Pathways Into Architectural History – Themes and Images From the Department For Continuing Education

1. Pathways Into Architectural History – Themes and Images From the Department For Continuing Education

2. Pathways Into Architectural History: Variants of Classicism The images which follow all relate in one way or another to the theme of Classicism in architecture. The term Classicism is used to indicate that a particular example of architecture derives its essential structural and decorative forms from the examples bequeathed from ancient Greek or Roman architecture…

3. Pathways Into Architectural History: Variants of Classicism When we ordinarily think of the legacy of ancient Greek or Roman architecture, we tend to imagine massive fluted stone columns topped by elaborate horizontal entablatures, with an overriding air of immense grandeur and pomp… What, then, are we to make of our first example of Classicist architecture…?

5. Inigo Jones: Queen’s House, Greenwich, London (c.1614-35)

8. This feature – the Ionic ‘loggia’ – was among the first of its kind to be built in England…

9. Pathways Into Architectural History: Variants of Classicism In the case of Inigo Jones’ Queen’s House, we seem to see the opposite of the elaborate ornamental grandeur which we might ordinarily expect to find with Classicist architecture. Clearly architectural Classicism is a many-faceted style, capable of severe and restrained elegance as well as lavish ornamentation…

11. Inigo Jones: façade of the Banqueting House, Whitehall, London (c.1619-22)

12. Balustrading Decorative ‘swags’ (notice the innovative neo-Classical features incorporated into Jones’ design…) Composite pilasters

13. Pathways Into Architectural History: Variants of Classicism The next sequence of slides stand in direct contradiction to the restraint of Jones. The buildings which follow are all examples of that most lavish and exuberant interpretation of the Classical aesthetic: the Baroque. Here we do indeed encounter the full expressive ornamental flourish of Classicism at its most emotional and dynamic…

15. Sir John Vanbrugh (with Nicholas Hawksmoor: Castle Howard, N. Yorkshire (c. 1699 - 1712)

17. The ‘Atlas Fountain’

18. (The south front)

19. Notice how much more lavish and exuberant the ornamentation is here… Although the essential architectural ‘language’ is still that of Greco-Roman neo-Classicism – as with Inigo Jones’ earlier works

20. The north front

22. What is the overall aesthetic effect of this combination of architecture and sculpture? Which variant of neo-Classicism do you prefer: that of Jones, or that of Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor?

26. Pathways Into Architectural History: Variants of Classicism Another quintessential example of the English Baroque style is to be found in central Oxford: the Radcliffe Camera, by James Gibbs – although, as with Castle Howard, also with contributions by Nicholas Hawksmoor – embodies much of the aesthetic drama and expressiveness of the Baroque style…

27. Radcliffe Camera, Oxford (1737 – 49)

28. Notice once again the rich combination of decorative flourishes alongside strict neo-Classical logic…

29. Pathways Into Architectural History: Variants of Classicism Perhaps the grandest manifestation of the English Baroque era is to be found in London. St Paul’s Cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren (assisted, again, by Hawksmoor) in order to replace the massive Gothic cathedral which was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666…

30. Pathways Into Architectural History: Variants of Classicism Wren originally intended to build a centrally-planned Italianate basilica, very much along the lines of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome – however the deeply conservative Anglican clergy of the day fought against his plans at every stage… The result of this protracted aesthetic tussle is the exquisite example of modulated high Baroque which we see today…

32. Sir Christopher Wren: St. Paul’s Cathedral, London (c.1666 – 1710)

33. What characteristics of the high Baroque style, as we have now come to understand it, are visible here?

38. Notice here how regular and ‘correct’ Wren is in his use of the essential elements of neo-Classicism… In spite of the vigorous high Baroque feel of the cathedral as a whole

49. Pathways Into Architectural History: Variants of Classicism By the time of the Georgian era, Classicism as the predominant architectural style of the day had begun to influence the design of domestic buildings, as well as of cathedrals and grand country houses…

50. Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, London (c. 1775 – 83)