AUGUSTE PERRET
In the early 20th century, Auguste Perret discovered a still recent building material, reinforced concrete. Delighting in its clear, elementary forms, he used it in hundreds of innovative designs over the following decades.
Perret was barely 30 years old when he created a new building in the Rue Franklin in Paris, a building that soon made history. The young architect made no secret of the structure of this apartment building: the load-bearing reinforced concrete skeleton is clearly separated from the non-load-bearing filling and both are dearly visible in the facade. Thanks to the narrow supports and large window areas, the building, despite its size, does not appear at all massive, but rather light and transparent. Perret had decided in favor of a comparatively new building material: reinforced concrete, in other words concrete cast over a framework of iron bars, which had been in use only since the mid-igth century.
Perret remained loyal to the material all his life, and it is the main element of his buildings of the decades that followed. Only rarely are the facades of his concrete structures disguised with cladding, as with the Theatre des Champs-Elysées, which is adorned with reliefs by the artist Antoine Bourdelle. This site for contemporary music on the impressive Paris street, incidentally, became talked about not only from an architectural point of view—it was there, after all, that modernism in ballet originated.
A Man of Few Words
Perret, who from 1905 worked with his brothers Gustave and Claude, moved straight on to the next commissions, his chosen material continuing to be among the tools of his trade. This is shown by some 380 executed designs. He created department stores, urban villas, cathedrals and museums in concrete—in Casablanca, Paris, and Sao Paulo. His work soon found its way into exhibitions and architectural journals, and Perret, who was also active as a teacher (not least among his pupils was Le Cor-busier), was honored with many awards. Self-confident, dignified and elegant—this was how his colleagues described him. There was one more thing on which they all agreed: Perret was a man of few words. His eloquence was expressed in his designs.
A Celebration of Concrete
In France, though not in his much-loved Paris, but in Le Havre in Normandy, Perret made his name as a town planner. From 1945 he dedicated himself to the reconstruction of the port, which had been almost completely destroyed during the Second World War. Within ten years the new Le Havre came into being, according to the plans produced by his office, with concrete appearing everywhere, and used not just for basic utilitarian buildings. His prefabricated private houses, the church of St Joseph, and the Town Hall have a special fascination all of their own, and since 2005 have been placed on UNESCO’s list of World Cultural Heritage sites.
Major works of Auguste Perret
- Rue Franklin apartments, Paris, 1902–1904
- Garage Ponthieu, Paris, 1907
- Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, 1913
- concrete cathedral in Le Raincy, France, Église Notre-Dame du Raincy, 1923, with stained-glass work by Marie-Alain Couturier
- the Concert Hall of the École Normale de Musique de Paris, 1929
- extensions to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1945
- the City Hall, St. Joseph’s Church and further reconstruction of the French city of Le Havre after more than 80,000 inhabitants of that city were left homeless following World War II, 1949–1956
- the Gare d’Amiens, 1955
- the villa Aghion, in Alexandria (destroyed 28 August 2009)
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Of his almost 92 years of life, Frank Lloyd Wright spent 72 as an architect. Unlike many of his colleagues, this devoted family man built above all houses. This self-selected focus did not, however, prevent him from designing one of the best-known museum buildings in the world: MoMA in New York.
For his plans, Wright at an early stage chose the keyword “organic.” Organic architecture fits into its context—into its natural surroundings, and into its time- A new building in the 20th century, the young architect concluded, should not imitate anything old, but should reflect the present with modern materials and new technology. Wright adopted one further principle: the standard for his buildings was the human being, whose needs determined his designs.
Thus the father of six children designed for his own home in Oak Park, Chicago, an enormous playroom with child-friendly low windows, wide window seats and, above all, plenty of room. Residential houses, and by no means exclusively those in the luxury bracket, remained Wright’s primary task.
Harmony with Nature
For Wright, a building seemed in harmony with its surroundings when it fitted in as well as possible into its specific natural environment. His “prairie houses,” for example, were designed against the background of the endless horizontals of the open prairies of the Midwest. The three-story Falling-water House takes the harmony between building and landscape to the limit: walls and floors are of wood and natural stone, while the ceilings, traversed by glass courses, allow nature to enter the interior. Seen from the outside, the waterfall that gives the house its name seems to arise from within the house itself, so perfectly does it fit into the landscape.
The Washing Machine
Wright’s rejection of detail is found in the open, generously flowing room designs which he presented in 1943 to the industrialist Solomon Guggenheim, who was looking for suitable spaces in New York for his collection of abstract art. The building that finally took shape on Fifth Avenue—the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA—in the middle of Manhattan was described by some critics as a “washing machine.” But Wright was not deterred. His Guggenheim Museum looks like an ivory-colored sculpture. On the modest substructure rests a stack of round discs, whose diameters increase as we move upwards. In the interior, a spiral ramp winds along the outer wall from the ground floor up to the top story; visitors, Wright said, should first to go up the top of the building in the elevator and from there explore the artworks step by step as they move downwards.
It was not just critics and fellow architects who voiced concerns: artists wondered how their works could be shown to effect on the curved walls of the building. It was clear at the opening that they had no reason for doubt. Sadly, Frank Lloyd Wright was not able to enjoy the success of his extraordinary building, dying only a few months before the completion of this architectural icon.
Major works of Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park, Illinois, 1889–1909
William H. Winslow House, River Forest, Illinois, 1894
Ward Winfield Willits Residence, and Gardener’s Cottage and Stables, Highland Park, Illinois, 1901
Dana-Thomas House, Springfield, Illinois, 1902
Larkin Administration Building, Buffalo, New York, 1903 (demolished, 1950)
Darwin D. Martin House, Buffalo, New York, 1903–1905
Unity Temple, Oak Park, Illinois, 1904
Frederick C. Robie Residence, Chicago, Illinois, 1909
Taliesin I, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911
Midway Gardens, Chicago, Illinois, 1913 (demolished, 1929)
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, 1923 (demolished, 1968; entrance hall reconstructed at Meiji Mura near Nagoya, Japan, 1976)
Hollyhock House (Aline Barnsdall Residence), Los Angeles, 1919–1921
Ennis House, Los Angeles, 1923
Taliesin III, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1925
Graycliff. Buffalo, NY 1926
Westhope (Richard Lloyd Jones Residence, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1929
Fallingwater (Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. Residence), Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1935–1937
First Jacobs House, 1936–1937
Johnson Wax Headquarters, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936
Herbert F. Johnson Residence (“Wingspread”), Wind Point, WI, 1937
Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1937
Usonian homes, various locations, 1930s–1950s
Child of the Sun, Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, 1941–1958
First Unitarian Society of Madison, Shorewood Hills, Wisconsin, 1947
V. C. Morris Gift Shop, San Francisco, 1948
Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1952–1956
Beth Sholom Synagogue, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1954
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1956–1961
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, 1956–1959
Kentuck Knob, Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, 1956
The Illinois, mile-high tower in Chicago, 1956 (unbuilt)
Marshall Erdman Prefab Houses, various locations, 1956–1960
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, 1956–1961
Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, CA, 1957–1966
Gammage Auditorium, Tempe, Arizona, 1959–1964
VICTOR HORTA
With his villa for the university professor Émile Tassel, the young architect Victor Horta set new standards: this house is one of the first residential buildings in Europe in the Art Nouveau style. Horta was soon in demand for his daring ideas, and in his chosen home, Brussels, Horta left behind many luxurious private houses.
