Theory of architecture

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BR17AR304 THEORY OF DESIGN II
Antiquity to 19th Century Theory
▪ MarcusVitruvius and his multi-volume work entitled DeArchitectura.
▪ Mayamata: IndianTreatise on Housing & Architecture
▪ Introduction toTheory in Renaissance
LeonAlberti
Andrea Palladio
▪ French AcademicTradition
Jacques Francous Blondel
Claude Perrault
▪ 18th and 19th CenturyTheory
Laugier, Boullee,Ledoux,
Quatramere de Quincy
GottfriedSemper

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Architecture of the Body
From the Geometry of the body to the Geometry ofArchitecture

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THE BEGINNINGOF GEOMETRY
At the beginning of life, when we are still in our mother’s womb, we have no
distinct shape and looks, all that we are is a geometrical form.We have forms
with point, line and planes.
When we view life from that perspective, we can see that all life forms from
fungus to plants, from insect to animals, from living things to non-living thing,
from everything to nothing (Physical to Metaphysical), we all share the same
geometrical and structural patterns within us.
All forms in this universe are formed using these exact patterns from a
microscopic level, but one cannot see this without a keen eye.

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Vitruvius
• Architectural theory in the West begins withVitruvius.
•TheTen Books on Architecture composed by this Roman architecture,
engineer, and artillery officer achieve their special importance first by the
breadth of the undertaking, second, and more important, by the historical
fortune of being the only architectural treatise to survive from antiquity.
• As such,Vitruvius has been the primary authority in architectural thinking,
setting the sense of theory in theWest for much of 1800 years.
• His ten books on architecture, De Architectura (trans. 1914) are the oldest
surviving work on the subject.They consist of dissertations on a wide variety of
subjects relating to architecture, engineering, sanitation, practical hydraulics,
acoustic vases, and the like. Much of the material appears to have been taken
from earlier extinct treatises by Greek architects.
•Vitruvius's writings have been studied ever since the Renaissance as a
thesaurus of the art of classical Roman architecture. It's inVitruvius that we first
see the classical orders of architecture, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian.
Vitruvius was a Roman writer, architect, and engineer active in the 1st century
BCE. He was the most prominent architectural theorist in the Roman Empire
known today, having written De architectura (known today asTheTen Books of
Architecture), a treatise written in Latin and Greek on architecture,

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▪TheVitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing created by
Leonardo daVinci around the year 1487. It is accompanied by notes
based on the work ofVitruvius.
The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a nude male
superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and
simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square.
The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions.
▪ MarcusVitruvius Pollio (born c. 80–70 BC, died after c. 15 BC)
According to Vitruvius, architecture is an imitation of nature.
When we built architecture, we are copying natures greatest artwork:
Human Body. It give us a sense of proportion when constructing a
architecture.
VITRUVIAN MAN CIRCA 1487, DRAWN BY LEONARDO DAVINCI

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The body is transformed into an abstract system of
formalization using the three basic shape of geometry;
Circles, Square andTriangles.
▪This system is then incorporated into the architectural
system as forms, as a result the building is given form and
substance by analogy with the members and forms of our body.
▪This humanism of architecture and the tendency to project the
image of our body functions into concrete forms is the believe
that human body is created using god as the image, hence our
body is the closes thing to perfection in nature.
The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human
proportions described byVitruvius, who named the human
figure as the principal source of proportion for the Classical
orders of architecture.
At the beginning of Book-IVitruvius separates the art into the
realms of practice (fabrica) and theory (ratiocinato).
The former is the manual activity associated with building and
construction; the latter rationally demonstrates and explains
conventions and proportional systems governing design

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Vitruvius
•The art’s three main principles are strength (firmitas), utility
(utilitas), and beauty (venustas).
• STRENGTH encompasses the soundness of the foundation, the
building’s structure, and the selection of materials;
UTILITY concerns the convenient planning and social suitability
BEAUTY is the building’s visual charm that arises chiefly out of
proportional harmony.
• Beauty is further defined by six principles : order, arrangement,
rythmy, symmetry, decorum, and economy.
Arrangement dictating the correct planning and assembly of the
work; decorum and economy clarifying the appropriate use of the
Orders, the adaptation of the building to the site, and the correct
management of materials.

