecture from concrete examples
Illustrates 27 of his OWN projects; global impact
Renaissance Men
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Renaissance architects: painters, sculptors, authors, and…
Military engineers: fortification design part of competence
Technology and Defense
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Tall city walls, square or round towers = obsolete
Gunpowder, cannon, iron cannonballs = game-changers
Di Giorgio (1439-1502): re-designed urban defenses
Painter, sculptor, architect; hydraulic engineer
Angled vs. perpendicular walls to resist, deflect shot
Star Fortifications
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City as military machine: ballistics shape urban form
Pointed bastions, earthworks, layering of moats and walls
Palma Nova: ideal city built from scratch; eastern outpost
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Single most expensive infrastructure investment (Lucca)
Late 16th c.: division of civil and military architecture
Begins professional division of “architecture” and “engineering”