Educated in Ghent, Paris, and Brussels, Victor Horta led an independent life from his mid-20s. His ideas were revolutionary. Replacing wood with iron his first move, although it was not so much the material that was new as the place where it was used. Horta used it, for example, for the entrance hall of the house that he built for Tassel: slender iron components continue in the form of tendril-like ornamentation on floor, walls, and ceiling—and, not least, the iron columns themselves take up the vegetal motifs. Everything seems to be in movement, linked together by whirls and curves. The arrangement of rooms and passages too is determined by flowing transitions.
Building for the Workers
While Horta transposed the vocabulary of Art Nouveau with its curved lines and vegetal ornament in the Tassel house, his next major commission proved to be quite different. The newly founded Belgian Socialist Party commissioned the still quite unknown architect to design its assembly building. Horta envisaged a palace, “which would not be a palace at all, but a ‘house,’ in which light and air represent the luxury that was for so long denied to the miserable living quarters of the workers.” The curved facade of this early major work by Horta formed a framework of slender iron elements. Brickwork played only a subsidiary role in the Maison du Peuple—the foreground was dominated by large areas of glass. The building attracted enormous attention, a situation that was to be repeated when the house was demolished in 1965 in the face of all protests.
Dynamic and Flooded with Light
Horta’s later designs were no longer designed for such specific purposes, and even the target group changed. Over the years that followed, Horta created two large department stores and above all urban villas for wealthy entrepreneurs. It was precisely the latter who posed a particular problem for the architect: how could the narrow but tall town houses typical of Brussels, constricted within long rows, be made visually larger? Horta had the good fortune to have a largely free hand in realizing his ideas; thanks to glass roofs, his buildings give the impression of being flooded with light, and mirrors placed opposite each other suggest whole series of rooms.
In the urban villa executed by Horta at the turn of the century for the wealthy manufacturer Solvay, he indulged to its height his weakness for moving forms in the curved facade, whose bow fronts are vaulted. The interior receives the visitor above all with light: rooms merge into each other, walls and ceiling of the first floor are broken up into skillfully structured glass surfaces. Horta concerned himself not only with the overall structure of the building, but also with the decor and furnishings down to the smallest detail.
Major Works of Victor Horta
1885 : 3 houses, Twaalfkameren 49, 51, 53 in Ghent (design)
1889 : Temple of Human Passions, Cinquantenaire Park in Brussels (protected monument since 1976)
1890 : Maison Matyn, rue de Bordeauxstraat 50, 1060 Saint-Gilles
1890 : Renovations and interior decoration to the Brussels residence of Henri van Cutsem, Kunstlaan / Avenue des Arts 16, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode (Today Charlier museum).
1892-1893 : Hôtel Tassel, rue Paul-Emile Jansonstraat 6 in Brussels
1893 : Maison Autrique, Haachtsesteenweg/Chaussée de Haecht 266 in Schaerbeek
1894 : Hôtel Winssinger, Munthofstraat / rue de l’Hôtel de la Monnaie 66 in Saint-Gilles
1894 : Hôtel Frison, rue Lebeaustraat 37 in Brussels
1894 : Atelier for Godefroid Devreese, Vleugelstraat / rue de l’aile 71 in Schaerbeek (modified)
1894 : Hôtel Solvay, Avenue Louise 224 in Brussels.
1895 : Interior decoration of the house of Anna Boch, Boulevard de la Toison d’Or / Guldenvlieslaan 78 in Saint-Gilles (demolished)
1895-1898 : Hôtel van Eetvelde, Avenue Palmerstonlaan 2/6 in Brussels
1896-1898 : Maison du Peuple / Volkshuis, place Vanderveldeplein in Brussels (demolished in 1965)
1897-1899 : Kindergarten, rue Sainte-Ghislaine / Sint-Gisleinstraat 40 in Brussels
1898-1900 : House and Studio of Victor Horta, rue Américaine / Amerikaansestraat 23-25 in Saint-Gilles (today the Horta Museum ).
1899 : Maison Frison “Les Épinglettes”, avenue Circulaire / Ringlaan 70 in Uccle
1899 : Hôtel Aubecq, Avenue Louise 520 in Brussels (demolished in 1950)
1899-1903: Villa Carpentier (Les Platanes), Doorniksesteenweg 9-11 in Ronse
1900 : Extension of the Maison Furnémont, rue Gatti de Gamondstraat 149 in Uccle
1900 : Department store: A l’Innovation, rue Neuve 111 in Brussels (destroyed by fire in 1967)
1901 : House and Studio for the sculptor Fernant Dubois, Avenue Brugmannlaan 80 in Forest, Belgium
1901 : House and Studio for the sculptor Pieter-Jan Braecke, rue de l’Abdication / Troonafstandstraat 51 in Brussels
1902 : Hôtel Max Hallet, Avenue Louise 346 in Brussels.
1903 : Funeral monument for the composer Johannes Brahms on the “Zentralfriedhof” in Vienna (in collaboration with the Austrian sculptor Ilse Conrat)[citation needed] Brahms’ grave on the Zentralfriedhof designed by Horta
1903 : Magasins Waucquez, rue du Sable / Zandstraat 20 in Brussels (since 1989 Belgian Centre for Comic Strip Art.
1903 : House for the art critic Sander Pierron, rue de l’Acqueduc / Waterleidingsstraat 157 in Ixelles
1903 : Grand Bazar Anspach, Bisschopsstraat / rue de l’Evêque 66 in Brussels (demolished)
1903 : Maison Emile Vinck, rue de Washingtonstraat 85, Ixelles (converted in 1927 by architect A.Blomme).
1903 : Department store: A l’Innovation, Chausée d’Ixelles / Elsenesteenweg 63-65 in Ixelles (converted)
1904 : Gym for the boarding school “Les Peupliers” in Vilvoorde.
1905 : Villa Fernand Dubois, rue Maredretstraat, Sosoye.
1906 : Brugmann Hospital, Place A. Van Gehuchtenplein in Jette; (First design; opened in 1923)
1907 : Magasins Hicklet, Nieuwstraat / rue Neuve 20 in Brussels (converted)
1909 : Wolfers Jewellers Shop, rue d’Arenberg / Arenbergstraat 11-13 in Brussels.
1910 : House for dr. Terwagne, Van Rijkswijcklaan 62, Antwerp.
1911 : Magasins Absalon, rue Saint-Christophe / Sint-Kristoffelstraat 41 in Brussels
1911 : Maison Wiener, Sterrekundelaan / avenue de l’Astronomie in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode (demolished)
1912 : Brussels-Central railway station (first designs; completed by Maxime Brunfaut and inaugurated in 1952).