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Vitruvius believed the human body was the principal source of proportion
▪Vitruvius and Alberti uses body as an analogue, model and referent for
their architecture
▪Vitruvius’ writing on human body clearly stated the idea of using human
body as a blueprint for architectural building especially on the idea of
symmetry and proportions. the members of our body such as finger, arm,
leg, foot is where we derived the fundamental ideas of measurement and
structures which are obviously necessary in all works.

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▪ Architecture in the Renaissance establishes a system of rules forms
the basis ofWestern Architecture
▪TheTexts of the Renaissance, which in turn draw upon theVitruvian
texts, develop a logocentric and anthropocentric discipline that
establishes the body at the very centre of the unconscious of
architectural rules and configuration.
▪The Renaissance operations of the symbolization of the body’s
paradigmatic of the operations of the body’s relation to architecture.

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The stellar (cosmic )bodies appear to be strung
out from the sun in specific “mean” distances
from one another, suggesting that when the
gases constellated into planets they did so at
points of harmonic constriction-like musical
scales-in abeyance to laws of hierarchical order.
These ideas from the stellar bodies is used in
architectural buildings as a foundation for sacred
geometry along side human body.

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The word ‘Shastra’ in contemporary terms stand for a theory, an abstraction,
literature, and text
Vaastu Shastra, the ancient science of designing and constructing buildings
The word ‘Vaastu is derived from the root word vas, which means, to dwell’
Mayamata definesVaastu as ‘Bhu (earth), which is underlying stratum of
existence’
Vaastu Shastra has laid down several principles for constructing building by
taking advantages of ‘five basic elements’ known as ‘Panchbhutas’
According to Artha Shastra,(science of politics) we notice that house, fields,
garden, buildings of any kind, lake and tanks are each called ‘Vaastu’
Vaastu influence on any type of building and on human beings is
like the cosmic influence of the sun (Solar system) on our ecosystem.
Vaastu Shastra
Vedas are further divided in various
branches andVastu Shastra is one of them

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it denotes all kinds of buildings—religious, residential, military, auxiliary
and component buildings.
it implies town planning, laying out gardens, constructing market places,
roads, bridges, gateways, ports, harbours, digging wells, tanks, drains,
dams etc.
it denotes articles of furniture such as chair, table and basket cases,
wardrobes, nets, mats and lamp posts for streets.
It also includes garments and ornaments. It discusses the selection of site,
testing of soil, planning, designing, finding out cardinal points for
orientation of buildings and astronomical and astrological calculation
Vastu states that when buildings and forms echo the underlying cosmic principles, they become a part
of the basic structure of the universe and vibrate in harmony with it.These positive vibations have a
direct effect on the inhabitants.
Vastu contains the hidden key to realigning the home with the cosmic principles such as solar energy,
the movement of the celestial spheres, the magnetic field of the earth, gravity and the influence of
the moon and sun

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1.The doctrine of orientation (Diknirnaya)
2. Site planning (Vaastu–Pada–Vinyasa orVaastu–Purusha–Mandala).
3.The proportionate measurement of building (Mana, Hastalakshana)
4.The six canons ofVedic architecture (Ayadi, Sadvarga)
5. Aesthetics of the building or the character of the building, its aspect and prospect
etc. (Patakadi, Sadschandas)

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The Hindu architecture was among the first ones
that established a relationship between human
figure and the system of proportion which was
later studied by Leonardo daVinci and Le
Corbusieer in modular system of measurement.
Yama,Varuna, Chandranla andVishnu are associated with the
respective southern, western, northern and eastern plots of the Vastu
Purusha Mandala,
Rudra or Shiva,Vayu,Vishvakarma or ancestors, and Aani preside over the
respective north-eastern, north-western, south-westernand south-
eastern plots of the Vastu Purusha Mandala,
Brahma, the deity of the central division of the scale rules over the central
plot of the VastuPurusha Mandala.

