Renaissance and Baroque Architecture Overview

Renaissance

Was a cultural movement that spanned roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe.

Filippo Brunelleschi

Florentine architect known for linear perspective.

Linear Perspective

Technique for representing 3D objects on 2D surfaces.

Vanishing Point

Point where parallel lines appear to converge.

Johnson Wax Company Building

Thirty years later, well into the modernist Herbert century, Johnson asked Frank Lloyd Wright for a workspace to house a similar bureaucratic function for his wax company in Racine, Wisconsin. Wright proceeded to update his radical-conservative vision both spatially and structurally.

Palais de Justice, Brussels

Designed by Joseph Poelaert, stands on a height overlooking the city and builds up pyramidally to a domed tower above the central great hall. It is a gargantuan building, and although its Classical details are suitably monumental, they are generally over-crowded and suggest a straining after effect which compares unfavorably with the fluent brilliance of Opera in Paris.

Vitruvius

Roman architect known for 'De Architectura' writings.

Vitruvian Triad

Qualities of architecture: firmness, utility, beauty.

European Architecture

The most conspicuous characteristics of this architectural style is its diverse use of historic styles. It differs from periods not because of architects had previously avoided reviving historic forms, but because of the broad range of styles from the 19th century architects would choose.

Giorgio Vasari

As the first Italian art historian, he initiated the genre of an encyclopedia of artistic biographies that continues today. Vasari coined the term "Renaissance" (rinascita) in print, though an awareness of the ongoing "rebirth" in the arts had been in the air from the time of Alberti.

Colonial & Post Colonial America

The architecture used by the first settlers in North America is traditionally known as Colonial architecture. This early architecture was as diverse as the settlers themselves, who included Spanish, English, Scots-Irish, Dutch, German, French and Swedish.

Kimball Art Museum

Located in Fort Worth, Texas, designed by Louis Kahn. The element of natural light is the focus of the design and creates elegant spaces that are perfectly suited for the art that it houses. The distinct form of the cycloid barrel vaults is rimmed with narrow plexiglass skylights, providing room for natural light to penetrate the spaces.

Villa Savoye

Designed by Le Corbusier in 1929, represents the culmination of a decade during which the architect worked to articulate the essence of architecture.

Mannerism

Late Renaissance style characterized by complexity.

Classical Motifs

Architectural elements like columns and pediments.

Symmetry

Balanced proportions emphasized in Renaissance design.

De Architectura

Vitruvius' multi-volume work on architecture.

Florence

Birthplace of the Renaissance in Italy.

Gunpowder

Invention that changed warfare and architecture needs.

Andrea Palladio

An architect active in the Republic of Venice. Influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture. All his buildings are in what was the Venetian Republic, but his teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition.

Baroque Architecture

Style with deeply curved and sculpted walls.

Treatise on Architecture

Vitruvius' work influencing Renaissance architectural theory.

John Hancock Center

A 100-story mixed-use skyscraper, is located at 875 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago and is named after one of its early developers and tenants. The architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill wasresponsible for the design of the tower, with Bruce Graham serving as architect and Fazlur Khan as a structural engineer—the same team that built Chicago’s tallest building, the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower).

Alberti

Renaissance architect and theorist influenced by Vitruvius.

Pazzi Chapel

Brunelleschi also worked with the central plan. Constructed in the medieval cloister of Santa Croce at Florence, the plan approaches the central type. On the inside it is a rectangle, slightly wider than it is deep; at its rear is a square bay for the sanctuary, and at the front is a porch.

Industrial Revolution

The process of change from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing.

Architectural Orders

Classical styles of columns used in Renaissance.

Mansard Roof

Type of roof having two slopes on every side, the lower slope being considerably steeper than the upper. In cross section can appear like a gambrel roof, but it differs from the gambrel by displaying the same profile on all sides.

Federal Hill

Commonly known as "My Old Kentucky Home", is a historic 7,501 square feet (696.9 m2) mansion that was planned and commissioned by Judge John Rowan and his wife Ann Lytle. The mansion's original surrounding 1,200 acres were also known as "Federal Hill.”

Greek Revival Architecture

Involved closer adherence to the values and stylistic models of Greek art (c.450-27 BCE). The widespread use of neoclassicism in American as well as French architecture, contributed to an association between Neoclassicism and republicanism, which flourished until the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Facades

Symmetrical exterior surfaces around a vertical axis.

Federal Style Neoclassicism

Describes a loose classicist style which flourished up to 1815. It is characterized by the addition of new antique features including Greek and Byzantine elements- to the symmetrical Georgian style.- Influenced by archeological

Arches

Semi-circular structures supporting weight above.

Florence Cathedral Dome

Innovative dome by Brunelleschi, completed in 1436.

Double Shell

Structure reducing dead load, similar to Pantheon.

Sydney Opera House

Located in Port Jackson (Sydney Harbor), Ne w South Wales, Australia. Its unique use of a series of gleaming white sail-shaped shells as its roof structure makes it one of the most-photographed buildings in the world.

Horizontal Rings

5 sandstone rings supporting the dome structure.

Cupola

Masonry temple acting as dome weight.

Vaults

Structural elements without ribs.

Ceilings

Flat or coffered, often decorated.

Farnsworth House

Squa Illinois, pioneering house the in U.S., designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1951. The structure’s modern classicism epitomizes the International Style of architecture and Mies’s dictum “less is more.” It is set on the floodplain of the Fox River and is one of only three houses built by Mies in the United States.