1920 : Centre for Fine Arts, rue Ravensteinstraat in Brussels (first design; opened in 1928).
1925 : Belgian pavilion at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925.
1928 : Musée des Beaux-Arts Tournai in Tournai.
LOUIS SULLIVAN
With his plans for high-rise buildings in the Chicago of the 1890s, Louis Sullivan declared himself a revolutionary. His approach was very simple: a skyscraper, he announced, “must be tall every inch of it tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it.”
That achitecture was to be his field was at first less than clear, however. Louis Sullivan twice took up an academic career. Born in Boston, he first studied in his home city, but left the Institute of Technology after only a year. Neither did he stay long at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Back in Chicago, he was active above all as an interior decorator. But it was not to be long before, in his mid-2os, this son of a Swiss mother and an Irish dance teacher finally found his metier and his place, in the heart of Chicago.
Going Up
After great areas of the city had been destroyed by the great fire of 1871, rebuilding proceeded at top gear. For the first time, architects resorted to a new construction method: rather than building thick walls to support the weight of the building, they constructed load-bearing frameworks of steel. Over the years that followed, business and office high-rises of metal and glass shot up into the air. And many of them were Sullivan’s. From 1880 he worked in the office of the architect Dankmar Adler.
The two executed their commissions for office buildings and department stores with a very clear division of labor: Adler was the engineer, Sullivan the designer. The combination worked well, and a first major commission was the building of the opera house, incorporated into a ten-story building. The trend took off, and in 1890-1891 the two architects designed their first skyscraper with a steel skeleton, the Wainwright Building. More skyscrapers followed. The Guaranty Building, built in Buffalo by Adler & Sullivan up to 1895, by no means disguised its height in the facade; the vertical is clearly emphasized in the surface of decorative terracotta.
Form Follows Function
Sullivan’s conviction was that a building’s structure, function, and appearance should form a harmonious whole. Architectural decoration could certainly play its part, but it should be subordinate to function. With the Schlesinger & Mayer Store (today Carson, Pirie & Scott), in 1899-1904 Sullivan provided a fine example of this principle. The two lower floors of the building show his weakness for rich ornamentation. In the tower-like extension of one corner of the building is the entrance to the store, richly decorated with wrought iron.
From the third story, the situation looks different, however: the load-bearing metal framework of the building is clearly apparent, and the windows are set well back behind the steel framework. The extent of the stories as horizontal elements is as strongly emphasized as the vertical lines. This creates a cell-like structure on the surface of the building. Unlike many high-rise buildings, the Schlesinger & Mayer Store has a curved main corner above the main entrance.
Major Works of Louis SullivanMartin Ryerson Tomb, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago (1887)
Auditorium Building, Chicago (1889)
Carrie Eliza Getty Tomb, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago (1890)
Wainwright Building, St. Louis (1890)
Charlotte Dickson Wainwright Tomb, Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis (1892) which is lised on the National Register of Historic Places [10][11][12][13] is considered a major American architectural triumph,[14] a model for ecclesiastical architecture,[15] a “masterpiece”,[16] and has been called “the Taj Mahal of St. Louis.” Interestingly, the family name appears nowhere on the tomb.[17]
Union Trust Building (now 705 Olive), St. Louis (1893; street-level ornament heavily altered 1924)
Guaranty Building (formerly Prudential Building), Buffalo (1894)
Springer Block (later Bay State Building and Burnham Building) and Kranz Buildings, Chicago (1885–1887)
The Auditorium Building, Auditorium Hotel and Auditorium Theater (now Roosevelt University), Chicago (1886–1890)
Selz, Schwab & Company Factory, Chicago (1886–1887)
Commercial Loft for Wirt Dexter, Chicago (1887)
Standard Club of Chicago, Chicago (1887–1888)
Hebrew Manual Training School, Chicago (1889–1890)
James H. Walker Warehouse & Company Store, Chicago (1886–1889)
Warehouse for E. W. Blatchford, Chicago (1889)
Kehilath Anshe Ma’ariv Synagogue (also known as the K.A.M. Temple, later known as the Pilgrim Baptist Church), Chicago (1890–1891)
James Charnley House (also known as the Charnley–Persky House Museum Foundation and the National Headquarters of the Society of Architectural Historians), Chicago (1891–1892)
Albert Sullivan Residence, Chicago (1891–1892)
Transportation Building, World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago (1891–1893)
McVicker’s Theater, second remodeling, Chicago (1890–1891)
Bayard Building, (now Bayard-Condict Building), 65–69 Bleecker Street, New York City (1898). Sullivan’s only building in New York, with a glazed terra cotta curtain wall expressing the steel structure behind it.
Commercial Loft of Gage Brothers & Company, Chicago (1898–1900)
Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church and Rectory, Chicago (1900–1903)
Carson Pirie Scott store, (originally known as the Schlesinger & Mayer Store, now known as “Sullivan Center”) Chicago (1899–1904)
Virginia Hall of Tusculum College, Greeneville, Tennessee, 1901[18]
Van Allen Building, Clinton, Iowa (1914)
St. Paul’s Methodist Church, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1910)
Krause Music Store, Chicago (final commission 1922; front façade only)
ANTONI GAUDI
With his rejection of straight lines and symetrical ground plans, Antoni Gaudí opened a new chapter in the architectural history of Barcelona. With their strong colors and glittering facades, it is his highly imaginative designs that still characterize this Spanish port.
Fairytale Castles in the Heart of the City
The son of a coppersmith, Gaudí began his architectural career on a not exactly promising note: he left university with the lowest possible grade, a “pass.” However, private clients above all had confidence in his skill-to such an extent that this unconventional architect was soon inundated with commisions.His sources of inspiration were unusual: he was passion-ate about both medieval Gothic and Moorish architecture, to which he alluded when building the Casa Vicens. This home of a brickyard owner fascinates above all by its wealth of contrasts: little turrets on the roof are reminiscent of the minarets of mosques, and patterns of colorfully glazed tiles cover the entire facade.
The young architect soon found his most important client in the industrialist Eusebi Guell, for whom he first built a palatial residence, adorning its roof with a whole forest of fantastic chimneys. But Guell had greater things in mind; he dreamt of a garden city, whose houses on a steep cliff were to offer a view of the Mediterranean. While Güell’s plan did not find widespread acceptance and only two residential buildings were finally executed, Gaudi tackled his part of the work and transformed a 20-hectare area in the north of Barcelona into a walk-in sculpture. Between pine and palm trees, mosaics of glass and ceramics sparkle on the steps, benches, and houses of Park Güell.
At Home on the Building Site
“The straight line is the line of Man, the curve is the line of God”—this was Gaudi’s fundamental belief. His masterwork, a church known as the Sagrada Familia, was designed entirely according to this principle. When the 31-year-old took over the construction of this church, a crypt was already being built. Gaudi only briefly followed the existing Gothic forms, however. Soon he had found his model for the basic framework: nature itself. With their “branches,” the pillars and supports look like trees. The Sagrada Família, as a church of atonement, was to be built exclusively from donated funds, which the master builder frequently supplied in person.