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It is based on the geometry of Vastupurashamandala in
which the form of Purasha was made to fit the abstract
idea of square as the highest geometric form .
The basic form ofVastupurashamandala is the square
which represents the earth and the circle represents the
universe suggesting timelessness and infinity .
The mandala is actually a square divided into smaller
squares arranged in the form of a grid. Each smaller
square depicts the area of the respective Gods.The most
commonly used mandala is the square subdivided into 64
and 81 squares.Thus, theVastupurashamandala was the
basis of the ground floor plan for all Hindu temples.
The basic shape of the temple plan was : the outermost
ring of square of the mandala from thickness of walls of
main shrine, the central 4 squares was reserved for the
main deity, the inner ring of 12 square form the walls of
the garbhagriha and the next 16 to 28 forms the
pradkshina patha.These simple divisions of square with
permutation and combination became the base for the
development of more complex temple compound.

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A HAVELI IN RAJASTHANHINDU HOUSE
The Vastu Purusha Mandala is perceived as a pattern
of squares in which the central squares are ruled by
Brahma.
These central squares form the courtyard around
which are built the rooms opening inwards, inhaling
cooled air.
The walls are usually 2ft. or more in thickness, stone
clad over brick and lime masonry, and so generate a
time lag in the process of conduction of heat. As a
result, in the day time, the thick walls and roof
prevents the sun's rays from heating the interior.
By the early morning hours, when the outside
temperature drops unbearably

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VARIOUS STAGES OFTHE ESTABLISHMENT OF
ANCIENTVEDICVILLAGES
• Making the outlines of theVastu-Purushmandala and
Division in to plots (vastupurushmandala)
Layout of the principal streets.
• Division in to hypothetical rings of Brahma, Daivika,
Manushya & Paisacha..
• Division in wards by means of branches roads,
erection of outer wall, gates and the moat.
• Erection of various edifices according to site-planning
and folk planning principles

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Renaissance Architecture
Rebirth of Humanism
Roman, Early Christian & Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic.
EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE

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the Cloister
ATTIC
ENTABLATURE
ARCADES
COLONADES

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The Renaissance movement began in Italy in the
fourteenth century and is a term that means rebirth
• The Renaissance was a time of revival of artistic
achievement based on the Classical world evolution
of European architecture,
The Renaissance movement, arising in Italy in the
fifteenth century, spread from France, Germany,
and England, and over the whole of Western Europe

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LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI (1404-1472)
was a scholar and philosopher
Alberti never received a formal architectural education.
His architectural ideas were the product of his own studies and research.
Alberta's two main architectural writings are "De Pictura" (1435), in which
he emphatically declares the importance of painting as a base for
architecture and "De Re Aedificatoria" (1450) his theoretical masterpiece
Alberti drew upon principles of geometry and balance
To describe an artificial system of ―perspective‖ a term
whose etymology reveals its origins in Renaissance
efforts to ―see through‖ the picture plane.

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SANTA MARIA NOVELLA
FLORENCE, ITALY

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Florence, Italy
The nave being separated from the aisles by wide bays
and covered with gothic vaulting.
The plan is cruciform

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The height of Santa Maria Novella (to the tip of the
pediment) equals its width, so that the entire facade can be
inscribed in a square.
• Throughout the facade, Alberti defines areas and relates
them to each other in terms of proportions that can be
expressed in simple numerical ratios (1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 2:3, ).
COMPOSITION OF SQUARES
-The four columns with Corinthian capitals on the
lower part of the facade were also added.
show that the façade of the building may be analysed as a
composition of squares. These have a role in the design
which is independent of the building's geometry of
making; the geometry is displayed on the front wall of the
church, as on a screen.

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The dome over the crossing is supported in the Byzantine manner on
pendentives.
The nave has a barrel vault on massive square piers connected by arches
The intervals between the piers forming side chapels, and the lower part
of each pier having a small square chamber within it.
The east end has the strictly Roman form of a semicircular apse with a
half-dome vault
The details of the interior consist of a single order of pilasters, on high
pedestals, set on The angles of the piers, and of rich Roman coffering on
the surfaces of the vaulting.
The interior was magnificent.
It was built as a three aisle
basilica with trancept and five
square chapels.
- A round window, crowned by a pedimentthe Scurved scrolls

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Entablature
The BACK SIDE of this church is again an
adaptation of a Roman triumphal arch design
A very shallow order of Corinthian pilasters divides
it into a wide central bay and two narrow ones
He designs a small, pseudo-Classical, pediment capped temple
front for the upper part of the facade and supports it with a broad
base of pilaster-enframed arcades that incorporate the six tombs
and three doorways of the extant Gothic building.

