HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE II READINGndMATERIAL

A.Y. 2015-2016 2 Semester

Impact of Industrial Revolution on Architecture

The Industrial Revolution, which began in England about 1760, led to radical changes at every level
of civilization throughout the world. The growth of heavy industry brought a flood of new building
materials—such as cast iron, steel, and glass—with which architects and engineers devised
structures hitherto undreamed of in function, size, and form.

Disenchantment with baroque, with rococo, and even with neo-Palladianism turned late 18th-
century designers and patrons toward the original Greek and Roman prototypes. Selective borrowing
from another time and place became fashionable. Its Greek aspect was particularly strong in the
young United States from the early years of the 19th century until about 1850. New settlements
were given Greek names—Syracuse, Ithaca, Troy—and Doric and Ionic columns, entablatures, and
pediments, mostly transmuted into white-painted wood, were applied to public buildings and
important town houses in the style called Greek revival.

In France, the imperial cult of Napoleon steered architecture in a more Roman direction, as seen in
the Church of the Madeleine (1807-1842), a huge Roman temple in Paris. French architectural
thought had been jolted at the turn of the century by the highly imaginative published projects of
Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude Nicholas Ledoux. These men were inspired by the massive aspects
of Egyptian and Roman work, but their monumental (and often impractical) compositions were
innovative, and they are admired today as visionary architects.

The most original architect in England at the time was Sir John Soane; the museum he built as his
own Londonhouse (1812-1813) still excites astonishment for its inventive romantic virtuosity. Late
English neoclassicism came to be seen as elitist; thus, for the new Houses of Parliament the
authorities insisted on Gothic or Tudor Revival. The appointed architect, Sir Charles Barry, was not a
Gothic expert, but he called into consultation an architect who was—A. W. N. Pugin, who became
responsible for the details of this vast monument (begun 1836). Pugin, in a short and contentious
career, made a moral issue out of a return to the Gothic style. Other architects, however, felt free to
select whatever elements from past cultures best fitted their programs—Gothic for Protestant
churches, baroque for Roman Catholic churches, early Greek for banks, Palladian for institutions,
early Renaissance for libraries, and Egyptian for cemeteries.

In the second half of the 19th century dislocations brought about by the Industrial Revolution
became overwhelming. Many were shocked by the hideous new urban districts of factories and
workers’ housing and by the deterioration of public taste among the newly rich. For the new modes
of transportation, canals, tunnels, bridges, and railroad stations, architects were employed only to
provide a cultural veneer.

The Crystal Palace (1850-1851; reconstructed 1852-1854) in London, a vast but ephemeral
exhibition hall, was the work of Sir Joseph Paxton, a man who had learned how to put iron and glass
together in the design of large greenhouses. It demonstrated a hitherto undreamed-of kind of
spatial beauty, and in its carefully planned building process, which included prefabricated standard
parts, it foreshadowed industrialized building and the widespread use of cast iron and steel.

Also important in its innovative use of metal was the great tower (1887-1889) of Alexandre-Gustave
Eiffel in Paris. In general, however, the most gifted architects of the time sought escape from their
increasingly industrialized environment by further development of traditional themes and eclectic
styles. Two contrasting but equally brilliantly conceived examples are the sumptuous
Paris Opera (1861-1875) by Charles Garnier and Boston’s grandiose Trinity Church (1872-1877) by
Henry Hobson Richardson .

Taxes against glass, windows and bricks were repealed which saw a new interest in using these
building materials. Factory made plate glass was developed and complex designs in iron grillwork
were a popular decoration for the classical and Gothic buildings. There were also terracotta
manufacturing improvements, which allowed for more of its use in construction. Steel skeletons
were covered with masonry and large glass skylights were popular.

Improvements to the iron making process encouraged the building of bridges and other structures.
Large indoor open spaces were now made possible with the use of strong iron framed construction;
this was ideal for factories, museums and train stations. The Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889
Exhibition in Paris was a dramatic demonstration by the French of their mastery of this new

Arch. Ralph Intal 1|P age

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE II READINGndMATERIAL
A.Y. 2015-2016 2 Semester

construction technology. “To the architect-engineer belongs a new decorative art, such as
ornamental bolts, iron corners extending beyond the main line, a sort of Gothic lacework of iron. We
find that to some extent in the Eiffel Tower.”

But it was heavily criticized by some architects and artists who scorned it as an example of the
“blackness of industry” and saw it as blight on the city’s skyline.

The Crystal Palace created to enclose the Great Exhibition of 1851 in England was a glass and iron
showpiece, which dazzled the millions of visitors who passed through its doors. Built by Joseph
Paxton within six months, its design mimicked the greenhouses that were his customary stock in
trade. It was spacious enough to enclose mature existing trees within its walls.

There was some rejection of the new Industrial Revolution architecture and it’s emphasis on classical
construction, Palladian styles and Victorian “gingerbread” houses; some impressive Gothic revival
architecture was commissioned instead. Notable examples were the British Parliament Buildings with
their pointed spires and suggestion of strength and moral values. “Strawberry Hill”, built after the
mid-eighteenth century, seems patterned after a Gothic castle and though it combined some novel
construction materials which reflected strong spiritual and religious sentiments in its design.

Regarding architecture of this era, John Ruskin, a co-founder of the Arts and Crafts movement
toward simplicity argued, “You should not connect the delight which you take in ornament with that
which you take in construction or in usefulness. They have no connection, and every effort that you
make to reason from one to the other will blunt your sense of beauty…. Remember that the most
beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”

Arch. Ralph Intal 2|P age