Fazlur Rahman Khan

Born in Dacca, India [now Dhaka, Bangladesh]—died March 27, 1982, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). Bangladeshi American civil engineer known for his innovations in high-rise building construction. He is regarded as the "father of tubular designs" for high-rise buildings.

Robbie House

Designed as two large rectangles that seem to slide past one another, the long, horizontal residence that Wright created, boldly established a new form of domestic design: the Prairie style. The meticulously coordinated design has made it the “measuring stick” against which all other Prairie School buildings are compared.

Foundling Hospital

First Renaissance building, featuring continuous arcade.

Pazzi Chapel

Central plan chapel with three domes.

Leon Battista Alberti

Renaissance polymath, theorized architecture's societal role. He wrote Della Pittura (On Painting) where it included Brunelleschi’s theories of perspective and De Re Aedificatoria (On Building), the first architectural treatise of the Renaissance.- The book was influenced by Vitruvius’ The Ten Books of Architecture.

Della Pittura

Alberti's work on painting and perspective theories.

Le Grand Louvre

A centrally located glass pyramid forms the main entrance and provides direct access to galleries in each of the museum's three wings. The pyramid's distinctly modern articulation complements the historic Louvre in a dialogue of harmonious contrast.

Palazzo Rucellai

First domestic building using classical orders.

Basilica of Sant'Andrea

Unified Roman forms, completed over 150 years.

Andrea Palladio

Influential architect known for classical proportions.

The Four Books of Architecture

Palladio's treatise on classical architectural principles.

Mannerist Period

Architectural style featuring Palladian arches.

Cornice

Horizontal decorative molding at the building top.

Loggia

Open-sided gallery or corridor.

Corinthian Columns

Tall columns with ornate capitals.

Triangular Pediment

Triangular upper part of a building's facade.

Coffered Ceilings

Ceilings with recessed panels for decoration.

Donato Bramante

Italian architect introducing Renaissance architecture to Milan.

St. Peter's Basilica

Bramante's design basis for Michelangelo's execution.

Tempietto

Monument marking St. Peter's martyrdom site.

Santa Maria presso San Satiro

Church in Milan designed by Bramante.

Villa Rotonda

Famous residential design with central rotunda.

Hemispherical Dome

Dome shape capping the Tempietto structure.

Villa Barbaro

First domestic building with temple front.

San Giorgio Maggiore

Benedictine church designed by Andrea Palladio.

Palazzo Farnese

Palazzo with classical facade and rustication.

Medici Chapels

Celebratory structures for the Medici family.

Giacomo da Vignola

Italian architect known for Mannerism style.

Villa Farnese

Example of Renaissance architecture in Northern Lazio.

Canon of the Five Orders

Vignola's system for classical column construction.

Laurentian Library

Michelangelo's significant architectural achievement.

Michelangelo Di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.

Opera House, Paris or Palais Garnier

Designed by Charles Garnier, shows a development of the Baroque in the New Louvre. The plan is a noteworthy example of the application of Beaux-Arts principles, its elements and space are related and held together by a strongly controlled axial system.

Doric Order

Simplest classical column style in architecture.

Ionic Order

Column style characterized by scroll-like volutes.

Corinthian Order

Most ornate classical column style with acanthus leaves.

Composite Order

Combination of Ionic and Corinthian column styles.

Tuscan Order

Simplified version of the Doric order.

Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici

Sculptural group symbolizing reflective and active man.

Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici

Features allegorical figures representing Night and Day.

Salk Institute

RepresenIn 1959, Jonas Salk, the man who had discovered the vaccine for polio, approached Louis I. Kahn with a project. The city of San Diego, California had gifted him with a picturesque site in La Jolla along the Pacific coast, where Salk intended to found and build a biological research center.

Jorn Utzon

Danish architect best known for his dynamic, imaginative, but problematic design for the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

Basilican Cross Section

Architectural layout resembling a Christian cross.

Entablature

Horizontal structure supported by columns.

Colonnade

Row of columns supporting a structure.

Bartolomeo Ammannati

Architect who directed St. Peter's Basilica construction.

Giacomo della Porta

Completed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in 1590.

La Pietà

Michelangelo's sculpture of Jesus and Mary, carved in 1499.

Statue of David

Famous Renaissance sculpture completed by Michelangelo in 1504.

Carlo Maderno

Extended St. Peter's Basilica to a Latin cross form.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Designed the grand entrance piazza of St. Peter's.

Greek cross plan

Original design for St. Peter's Basilica by Bramante.

Latin cross plan

Modified design for St. Peter's Basilica by Maderno.

Pope Julius II

Commissioned the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in 1506.

Carlo Maderna

Lengthened nave to form a Latin cross and built the gigantic façade.

Château d'Amboise

Earliest example of Renaissance chateaux in France.

Centennial Hall

A historic building in Wroclaw, Poland. It was constructed according to the plans of architect Max Berg in 1911–1913 when the city was part of the German Empire. The cupola modeled on the Festhalle Frankfurt was made of reinforced concrete, and with an inner diameter of 69 m (226 ft) and 42 m (138 ft) high, it was the largest building of its kind at the time of construction.

Banqueting House

First neoclassical building in England, completed in 1622.

Place des Vosges

Oldest planned square in Paris, built from 1605 to 1612.