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A groin vault or groined vault is
produced by the intersection at right
angles of two barrel vaults. The word
"groin" refers to the edge between the
intersecting
All of the columns are dark stone
while all of the arches display a border
of alternating dark and light stone-
The ceiling in the vault consists
pointed arches with the four diagonal
buttresses in black and white.

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Tuscan style incrustation
Pediment
Corinthian entablature
Inner courtyard wrought-iron
gate with quatrefoil design
Broad frieze decorated with squares.
-Including the four white-green pilasters
-The pediment and the frieze are clearly
inspired by the antiquity, but the Scurved scrolls
in the upper part are new and without
precedent in antiquity.
flower motif is often carved in
stone or wood to create
decorative ornaments for
architecture
with the Dominican solar emblem,
and flanked on both sides by
enormous S-curved volutes

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The ceiling of the Spanish
Chapel at Santa Maria Novella
Crucifix by Brunelleschi
the depiction of the
coffered arch ceiling
the Cloister

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S. ANDREA, MANTUA

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S. Andrea, Mantua (A.D. 1472-1512), is particularly notable and important as the type of
many modern Renaissance churches, and consists of a single nave with transepts, the
interior ornamented with a single order on pedestals supporting a barrel vault.
Chapels, alternating with entrance vestibules, take the place of the customary aisles on
each side of the nave. Over the intersection of the nave with the transept is a dome, in
the drum or lower portion of which are windows lighting the interior.
The chancel is apsidal, lighted by three windows, which cause the entablature to be
mitred round the pilasters of the order which carry the lunette half dome of the apse.
The perfection of the proportions makes the interior of this church one of the grandest in
the style, and the front is reminiscent of a Roman triumphal archway.

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THIS CHURCH HAS A
SINGLE NAVE WITHOUT
SIDE AISLES WHILE THREE
BARREL-VAULTED
CHAPELS ARE ON EACH
SIDE OF THE NAVE.
THE CHURCH IS THUS VERY
DIMLY LIT. THE CROSSING IS
MARKED BY A DOME

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THE ENTRANCE BARREL VAULT ECHOES THE INTERIOR
WITH ITS HUGE BARREL VAULT WHILE THE LOGGIA
VAULTING ECHOES THE BARREL VAULTING IN THE
CHAPELS INSIDE AT RIGHT ANGLES TO THE NAVE.
IT IS DEFINED BY A LARGE
CENTRAL ARCH, FLANKED BY
CORINTHIAN PILASTERS.

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THE HEIGHT OF THE FACADE EQUALS ITS WIDTH.
THE FACADE PILASTERS CONTINUE THROUGH
THREE STORIES--THE SO-CALLED "GIANT" ORDER.
THE WHOLE IS SURMOUNTED BY A PEDIMENT AND
ABOVE THAT A VAULTED STRUCTURE

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THE COFFERED BARREL VAULTED
NAVE LOOKIING TOWARD THE APSE

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IT IS LARGELY A BRICK
STRUCTURE
WITH HARDENED STUCCO

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THE INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL
BOASTS A ROUNDED BARRELVAULTED
DOME WHICH IS COVERED IN FRESCOES.

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ANDREA PALLADIO
(30 Nov 1508 – 19 Aug 1580)
Italian architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio,
influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by
Vitruvius, is widely considered to be the most influential
individual in the history of architecture.
He designed many palaces, villas, and churches
Palladio's work was strongly based on the symmetry,
perspective and values of the formal classical temple
architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans

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Mannerism
Mannerism, style in art and architecture of the 16th century,
characterized by the distortion of elements such as
proportion and space The term Mannerism derives from the
Italian word maniera, meaning “style” or “way of working.”

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San Giorgio
Maggiore by
Andrea Palladio
at Venice, Italy,
1560 to 1580.

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San Giorgio Maggiore is a 16th-century Benedictine church
on the island of the same name in Venice, northern Italy,
designed by Andrea Palladio, and built between 1566 and
1610. The church is a basilica in the classical renaissance
style and its brilliant white marble gleams above the blue
water of the lagoon. It’s gleaming white facade faces across
the basin of San Marco to the great piazza.
The interior of the church is very bright with
massive engaged columns and pilasters on
undecorated, white-surfaced walls.
The interior combines a long basilican nave
with a cruciform plan with transepts.