Finally he realized that this task allowed him no time for further projects, and in 1914 he decided to devote himself exclusively to the church. The builders’ hut became his new home. But when the architect died in 1926 after a tram accident, this “sermon in stone” was still far from completion. Of the three facades, only the eastern one had been begun, not to speak of the bell towers, the tallest of which was to grow to 170 meters. Even today, Gaudi’s masterpiece primarily presents itself as a building site—although this hardly detracts from its overwhelming impact.
Major Works of Antoni Gaudí
Cooperativa Obrera Mataronense (1878–1882) Mataró
El Capricho (1883–1885) Comillas
Casa Vicens (1883–1888) Barcelona
Sagrada Família (1883–1926) Barcelona
Güell Pavilions (1884–1887) Barcelona
Palau Güell (1886–1890) Barcelona
Colegio de las Teresianas (1888–1889) Barcelona
Episcopal Palace of Astorga (1889–1915) Astorga
Casa Botines (1891–1894) León
Bodegas Güell (1895–1897) Sitges
Casa Calvet (1898–1900) Barcelona
Bellesguard (1900–1909) Barcelona
Parc Güell (1900–1914) Barcelona
Casa Batlló (1904–1906) Barcelona
Artigas Gardens (1905–1906) La Pobla de Lillet
Casa Milà (1906–1910) Barcelona
Church of Colònia Güell (1908–1915) Colònia Güell (Santa Coloma de Cervelló)
DANIEL BURNHAM
After some failed attempts at academic and political careers, Daniel Hudson Burnham started working in an architects’ office in Chicago. His professional future was sealed when he met his future businnes partner there, John Wellborn Root. Together, they were to play a leading role in the creation of the modern skyscraper.
The two architects complemented each other wonderfully: Daniel Burnham was considered the pragmatist while Root was esteemed for his wealth of invention. Together the pair built a significant proportion of the architecture that has become known as the “Chicago School.”
Skyscrapers in Downtown Chicago
In the last quarter of the 19th century, the first skyscrapers began to shoot up in Chicago. Above all in the Loop, the rapidly growing business district of the city, there was a shortage of building land, and only upwards was there no restriction on space. In 1889-1891, Burnham and Root added the Monadnock Building to the ever more imposing skyline. The building was 17 stories high, making it the largest office building of its time. Thick walls still formed the supporting elements of the building, but with the next project the architects were already exploring new techniques. In 1890 they began the Reliance Building, whose 61 metres of height combine steel, terracotta and, above all, glass.
When Root died in 1891, Charles A. Atwood took over his role on this project, and it is on his designs that the more open facade of the upper floors is based. Unlike the ground and first floor, it is decorated with ornamentation and designed in a more transparent way. Characteristic, above all, are the so-called “Chicago windows,” which are inset into the frame structure. They consist of a large glass pane flanked by two narrow panes that can be opened. Burnham & Company continued to celebrate their successes. Their Masonic Temple with its 22 stories was even—though only for a short time—the tallest building in the world. In 1893 Daniel Burnham became chief architect of the Chicago World’s Fair.
The “Flatiron”
Burnham left his lasting mark on the cityscape not only in Chicago, but also in New York. The site on the corner of Broadway and Fifth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan seemed hardly suitable for building on: it was not only narrow in the extreme but triangular. Yet the ground plan seems to have inspired Daniel Burnham, who used the available surface area in a positively exemplary manner. The Fuller Building, which he built there in 1902, was one of New York’s first high-rise buildings.
The 20-stories high building is better known as the Flatiron Building, a nickname it owes to its ground-plan form, which does indeed look like that of a pressing iron. Built in the form of a metal skeleton, the building towers up to 91 metres, with the framework concealed by the terracotta facade and not recognizable from the outside. The Flatiron Building was not able to claim the title of the tallest building in the world, but even today it can easily defend its status as an architectural icon.
OTTO WAGNER
“Nothing that is not useful can be beautiful”-this was the motto of the Viennese-born architect Otto Wagner. His pragmatism by no means stood in the way of his imagination, however, whether it was a question of a fine town house or stations on the Vienna urban railway system, his styles ranging from Renaissance revival to avant-garde Modernism.
When Otto Wagner took up his first commissions, he was still enthusiastic about revivalism; like many of his contemporaries, he borrowed from a number of architectural traditions. His preference was for the Renaissance era, as shown in the facade of the house at 23 Schottenring, which Wagner built in 1877 n the Ringstrasse in Vienna. But he and his clients were also capable of enthusiasm for Baroque forms. A mere three decades later, he had shelved the return to earlier traditions. Now he spoke of Vienna as the “birthplace of the art of our time.”
Vienna Becomes Modern
Wagner’s move from revivalism to Modernism did not take place in a vacuum. Vienna had become the fourth largest city in Europe, and many buildings were under construction: the new metropolis was being given a modern face. The Ringstrasse, which was being built at this time, was edged by some 850 impressive edifices, public and private palaces. And right in the middle of Viennese Modernism, as the two decades around 1900 were known. Otto Wagner built museums, academies, parliament buildings, and public monuments.
By the turn of the century, his greatest project was the design of the Vienna Stadtbahn, the urban rail network. From 1894, Wagner, a government building advisor and professor of architecture, showed himself to be open to new ideas. For his many designs for railway stations and bridges he placed iron, always lacquered in green, in prominent positions. Curving lines and ornamentation recalling foliage show his interest in Art Nouveau. In 1899, already 60 years old, he joined the Vienna Secessionists, a group of visual artists who rejected the revival of past times.
Modern Buildings for Modern Times
Thus no trace of revivalism was to be found in the Viennese Post Office Savings Bank, one of Wagner’s masterworks, built 1904-1906 in the center of Vienna. The exterior is clad in granite and marble panels, supported by aluminum bolts—a new material, like the reinforced concrete that was also used. The center of the building is the banking hall, above which is stretches a glass barrel vault.
The entire interior of the Savings Bank was also designed by Wagner in the same clear and rational way. His unprecedented designs were very influential, and among the successors of this architect, urban planner, furniture designer and theorist was, not least, Adolf Loos, who ultimately maintained that all decorative ornamentation was “a crime.”
GOTTFRIED SEMPER
Before he decided to study mathematics, Gottfried Semper chose a career as a professional army officer. Even when he finally attended the Munich academy of architecture, his enthusiasm for it was still muted. Yet he was to have a profound impact on German architecture.
Born in Hamburg, Semper was initially drawn to foreign parts. In Paris he again took up the study of architecture, and this time it clearly took hold of him In southern Europe he traveled to the classical temples and studied their coloration. Fascinated by the interplay of the arts of architecture, painting and sculpture, Semper presented his findings from Italy and Greece in book form.
