THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE - V

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akash . ashvin . sanjana . bajeo . lavanya . snigdha . thangson . teja . vidya
THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD
 PREMODERN ARCHITECTURE
 PALLADIAN REVIVAL IN BRITAIN
 GREEK REVIVAL
 GOTHIC REVIVAL
 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD
 CHISWICK HOUSE, LONDON
 MEREWORTH CASTLE, KENT
 ST. PANCRAS CHURCH, LONDON
 WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON
 ARC DE TRIOMPHE, PARIS
 Premodern Architecture
• Villa Savoye, by Le Corbusier and his cousin, was built from 1928 to 1931. With the rise of Nazism
in 1933, the German experiments in modernism were replaced by more traditionalist
architectural forms.

• Economic conditions severely limited the number of built commissions between 1914 and the mid-
1920s, resulting in many of the most important expressionist works remaining as projects on paper,
such as Bruno Taut's Alpine Architecture and Hermann Finsterlin's Formspiels.
• The style was characterised by an early-modernist adoption of novel materials, formal innovation,
and very unusual massing, sometimes inspired by natural biomorphic forms, sometimes by the new
technical possibilities offered by the mass production of brick, steel and especially glass.
• As a result of isolation during World War I, an art and design movement developed unique to the
Netherlands, known as De Stijl (literally "the style"), characterized by its use of line and primary
colors. While producing little architectural design overall (with notable exception of the Rietveld
Schröder House of 1924), its ideas went on to influence the architects and designers of the 1920s.
 Premodern Architecture
• Expressionism was an architectural movement that developed in Northern Europe during the first
decades of the 20th century in parallel with the expressionist visual and performing arts. Making
notable use of sculptural forms and the novel use of concrete as artistic elements, examples
include Rudolf Steiner's Second Goetheanum, built from 1926 near Basel, Switzerland and the
Einsteinturm in Potsdam, Germany.

• Unlike the influential architects and designers of Britain who saw ornamentation and decoration as
a way of reviving arts and crafts in the face of machine production, the modernists in Germany
sought to integrate the machine into human living and space. In reaction to the decadence of the
Art Nouveau style and its German counterpart Jugendstil, Adolf Loos remarked, "ornamentation
should be eliminated from all useful objects”.
 Palladian Revival in Britain
Palladian Architecture
• Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from and inspired by
the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580).

• That which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of Palladio's

original concepts. Palladio's work was strongly based on the symmetry, perspective and
values of the formal classical temple architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

• From the 17th century Palladio's interpretation of this classical architecture was
adapted as the style known as Palladianism. It continued to develop until the end of
the 18th century.

A typical example of Palladian architecture:

A villa with a superimposed portico, from Book IV of
Palladio'sI Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, in an
English translation published in London, 1736.
 Palladian Revival in Britain
Characteristics of English Palladian Architecture
• In a nutshell, grace, understated decorative elements,
and use of classical orders. At its most rigid, Palladianism
simply copied designs made popular in Italy by Palladio.
• Thus Colen Campbell (1676-1729) produced the square
symmetrical block of Mereworth Castle, Kent, in imitation
of Palladio's own Villa Capra.
• "True Palladianism" in Villa Godi by Palladio from the
Quattro Libri dell'Architettura. The extending wings are
agricultural buildings and are not part of the villa.
• In the 18th century they became an important part of
Palladianism secondary bedrooms and accommodation.
• The proportion of each room within the villa were
calculated on simple mathematical ratio like 3:4 and 4:5,
and the different rooms within the house were
interrelated by these ratios. Earlier architects had used
these formulas for balancing a single symmetrical
façade: however, Palladio's designs related to the Plan for Pallatdio's Villa Rotonda. Features of
the house were to become incorporated in
whole, usually square villa. numerous Palladian style houses through
Europe over the following centuries.
 Palladian Revival in Britain
• Palladianism became popular briefly in Britain during the mid-
17th century, but its flowering was cut short by the onset of the
Civil War.
• In the early 18th century it returned to fashion, not only in
England but also, directly influenced from Britain, in Prussia. Drayton Hall

• Count Francesco Algarotti may have written to Burlingto from

Berlin that he was recommending to Frederick the Great the
adoption in Prussia of the architectural style Burlington had
introduced in England but Knobelsdorff's opera-house on the
Unter den Linden, based on Campbell's Wanstead House, had
been constructed from 1741. Hammond-Harwood House
• Later in the century, when the style was falling from favour in
Europe, it had a surge in popularity throughout the British
colonies in North America, highlighted by examples such as
Drayton Hall in South Carolina, the Redwood Library in Newport,
Rhode Island, the Morris-Jumel Mansion in New York City, the
Hammond-Harwood House in Annaplolis, Maryland, and
Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and Poplar Forest in Virginia. Redwood Library in Newport
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of
the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in
Northern Europe and the United States.