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MAIN ENTRANCE
The dome has a diameter of 40 feet.

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The interior plan combines elements of
longitudinal and centralized buildings, a
resolution responding to the Renaissance "ideal"
of the centralized plan and symbolic cross form
and both the medieval tradition of nave churches
The interior ceiling is a longitudinal barrel vault
leading to a crossing, framed by grouped columns
and arches, which support a dome lit with a
lantern.

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The transition from the high
altar to the choir
Carved choir stalls , Choir, like
the transepts,terminates in
a semicircular apse .
Alternating triangular and
rounded pediments
High altar ... Behind the high altar,
separated by Corinthian columns, is
the Benedictine monastic choir
which is illustrated below

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Thermal, clerestory windows bring light to
the side chapels and to the nave, and the
interior glows with a warm light, reflected
by the painted stucco surfaces (over brick)
of the walls and vaults.

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The nave, looking east towards the high altar
Cupola over the crossing ...
The interior of the church is very bright with
massive engaged columns and pilasters on
undecorated, white-surfaced walls.
The interior combines a long basilican
nave with a cruciform plan with transepts ...
Marble Corinthian pilaster
capitals
Double vase balustrade
supported by block modillions

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Villa Capra, or Villa Rotunda

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VILLA ROTONDA Situated on the top of a hill just
outside the town of Vicenza, the Villa Capra is
called the Villa Rotonda, because of its completely
symmetrical plan with a central circular hall.
The building has a square plan with loggias on all
four sides, which connect to terraces and the
landscape. The building is rotated 45 degrees to
south on the hilltop, enabling all rooms to receive
some sunshine.

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The design is for a completely symmetrical
building having a square plan with four facades,
each of which has a projecting portico.
The whole is contained within an imaginary
circle which touches each corner of the building
and centres of the porticos

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Each portico has steps leading up, and opens
via a small cabinet or corridor to the circular
domed central hall
Each of the four porticos has pediments graced by
statues of classical deities .The pediments were each
supported by six ionic columns.

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The highlight of the interior is the central,
circular hall, surrounded by a balcony
and covered by the domed ceiling;

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French Renaissance architecture is the style of
architecture which was imported to France from Italy during
the early 16th century and developed in the light of local
architectural traditions.
COUNTRY HOUSES
• Country houses took the place of fortified castles
French Academic Tradition
Grand Apartments
• Queen’s apartments
• King’s apartments
• Hall of Mirrors
• Chapels
• L’Opera
• Museum
• Gardens
• Grand Canal
• Walks
Chambers

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Fountains
The founding of the Royal Academy of Architecture in
Paris in 1671 can be taken as the starting point of modern
European theory and practice. The purpose of the
Academy was to codify the principles of Classical Design
and to espouse them in practice.
The term “academy” started in a place in Athens where
Plato conversed with his students; the word was revived in
fifteenth-century Italy, when it became widely applied to
any philosophical discussion
New emphasis was placed on bold massing, colonnades,
domes, light-and shade ('painterly' color effects, and the
bold play of volume and void.
French architecture tradition was based on the notion that
the art of architecture participated in a divinely
sanctioned cosmology or natural order:
THE FRENCH ACADEMY

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JACQUES FRANÇOIS BLONDEL
(Royal Academy of Architecture) was a French learned society founded
on December 30, 1671 by Louis XIV, king of France under the impulsion
of JeanBaptiste Colbert, his Finance minister.
• Its first director was the mathematician and engineer François Blondel
(1618–1686). The Académie included of school of architecture.
• Suppressed in 1793, this Académie was later merged in 1816 into the
(Academy of Painting and Sculpture, founded 1648) and the (Academy
of Music, founded in 1669).
Blondel received his first architectural commission, the grand stables at
the Château de Chaumont-la-Guiche in Saint-Bonnet-deJoux in
southern Burgundy.