Renaissance Revival on the Elbe
As soon as this project was completed, the 31-year-old was appointed to a professorship in architecture, and in 1834 he began teaching at the Dresden Academy. With his approach of linking theory and practice, Semper was striking out on new paths. At the same time, the teacher and author was given his first major project: his design for the Dresden Court Theater had been approved, and he began work in 1838. Having a semicircular form, and being integrated into the existing Baroque backdrop of buildings, the theater caused a sensation. Semper now began to receive commissions from all over Germany: his adoption of the Renaissance style had immediately found admirers.
Theory and Practice
Semper sympathized with revolutionary ideas, and so after the uprisings of 1848 had been put down he fled to Paris. Over the decades that followed, one move succeeded another; failing as a German to get a foothold in France, he moved on to London. There too he had hardly any opportunity to make his mark as an architect, and so he resumed his work as a professor. Now aged 52, in the hope of supplementing his teaching work with building commissions, he took advantage of an offer from Switzerland.
He had to remain patient for a little longer, but in 1860 he was finally able to go ahead with the building of the Polytechnikum in Zurich. Further commissions, and not only from Switzerland, followed. At the same time. Semper consolidated his reputation as an architectural theorist with his influential publication Style. A further success involved yet another move: Semper’s designs for the Kaiserforum on the Ringstrasse in Vienna were accepted. The master builder now settled in Vienna and began work on the great building complex of museums and Burg-theater, which however was subjected to wide-ranging alterations after his death.
KARL FRIEDRICH SCHINKEL
One of the most prolific German architects of the first half of the 19th century, Karl Friedrich Schinkel created more than 150 buildings in Germany and Poland, most of which are still to be seen today-churches and museums, palaces and monuments, bridges, schools, theaters and castles. He was also a accomplished painter, stage set designer, and interior decorator.
Fitness For Purpose
His career proceeded rapidly; as early as 1815, in his mid-1930s, he was appointed chief building advisor and was given important commissions, including the construction of a guardhouse for the royal palace. After the theater in the center of Berlin, in the Gen-darmenmarkt, had burnt down, the king’s choice fell once again on the master builder from Brandenburg. Its replacement, built from 1818 to 1821, represents one of Schinkel’s masterworks. The worthy framework for the new theater was already in place: the symmetrically designed square could already boast two church buildings close by, the German and the French cathedrals.
The Schauspielhaus in the center of the Gendarmenmarkt welcomes visitors with its classical, well-proportioned forms, more precisely with a Greek temple frontage built according to all the rules of the textbooks. In the interior of the building, the design strictly follows the law of fitness for purpose. Schinkel made no secret of his motto: “In architecture everything must be true, all masking or disguising of the structure is a fault.” The theater was opened with a production of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. The sets were designed by the great music-lover Friedrich Schinkel.
The Old an the New
With his references to the architecture of classical antiquity, Schinkel was following a current trend. In the late 18th century, both clients and architects saw in the temples of classical Greece the epitome of perfect beauty and thus the model for contemporary architecture. Accordingly, it was Schinkel’s buildings in the Neo-Classical style that met with the greatest approval, above all the Old Museum in the Lustgarten. A flight of stairs leads into the building, which, with its rotunda as a central hall, also alludes to the Roman Pantheon.
But Schinkel was perfectly capable of enthusiasm for other eras. In building the Friedrichswerder church in Berlin, for example, he was alluding to medieval Gothic. Schloss Kamenz in Silesia is likewise reminiscent of a medieval castle, and other designs demonstrate Schinkel’s weakness for the Romantic. Not only with regard to his building assignments, but also in respect of his models, Friedrich Schinkel shows himself to have always been open to the old—and to the new.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
In Virginia in the east of the newly founded United States of America, architecture largely followed European styles. It was above all the buildings of classical Rome that inspired master builders, and so both private and public buildings displayed temple facades, columned entrance halls, and elegant domes. America’s third president was among these enthusiastic builders.
Classical Sources
Thomas Jefferson, lawyer, politician, and architect, built his country house Monticello around 1770 in the middle of an old tobacco plantation at the gates f the little town of Charlottesville. On this “little mountain” one could imagine oneself suddenly transplanted to a time several centuries ago. The portal of this residence already resembles the front of a temple; mighty columns support a profiled cornice on which rests a classical pediment. At the rear, too, a similar portico leads into the building.
Projecting side wings are set back from the prominent porch, and the house is crowned by a central dome. For his new building, Jefferson made use of European architectural models, such as the Roman Pantheon, but also a masterwork of Renaissance architecture, the Villa Rotonda, which itself was based on classical buildings. This central-plan building, which had been built well over 200 years earlier near Vicenza in Italy by Andrea Palladio, was the American’s chief inspiration, above all in the matter of the design of the facade.
Jefferson’s Other Architectural Works
Jefferson’s comfortable countryseat was only the beginning of his career as an architect. As his next project, Jefferson took on the seat of government of his home state, Virginia. In its capital, Richmond, he built the Virginia State Capitol. Anyone who had expected modern architecture for the young nation must have had quite a surprise. On a hill above the city, from 1785 a classical temple began to arise, its declared model this time being a temple from Roman times, the Maison Carree in Nimes, in the south of France.
Politicians gathered there for the first time after seven years of building. At the very top of the agenda for the delegates and Governor Jefferson were topics such as the abolition of feudal privileges, the separation of church and state, and the setting up of a public education system. The latter was energetically taken in hand by Jefferson himself; after his term of office as third president of the United States had come to an end, he built and financed the University of Virginia, designing a whole “academic village.” For each of the ten faculties to be taught he designed a separate pavilion, which contained teaching and residential areas.
In designing the library, Jefferson seems to have once again had the Pantheon in mind; an impressive dome adorns the building and provides daylight. In March 1825 the first 123 students began their studies in Virginia. Jefferson also concerned himself with their physical well being, and several of them enjoyed Sunday dinner in the ex-president’s house. Among the students there were some of the finest minds of the young nation, including the founder of crime fiction, Edgar Allan Poe.
NICOLAS LEDOUX
When a barrel maker’s workshop is in the form of a barrel, or a river watchman sees a river flowing through bis house, we are dealing with “speaking architecture.” With his progressive social and architectural ideas Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, who appreciated classical literature and preferred to describe himself as an architect-philosopher, was among its most imaginative representatives. This French architect first learned his trade in Paris; his teacher, Jacques Francois Blondel, was a champion of Neo-Classicism. His first job, in local government, took Ledoux out of the capital.
From the Provinces to Paris
In the provinces of Burgundy and Champagne his responsibilities covered the construction of bridges, schools and transport routes, as well as farming matters and farmers’ living conditions. At the same time, the young architect made the acquaintance of high administrative officials, from whose ranks many of his later commissions came. When in 1764 Ledoux married the daughter of a court musician, his connections were definitively established: exchanging his administrative work for numerous commissions from the court, he could now settle in the capital and start building for the Paris nobility. Ledoux’ approach was eclectic, and he sometimes quoted from classical antiquity, at other times from the Italian Renaissance or French Neo-Classicism. In his facade for the Hotel d’Uzes, for example, he employed the Baroque, while for the Hotel d’Halwyll he drew upon Neo-Classicism.