KEY ELEMENTS
• Tall columns and pediments: The ancient Greek
temple model, with its row of tall columns and
pediments, includes two of the most obvious
characteristics of this style of historic home design.
• Painted plaster exterior: Although the buildings and
ruins in Greece were all made of stone, American
homes of this style were not. They were instead
crafted in wood and covered in plaster, then
painted in white to create the illusion of stone.
• Horizontal transom: It sits over the front door, instead
of a fanlight like the earlier Federal period homes.
 Greek Revival
Characteristic Features
• Heavy entablature and cornices
• Generally symmetrical façade, though entry is often
to one side
• Front door surrounded by narrow sidelights and
rectangular transom, usually incorporated into more
elaborate door surround
• Small frieze-band windows set into wide band trim
below cornice not uncommon
• Chimneys are not prominent
• Gable or hipped roof of low pitch
• Cornice lines emphasized with wide band of trim
• Porches common, either entry or full-width
supported by prominent square (vernacular) or
rounded columns (typically Doric style)
• Columns typically in Greek orders, many still have
Roman details (Doric, Ionic or Corinthian),
vernacular examples may have no clear classical
precedents
 Gothic Revival
• Other Names - Victorian Gothic,
Neo Gothic or Jigsaw Gothic.
• Began in the late 1740s in England.
• Its popularity grew rapidly in the
early 19th century.
• When increasingly serious and
learned admires of Neo Gothic
Style sought to revive Medeival
Gothic Architecture, in contrast to
Neo Classical Style.
• Gothic revival draws features from
original gothic style, including
decorative patterns, finials,
scalloping, lancet windows, hood
mouldings.
 Gothic Revival
Roots
• The Gothic Revival Movement
emerged in 19th century in
England.
• Its roots were intertwined with
deeply philosophical movements
associated with a re-awakening of
high-church or anglo-catholic
belief concerned by growth of
religion.
• The gothic revival was paralleled
and supported by medievalism.
• A reaction against machine
production and the appearance of
factories also grew.
Chiswick House, London
 Chiswick House, London
• Palladian villa.
• Designed by Richard Boyle.
• House and garden occupies 65.1
acres.
 Characteristic Architectural Features

• The walls and the facade.

