User:Giano/19th century architecture

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The Italian Renaissance style Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch. Designed by F. W. Petre, the central pediment is in the style of Sebastiano Serlio.

19th century architecture is a large and diverse recreation of older styles, often using new and innovative methods of construction. It has been said "It is a well-known fact that the nineteenth century had no art style of its own"^[1]. While to an extent this may be true, during thiis period there was also a far stretching philosophy determining the reasoning behind the variation in styles used. This included not just international politics and religion, but also a huge increase in patrons outside of the church and upper classes (the sectors traditionaly the principal patrons of architecture) this was a diect result of the new wealth created by the industrial revolution.

The late 19th century heralded also the advent of modern architecture. However, the century began with a romantic classicism, which took the historically orientated revivalist movements which had begin in the mid 18th century such as Neoclassicism and the Gothic-revival, this stressed the original features of the styles. The neoclassical architecture of this era was romantic , because it concentrated a modern point of view on the aesthetic of antiquity.^[2]. Similarly the Gothic, already romantic by its irrationality and Camelot like medieval associations was during this period subject to a "regularising" or "classicizing" a conformity of Gothic feature was established, resulting in a recognisable Gothic style but without the freedom and spirit of the original.^[3]

So while the 19th century was dominated by it's own interpretation of Classical and Gothic architecture other influences determined their deployment. One of these was the rise of Nationalism and Imperialism. It was not just the expansion of empires leading to the many Australian architectural styles, but also a national needs for consolidation and order - the classical based French Empire style and its sub-forms was inspired by a national need for order following the chaos of the French revolution and the florid architecture of the prededing decadent period period of half-bourgeois half aristocratic Rococo architecture.

There was also a strong feeling that the classical styles were more suited because off their sense of order and grandeur for public and municipal building, while the Gothic style was more suited for worship. This was particularly true in the Anglican church where the Oxford movement declared the pagan based architectural classical styles almost sacrilegious for Christian worship. This particularly theory was exported by the British throughout their expanding 19th century empire. The Roman Catholic church however, had no such compunction and continued to build it's new churches in classical and Gothic styles at whim.

Romantic classicism was challenged during the 1840 by a gradual introduction of more relaxed rules, which distorted the regular geometry of the Romantic classicism, this caused a further divide, on one side towards the high Victorian styles of the 1850s and 1860s, and on the other to towards the more baroque seeming Imperial or Second Empire architecture. Both divisions then went on n to produce sub-styles - the high Victorian producing sub-styles of less formal and symmetrical architecture than the more imposing and symmetrical Imperial styles.

By the late 19th century such architects as Joseph Maria Olbrich, Henry Hobson Richardson and Louis Sullivan were designing in styles that were at last pointing towards a new architecture, using steel frames, faced with glass and tiles. Sullivan's "Guaranty Building" in Buffalo in 1894 was one of the first high-rise buildings to demonstrate of metal frame construction. It also demonstrated the demise of 19th century architecture and begining of Modern architecture. However, before the true begining of Modern architecture began the art nouveau which characterised the early architecture of the 20th century began in some of the smaller cities of the world during the latter years of the 19th century - Gaudi's numerous buildings in Barcelona, Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow school of Art are all late 19th century example of this. In fact some of the earliest art-nouveau buildings can be found in Russia.

The century was an era of new technology, and industrial revolution ensured a long line of new patrons often with varying whims, less well educated than their classically educated predecessors these new patrons, and often self made, now had a very wide range of preferred styles for their factories, warehouses, and residences. Thus no one particular style can be said to have predominated a certain time scale. Throughout the 19th century there was to be no one overriding architectural style ^[4]. However, there were numerous styles which occurred in different form according to their location and the material available. Thus what is understood as one style in the United States will probably have subtle differences in Australia or Great Britain. What all the various styles do though have in common is that they can all be traced back to either classical or Gothic origins.

[edit] 19th century revival styles

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona, 1888. Designed in the Moorish Revival style

Hôtel de Ville, Paris Built in the 19th century "French Renaissance style"

The revival styles of the 19th century drew for their origins from a wide variety of sources. The two predominating classical and Gothic origins can be further divided onto four principal parent divisions from which evolved further recognizable forms of architecture. These were Neoclassicism the ideals and motifs of which inspired not just the obvious revivals such as the Greek Revival, Neo-Grec and Regency but also the Directoire and Empire styles.

The Neoclassical styles were strongly rivalled by the numerous Gothic Revival styles which included such seemingly diverse styles as the Scottish Baronial, Moorish Revival, Indo-Saracenic, Tudorbethan, and the Muscovite Gothic. The ecclesiastical Gothic styles which manifested themselves in Britain and America could further be subdivided depending on their degree of ornamentation into "Early Gothic" "High Gothic", and "Reformed Gothic"

The medieval inspired 19th century architectural styles not only include the Gothic but also Neo-Romanesque and Byzantine architectural revivals, these styles which are often easily distinguished by the apses and tribunes, and often mosaics and eastern decoration include the Byzantine Revival, Richardsonian Romanesque, Konstantin Thon's Russian-Byzantine and the Muscovite Revival

Amsterdam Centraal railway station (1881-89), a masterpiece by Pierre Cuypers, harmoniously combines Gothic structure with Dutch-Renaissance brickwork.

The various forms of architecture which sprung from the Renaissance Revival are perhaps some of the hardest to determine. The style which at times could be a perfectly reproduced Renaissance Palazzo, could in other places be adorned by so many towers, forms of arch that its style is almost indeterminate; and certainly not instantly recognizable as belonging to the same revivalist family as Second Empire, Chateauesque, and Jacobethan

One of the difficulties of understanding 19th century architecture is that while one can categorise many building into one of the style listed above, it was far from uncommon to "mix and match" architectural motifs, so while a Second Empire style building does not seem incongruous with a mansard "chateauesque" roof, the same mansard roof would occasionally be applied to a "Jacobethan" building, which then begs the question is the resultant hybrid Jacobethan of Chateauesqe. More confusingly "Chateauesque" itself derives from the Neoclassical chateaux of the Loire, which were themselves Gothic chateaux with heavy Italian Renaissance ornamentation.

Neither The 19th century architects did not confine themselves to just mixing motifs from one architectural family but would also frequently mix Gothic and Renaissance styles causing further identity crisis to many buildings. The final solution of many architects when trying to marry, often unhappily, various styles, at the whim and preference of an architecturally uneducated patron, was to attempt to unify the whole with Baroque dressing, taking the form of floral mouldings, statuary and broken, curved or pierced pediments over facades and doorways and windows.

[edit] Original Non-revivalist 19th Century styles

• Queen Anne Style - this will be fun

Arts and Crafts movement

Eastlake Style

Shingle Style, part of Picturesque?

Queenslander (architecture) (may be wrong column)

[edit] References

1. ^ Rolf P. Lessenich (Bonn) Ideals Versus Realities: Nineteenth-Century Decadent Identity and the Renaissance
2. ^ CT P299
3. ^ CT P299
4. ^ CT P299