Ideal Town
In 1771 the 35-year-old Ledoux was engaged to build a salt works in the east of the country. Between Arc and Senans, near Besancon, he created from 1774 the Saline du Roi. Ledoux was not satisfied with a simple factory; he designed a whole ideal town for working people. Processing areas and workshops were to be grouped in a semicircle around the house of the director, and these in turn were surrounded by houses and public buildings such as churches and communal baths. Only part of his design was realized, but this already demonstrates the concept behind it: living and working were to be closely ‘inked. Simple geometric forms such as cubes, spheres and pyramids determined the design of the buildings. The salt works began operating in 1779, and more than 250 workers lived in Ledoux’ houses. He continued to dedicate himself to his ideal city, but many of his “speaking buildings,” expressing Utopian ideals in Neo-Classical forms, were never executed.
With the outbreak of the French Revolution, Ledoux’ public and private commissions dried up; in 1793, the former royal architect even spent a short time in prison. During his last years, he devoted himself to his writings on architectural theory, the first (and only) volume appearing two years before his death.
BALTHASAR NEUMANN
Whether it was a question of a new church or a magnificent palace, during the first half of the 18th century many important German clients favored only one man—the Bohemian-born Balthasar Neumann. His name was heard everywhere, his trademark being magnificent staircases.
Neumann’s beginnings were comparatively modest. The son of two cloth-makers, he was apprenticed to his godfather, a metal caster. But as a 25-year-old, having meanwhile moved to Wurzburg, Neumann became deeply involved in other interests. He entered the artillery, which enabled him to begin a career as an engineer, and to receive further training in hydraulics, geometry, fortifications, and architecture.
The Home of a Prince-Bishop
Neumann’s talents were in demand as early as 1715, when the influential Schonborn family commissioned him to build a fountain for the family palace. They were clearly satisfied with the result, for further commissions followed immediately. The Schon-borns were to become the master builder’s most important patrons. When Johann Philipp Franz von Schonborn was chosen as Prince-Bishop of Wurzburg in 1719, his preferred architect was already in place: under Neumann’s direction, work began on the Prince-Bishop’s new residence. Together with Lucas von Hildebrandt, Maximilian von Welsch and a number of other artists he created, over the next decade and a half, a superb complex, whose four wings surround a cour d’honneur (a courtyard for ceremonial occasions). For one of the structural high points, the impressive staircase, Neumann made himself personally responsible. From the entrance hall on the ground floor, a wide step leads to a gallery placed around the staircase. To ascend, visitors must first climb the lower flight of steps and thus reach a landing. Now they have to change direction and decide in favor of one of the two flights of stairs leading to the gallery. With this sophisticated arrangement, Neumann succeeded in directing the visitor’s gaze slowly but surely upwards—above the white stucco decorations of the gallery walls, step by step there opens up a view of a monumental ceiling fresco, executed by the Venetian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
For Pilgrims and Baroque Fans
It was not only for innovative staircase designs that Neumann was engaged over the years that followed. He also found ample opportunities to prove himself in church architecture. He created a number of churches that clearly illustrate that there were no limits to his wealth of invention. In Vierzehnheiligen, a Bavarian pilgrimage church, for example, he created a ground plan composed of ovals of various sizes. The facade of the building, flanked by two towers, projects in the central area, and in the interior too Neumann stressed its three-dimensionality, so that the church appears almost to move— a feast for the eyes for both religious and architectural pilgrims.
CHRISTOPHER WREN
It was a self-taught man, of all people, who was to become one of the most famous British architects. Christopher Wren’s name is synonymous with London’s largest church, St Paul’s Cathedral, which kept its builder occupied for 35 years. At the age of 78, Wren had the great good fortune to see the completion of the building—quite an achievement, in view of its built surface area of more than 8,000 square meters.
At an early age, Christopher Wren, who grew up in a rural area of Wiltshire in the southwest of England, became enthusiastic about the sciences. After studying at Oxford, he began a professorship in London, and taught astronomy there and later in Oxford. That he was entrusted with building or restoring almost 50 churches, Wren owed not only to his talent, but also to a tragic accident. In September 1666, the Great Fire of London raged for four days and four nights.
After the devastating fire, a huge program of rebuilding was speedily undertaken: 13,200 houses and 87 parish churches needed to be replaced. At this point in time, Wren had already become known with his first designs and buildings, and this was his opportunity to make his mark in the capital on a grand scale. Two years after the Great Fire, the self-taught architect was asked to draft a plan for the reconstruction of St Paul’s Cathedral, for this church dedicated to the Apostle Paul had also fallen victim to the fire.
Wren suggested a central-plan building, such as was known in the Italian High Renaissance, but the clients rejected the proposal as being too daring (too Catholic) for a major Protestant church. Patience was the watchword over the years that followed, and it was not until 1675 that Wren’s design, meanwhile greatly modified, found acceptance.
A Versatile Master Builder
In the meantime Wren had finally decided in favor of architecture and against his post of professor of astronomy. His courage was rewarded by a plethora of commissions; in 1677 almost 30 of his designs were being executed at the same time. For St Paul’s, Wren relied on two quite different traditions, for he was able to draw on Renaissance architecture as much as on Baroque. The facade with two towers and a vestibule, supported by columns and crowned by a pediment, is reminiscent of classical temple frontages as Palladio too invoked them. In the interior, the space, arranged on a cruciform ground plan, opens upwards into a high cupola—Wren’s trademark and, for a long time, a symbol of London.
Despite all the life-blood that the master builder dedicated to his grand project, other commissions received due attention. Wren remained attached to Oxford, where he had studied and later taught, as can be seen in the Sheldonian Theatre, St John’s College, and Christ Church Tower. In Cambridge he designed, among other buildings, the library of Trinity College, and when he died in London at the venerable age of 91 he could also number among his buildings several palaces and hospitals he had built to royal commissions.
GIANLORENZO BERNINI
As a seven-year-old, Gianlorenzo Bernini, born in Naples, accompanied his sculptor father to Rome and lade himself useful at the latter’s workplaces. His talent did not stay hidden for long: at first Bernini attracted ttention as a sculptor, but soon he was in demand as an architect. And finally there was no holding him: o other artist has had such a huge influence on the cityscape of Rome as Bernini.
As the start of the 17th century, hardly a stone was still in its place in the Eternal City: streets and squares were laid out, and the Vatican was architecturally integrated into the city, for it was the popes themselves who were strenuously promoting urban modernization. And in the course of his career over more than six decades, Bernini was able to rely on the patronage of several popes. If he fell out of favor with the Vatican, there were still illustrious secular patrons to be found to make use of Bernini’s services, including King Louis XIV of France. No wonder that Bernini did not hide his light under a bushel. When there was criticism of the nose in a newly completed portrait of Louis, he responded curtly: “That is how I see it.”