• The dome.
• The rooms.
• The columns.
• The two floors.
• The relationship between the villa and the garden.
Mereworth Palace, Kent
 Mereworth Castle, Kent
• Built c1720-25
• Based on Palladio's Villa Capra near Vicenza
• Leaded ribbed dome
• Large square block with 4 identical fronts, excepting
the lack of portico steps to east and west.
• String-course above basement, cornice-band at
portico entablature level
• Entrance Hall: Barrel-vaulted with plaster busts in
shells over side doors and pair of female allegorical
figures over arched doorway into central rotunda
• Hipped slate roof carrying heavily banded almost
hemispherical dome with blind lantern surrounded
by high half-columns
• Single pedimented and balconied 1st floor windows
each side of Hexastyle Ionic porticos
• Rotunda: 2 storeys and dome with plaster copping
 Mereworth Castle, Kent
• Four major axial and four minor diagonal doorways
on both floors, the upper to deep balustrade
gallery on carved volute brackets
• Cornice under gallery. Sumptuous plasterwork with
pairs of female figures, putti and busts in shells over
doorways, and rectangular relief
panels, portrait busts and foliage drops arrayed on
the walls
St. Pancras Church, London
 St. Pancras Church, London
• The church is in a Greek revival style,
using the Ionic order.
• It is built from brick, faced with
Portland stone, except for the
portico and the tower above the
roof, which are entirely of stone. All
the external decoration, including
the capitals of the columns is of
terracotta.
• The Inwoods drew on two ancient
Greek monuments, the Erechtheum
and the Tower of the Winds, both in
Athens, for their inspiration.
• The doorways are closely modelled
on those of the Erechtheum, as is the
entablature, and much of the other
ornamentation.
• The church pictured in 1948.
 St. Pancras Church, London
• The octagonal domed ceiling of the vestibule is in imitation of the
Tower of the Winds.
• The west end follows the basic arrangement of portico, vestibules and
tower established by James Gibbs at St Martin-in-the-Fields.
• At the east end is an apse, flanked by two tribunes, with entablatures
supported by caryatids.
• The caryatids are made of terracotta, constructed in sections around
cast-iron columns, modelled by John Charles Felix Rossi. Each caryatid
holds a symbolic extinguished torch or an empty jug, appropriate for
their positions above the entrances to the burial vault.
• There is a stone sarcophagus behind the figures in each tribune, and
the cornices are studded with lion's heads.
• The upper levels of the tribunes were designed as vestries.
• Access to the church is through three doorways ranged under the
portico. There are no side doors.
• Inside, the church has a flat ceiling with an uninterrupted span of 60
feet (18 m), and galleries supported on cast-iron columns. The interior
of the apse is in the form of one half of a circular temple, with six
columns, painted to imitate marble, raised on a plinth.
Westminster Palace, London
Westminster Palace, London
 Meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords - the two houses of the
Parliament of the United Kingdom.
 Commonly known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the northern bank of
the River Thames in the City of Westminster, in central London.
 The first royal palace was built on the site in the eleventh century, and Westminster was the
primary residence of the Kings of England until a fire destroyed much of the complex in 1512.
After that, it served as the home of the Parliament of England.
 In 1834, an even greater fire ravaged the heavily rebuilt Houses of Parliament, and the only
medieval structures of significance to survive were Westminster Hall, the Cloisters of St
Stephen's, the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft, and the Jewel Tower.
 The remains of the Old Palace (with the exception of the detached Jewel Tower) were
incorporated into its much larger replacement, which contains over 1,100 rooms organised
symmetrically around two series of courtyards. Part of the New Palace's area of 3.24 hectares
(8 acres) was reclaimed from the Thames, which is the setting of its principal 266-metre (873 ft)
façade, called the River Front.
 Westminster Palace, London
Design & Detail
 After the fire in 1834, competition for the reconstruction of the Palace was
won by the architect Charles Barry, whose design was for new buildings in
the Gothic Revival style.
 Barry was also careful to weld the old to the new, so that the surviving
medieval buildings - Westminster Hall, the Cloisters and Chapter House of St
Stephen's, and the Undercroft Chapel - formed an integral part of the
whole.
 In his design, Barry was also concerned to balance the horizontal
(continuous bands of panelling) with the vertical (turrets that ended high
above the walls). He also introduced steeply-pitched iron roofs which
emphasised the Palace's lively skyline. His Gothic scheme for the new
Palace also extended to its interior furnishings, such as wallpapers, carvings,
stained glass and even the royal thrones and canopies.
 The Palace of Westminster contains over 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases and
4.8 kilometres (3 mi) of passageways, which are spread over four floors. The
ground floor is occupied by offices, dining rooms and bars; the first floor
(known as the principal floor) houses the main rooms of the Palace,
including the debating chambers, the lobbies and the libraries. The top-two
floors are used as committee rooms and offices.
Plan of Westminster Palace, London
Arc De Triomphe, Paris
 Arc De Triomphe, Paris
• The Arc de Triomphe is one of the most
famous monuments in Paris.
• The Arc de Triomphe honours those who
fought and died for France in the French
Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with
the names of all French victories and
generals inscribed on its inner and outer
surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of
the Unknown Soldier.
• The monument stands 50 metres in height,
45 m wide and 22 m deep. The large vault is
29.19 m high and 14.62 m wide. The small
vault is 18.68 m high and 8.44 m wide. Its
design was inspired by the Roman Arch of
Titus.
Arc De Triomphe, Paris
The four main sculptural groups on each of
the Arc's pillars are:
• The sculptural group celebrates the cause of
the French First Republic during the 10
August uprising. Above the volunteers is the
winged personification of Liberty.
• The detail celebrates the Treaty of
Schönbrunn. This group features Napoleon,
crowned by the goddess of Victory.
• The third commemorates the French
resistance to the Allied armies during
the War of the Sixth Coalition.
• The fourth detail commemorates the Treaty
of Paris, concluded in that year.
 On the inner façades of
the small arches
are engraved the names
of the military leaders of
the French Revolution
and Empire

The ceiling with 21

sculpted roses

A list of French
victories is engraved
Panoramic
under the great
view of
arches on the inside
internal
façades of the
staircase.
monument

Bas relief in
walls of arch