Resurgent Rome
Bernini combined his talents as a sculptor and architect in his largest and most spectacular fountain. In the middle of the Piazza Navona in Rome, four marble river gods are enthroned on a rock, representing the parts of the earth known at that time: the Ganges and the Nile, the Danube and the Rio de la Plata form the basis of the monumental Fountain of Four Rivers, from whose center a Roman obelisk towers up. In 1656, on the opposite bank of the Tiber, and within the Vatican City, Bernini began his most important project, the redesign of St Peter’s Square. From the viewpoint of the existing square, the effect of the mighty dome of the basilica was hardly to be perceived.
Bernini first designed a trapezoid arrangement, and then toyed with the idea of a circular shape. Finally, he decided in favor of two adjoining areas, appropriate to the huge dimensions of the church: the Piazza Obliqua, 140 meters in depth, consists of an ellipse running diagonally to the church, to which is adjoined the Piazza Retta, which widens in trapezoid shape to 90 meters towards the basilica of St Peter. At the edges of both areas, Bernini placed wide rows of columns to enclose the Baroque complex effectively.
A tireless worker, Bernini continually pursued parallel tasks to this one, including the building of the church of Sant’Andrea on the Quirinal Hill. The decisive shape of this Jesuit church is the oval, and the ground-plan oval is even set diagonally. A circular staircase leads up to the portal, which in its turn is shielded by a canopy. Curved walls project on to the street from the portal. Bernini’s urge to design did not stop at the facade: the design extends to the interior too, where the oval forms are continued. The architect himself often visited the little church even after its completion, considering it one of his masterpieces.
ANDREA PALLADIO
Palladio’s career reads like a rags-to-riches story: a miller’s son from Padua, married, in accordance with his social status, to the daughter of a carpenter, he became one of the most sought-after architects of the wealth). More than 60 villas, churches, and city mansions were built to his designs. And he not only immortalized himself in stone, but also left behind a series of widely influential writings.
The skilled stonemason Andrea di Pietro was in his mid-20s when the writer and aristocrat Giangiorgio Trissino recognized his talent. He bestowed the name Palladio on his protege and traveled with him to Rome – a momentous trip for the young man. Back in the Veneto, over the next four decades Palladio followed classical principles of building— mainly for very wealthy clients, for Trissino opened many doors in high society to the young man in his lateral career move. In the 16th century, few prosperous families were without their own country villa, and their preferred architect was Andrea Palladio.
His client Paolo Almerico commissioned from him a villa on a hill at the outskirts of Vicenza. A circular hall surmounted by a cupola forms the center of the building and gave it its name: the “Rotonda” is presented as a central-plan building—a daring design, for this ground plan was more usual in ecclesiastical buildings than in private houses. In the design of the entrance to the Rotonda, Palladio oriented himself to the temple frontages of classical antiquity, and gave the Rotonda no fewer than four of these. The comfort of the residents was not forgotten by the architect: he placed the utility rooms in the basement, while the piano nobile was reserved for celebrations, and the family lived in the mezzanine floor above.
All’antica
When Palladio finally succeeded in establishing himself in Venice, many of his villas already adorned the mainland, the Veneto. In his mid-50s, he could at last make his mark in Venice, and with the location, the building tasks also changed: the Benedictine monks of the monastery on the island of San Giorgio commissioned from him an impressive three-aisled church with a dome, whose splendid facade (admittedly probably altered by a successor) faces towards the city. On the neighboring island of the Giudecca, Palladio, then almost 70 years old, also created an imposing house of God for the Capuchins.
“Il Redentore,” the church of the Redeemer, came into being as a memorial of the end of a plague epidemic, and this building too is adorned by a tiered, brilliantly white temple frontage. Palladio could no longer complain of a lack of variety. His final commission too was a challenge: he was to build a theater all’antica (in the antique style) for the scholars of Vicenza. Once again he needed to satisfy cultured tastes, and once again he fell back on his studies of classical buildings and architectural treatises. With the help of ingenious perspective, the architect of villas was now in addition creating the theater of the Renaissance.
MICHELANGELO
By his mid-30s, Michelangelo was alredy used to illustrious clients lining up to secure his services for their projects. So it seems only logical that at the advanced age of 71 he was personally requested by the pope to take over the most important building project of the era, the completion of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Michelangelo was already widely regarded as the greatest sculptor and painter of his day when he turned to architecture. The friend of his youth, Giovanni de’ Medici, now Pope Leo X, had great plans for the family buildings in his home city of Florence. From 1516, Michelangelo gave expression to these wishes. For the church of San Lorenzo he designed a facade without equal: twelve monumental columns, each one several tonnes in weight, were to adorn the marble frontage.
However, only one of these survived unbroken from the quarry on the building site, and the many failures caused the building costs to soar. Michelangelo raged, the pope cancelled the contract, and promptly signed up the architect for another project. It was not the facade but a family vault that Michelangelo was now to tackle in San Lorenzo: in 1520-1534 the New Sacristy took shape (as a counterpart to Brunelleschi’s Old Sacristy). The next commission followed immediately with the next Medici Pope: Clement VII had Michelangelo plan and execute the library of the monastery of San Lorenzo.
The Biblioteca Lauren-ziana, designed in close co-operation with the pope, became Michelangelo’s most important architectural work: the most prestigious one was still to come. An Architect Against His Will Equally at home with all genres of art, Michelangelo was now known as simply the universal genius. It was only to him that Pope Paul III would entrust the task of bringing the work on St Peter’s, which had been dragging along for decades, to a successful conclusion.
Giorgio Vasari, friend and biographer of Michelangelo, noted the tatter’s enthusiastic reaction to the enquiry from Rome: “At last His Holiness decided, as I believe, by divine inspiraton, to send for Michelango. Michelangelo tried to avoid the
burden, saying that architecture was not his real field, and since his requests were of no avail, the Pope in the end positively ordered him to accept the commission.” Admittedly, Paul III sweetened the pill for his chosen candidate, appointing the Florentine as chief director of building in 1547 and granting him powers that no other architect was ever to be given by a client: Michelangelo alone was to decide what should be torn down and what should be added. So much freedom summoned envious rivals who were not sparing with their criticisms.
One reproach was that Michelangelo was designing only a small church of St Peter, a “San Pietrino,” instead of the greatest church in Christendom. Undeterred, Michelangelo reduced the size of hi; predecessor’s model, certain that the effect of the central-plan building would only be increased as a result. The chief architect of St Peter’s was already 71 when he took over the building project, and to provide against further changes to his plans by potential successors he ordered work to begin simultaneously on all the important areas of the building. It was a strategy that largely worked.
DONATO BRAMANTE
Bramante’s father had decided that his son should be a painter. Donato submitted, but met with a distinct lack of success, as recorded bj the biographer Vasari: “So he determined, in order to view an important building at least once, to go to Milan and look at the cathedral.”
Bramante’s visit to Milan was momentous, for the young painter decided on the spot to become an architect. He began by making an intensive study of the classical buildings of Rome. His first commissions brought him back to Milan, but finally, after all he settled in the capital. In the early 16th century Rome was a great and prestigious place to build, and above all it was the popes who brought many notable architects to the city.
Symmetry
It was on the Gianicolo, a hill on the right bank of the Tiber, Donato Bramante worked on his first architectural commission. The monastery of San Pietro in Montorio was to be enriched by a memorial building to recall the martyrdom of the Apostle Peter, which was said to have taken place there. Bramante decided in favor of a central-plan structure on a circular base—that the surrounding monastery courtyard would eventually be rectangular was something the architect could not have guessed.
Three steps, arranged in circles around the structure, lead up to the little temple, the “Tempi-etto.” Columns surround the circular building, crowned with a dome, and there is a balustrade on the upper level. Bramante’s Tempietto was regarded by the next generation as a perfect central-plan building, an architectural type that was considered the epitome of ideal beauty.
St Peter’s Basilica
The Renaissance embodiment of the mania for building was undoubtedly Pope Julius II. Soon after his election in 1503 he took in hand the rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica—the old building could neither accommodate the throngs of pilgrims nor satisfy the pope’s ambitious demands. Julius had big plans and Bramante was part of them: he was to build a church that would do justice to the importance of Rome as the heart of Christendom.
By 1506 Bramante’s plans had progressed so far that the foundation stone could be laid. Bramante designed St Peter’s on the ground plan of a Greek cross, with four arms of equal length—another central-plan building, again crowned with a mighty dome. With the basilica of St Peter, Bramante had taken on the most important project in Rome, but the pope was no ordinary client: “To be honest,” Bramante once summed it up, “they give you water and words, smoke and hot air. If you ask for more, you are dismissed.”
His fee was a comparatively small expense; the horrendous costs of the new building, despite the lively and controversial trade in indulgences, could not be covered. When Bramante died in 1514, only the choir area had made any progress, and subsequent generations of architects largely overruled his design—today’s basilica reflects Bramante’s plans at most in its gigantic proportions.
LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI
Archaeologist and painter, musician and scientist, and moreover fascinated by mathematics—to call Leon Battista Alberti multi-talented would be an understatement. Particularlj since the Genoese Alberti also found time to dedicate himself to architecture, and thus definitively secure his reputation as a Renaissance “universal man.”
Alberti approached architecture in a roundabout way. At first he made an intensive study of the buildings of classical antiquity, above all as they were still to be admired in Rome, and at the same time read with enthusiasm the writings of classical architects. Spurred on by their works, Alberti also wrote atreatise on architectural theory, De re aedificatoria. But his knowledge of classical buildings was reflected not only on paper: the palaces and churches designed by him also clearly mirror this deep adr ration.
Symmetry and Proportion
Alberti’s first large commission came from the Rucellai, a wealthy Florentine family of merchants; he was to design their spacious residence on the central Via dellaVigna. Alberti drew up the plans and the Rossellino workshop carried out the execution. The facade of the palace alone showed the architect to be a fan of the classical style: he adorned the house with an order of columns similar to those of the Colosseum in Rome. But in doing this he did not use rounded columns, but flat wall columns know as pilasters for the vertical emphasis. At the same time, he stressed the horizontal lines by placing cornices between the stories. In this way, the facade of the mansion appears clearly structured, and the impression is achieved of symmetry and fine proportions.
The High Art of the Facade
It was not only Giovanni Rucellai who had confidence in Alberti’s talents. Not far from his city mansion, the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella was awaiting completion. The Gothic structure was already nearly finished, and even the foundation of the facade had already been begun when the clients commissioned Alberti to complete it. He therefore had to incorporate his knowledge of classical temple architecture into the existing fabric.
Thus Gothic pointed arches stand under niches and portals in the lower zone, and above them are superimposed round arches. Sweeping volutes lead from the broad substructure to the sharp gable, forms from the Gothic and Renaissance styles combine harmoniously, and everything glows in white and green stone. It was on Alberti, who remained unmarried all his life, that the choice of the ruler of Rimini fell when he planned to erect a memorial to his wife.
Sigis-mondo Pandolfo Malatesta commissioned a tomb for himself and his family, conceived, in disregard of Christian traditions, as a pagan temple. He himself and his Isotta were to be buried there, and instead of symbols of the cross, it was decorated with the entwined letters S and I in abundance, Alberti admittedly did not concern himself with the adornment of the interior, but once again designed the facade. In the Tempio Malatestiano too the architect did not conceal his preference for classical forms: the central part of the frontage for example goes back to the closely related triumphal arch of the Roman Emperor Augustus.
FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI
A skilled goldsmith who was also active as a painter and sculptor, Brunelleschi became one of the great architects of the early Renaissance. He could not complain of a lack of commissions—in the wealthy city-state of Florence influential families and guilds were building an abundance of architectural works in their own honor.
Classical Antiquity and High Society
In about 1419, Brunelleschi, the son of a notary, was pleased to receive two important commissions at once. The guild of silk makers commissioned him to build a house for the foundlings of Florence. In creating the Ospedale degli Innocenti, he returned to classical elements of building, always intent on symmetry of design and harmonious proportions, from facades to interior rooms. The second commission that year came from the very highest of circles. A member of the influential Medici family, Giovanni d’Averardo, ordered a chapel for his tomb from Brunelleschi. He designed the Old Sacristy (as it was later called, to distinguish it from Michelangelo’s New Sacristy) in the Florentine church of San Lorenzo as a central-plan building. On a square ground plan, a hemisphere arches over the space – the decisive forms here are the cube and square The client was so enthusiastic about Brunelteschi’s design for the Old Sacristy that he immediately entrusted to him the rebuilding of the entire church.
Wine Taverns in a Church
But not alt Florentines expected great things of Brunelleschi. The wool workers’ guild, for example. which was responsible for building the cathedral, seemed rather hesitant. It was a question of crown ing the cathedral, the flagship of the city, with a dome. The diameter of the octagonal substructure already stood at a proud 45 meters There was no question – for such a task, a first class master architect had to be engaged Several applicants believed themselves capable of it and took part in a competition.
The judges were undecided It was only after two years that they were convinced by Brunelleschi’s proposal The new project manager was not afraid of innovations he clothed the dome in two shells, of which only the inner one is load-bearing, so that he could reduce the overall weight of the dome. Brunelleschi was also inventive with regard to the organization of the work, in order to spare the workers in the dome the tedious and timeconsuming climb up and down at midday, he had wine taverns and kitchens built under the church roof. But the clients were skeptical about Brunelleschi’s inventiveness.
In 1432, when it was a question of the design of the crowning lantern of the dome, the guild preferred to hold a further competition, rather than leave this task to Brunelleschi. In the end it was his design that was executed, but he did not live to see the completion of the dome: he died m 1446. The historian Vasari reported on the funeral of the great architect in Florence cathedral, without con cealing that his native land “honored htm far more greatly after his death than it had done during his lifetime.”