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STABLES OF THE CHÂTEAU DE CHAUMONT-LA-GUICHE 1648

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The stables were executed 1648–1652 by the local mason
and entrepreneur François Martel, to whom the design
has frequently been attributed.
On the exterior of the entrance front are two impressive
double staircases ascending to a large hall on the upper
floor. They frame the central portal, strikingly surmounted
by a life-sized equestrian statue of the previous seigneur

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stables of the castle
. The cross-vaulted ground
floor is divided into three
aisles by two Tuscan
arcades with stalls for more
than eighty horses

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View of the northwest facade
Château de Chaumont-la-Guiche

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The Porte Saint-Denis was designed by
architect François Blondel and the sculptor
Michel Anguier at the order of Louis XIV in
honor of his victories on the Rhine
THE PORTE SAINT-DENIS
A ROYAL ENTRANCE TO PARIS

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The triumphal arch of Porte Saint-Denis is 24.65 meters wide,
25 metres high and 5 meters deep. It was inspired by the Arch
of Titus in Rome.
The gate is pierced by a large central arch. When completed,
Porte Saint-Denis had two smaller flanking openings for
pedestrians that have since been closed off.
The southern face depicts “The Passage of the Rhine at Tholus“.
Louis XIV can clearly be seen riding and leading the way.

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CLAUDE PERRAULT
Claude Perrault, (1613-1688, Paris), is a French physician and
amateur architect . He designed the eastern facade of the Louvre
Translation of Vitruvius ‘ De Architecture’ into French in 1673.
Rejected traditional and renaissance concepts of beauty and
proportion and rigid criteria governing classical orders.
According to Perrault, the human mind, after perceiving the optical
illusions can make the corrections itself. Proposed new ratios for
orders based on the arithmetic mean of historic examples.

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Derived inter relationship between music and Architecture.
music is perceived and appreciated by the sense of hearing
while Architecture is primarily perceived through the sense
of sight. Since different sense organs are involved in the
perceptions of music and Architecture
The harmonic tones and intervals of music that were
thought to be the key to beauty. His reasons were that
proportions and beauty change constantly because
different people have different standards of aestheticism
they are arbitrary and fantasies
POSITIVE BEAUTY IS UNIVERSAL AND UNCHANGEABLE.
ARBITRARY BEAUTY IS RELATIVE AND VARIABLE.

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EAST FAÇADE, LOUVRE, PARIS:

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The façade, divided into five parts, is a typical solution of French classicism.
The simple character of the ground floor basement sets off the paired
Corinthian columns, modelled strictly according to Vitruvius, against a
shadowed void, with pavilions at the ends.
Crowned by an uncompromising Italian
balustrade along its distinctly non-French flat
roof, the whole ensemble represents a ground-
breaking departure in French architecture.
This idea of coupled columns on a high podium goes back
as far as Bramante. Those rhythmical columns form a
shadowed colonnade with a central pediment triumphal
arch entrance raised on a high, rather defensive base.

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DOUBLE-COLUMN PATTERN
The present design consists of two stories and an attic

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Louvre Extension
The general design of the Louvre was originally intended to
cover the ground of the fortified Gothic palace which it replaced.

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TRIUMPHAL ARCH, PARIS:
Perrault's design for a triumphal arch on Rue St-
Antoine was preferred to competing designs of
Charles Le Brun and Louis Le Vau, but was only
partly executed in stone. When the arch was
taken down in the 19th century, it was found that
the ingenious master had devised a means of so
interlocking the stones, without mortar, that it
had become an inseparable mass.

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ROYAL OBSERVATORY, PARIS:
It is built without wood (to avoid fire) or
metal (to avoid magnetic disturbances).
In the summer solstice of 1667, the
orientation (north-south) is traced in its
place by members of the Académie
Royale. It is a large rectangle (31 m x 29
m) with its four faces oriented with the
cardinal points of the compass. The
latitude of the south face defines the
Paris latitude (48° 50' 11''). The meridian
line passing through its center defines
the Paris longitude.
The foundations are as deep (27 m) as high is the building itself. In this deep basement is the Bureau
International de l'Heure (International Time Bureau) who sets the coordinated universal time (UTC) with
10-6sec. of accuracy. Since 1933, the speaking clock (tel. 3699) gives the accurate time. The basement
is connected with the Paris catacombs. The catacombs consist of 65 km of underground galleries.

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“Age of revivals” -eclecticism, taste for exotic
forms, combining native and foreign styles
“Age of innovation” -use of newly available
materials
18TH & 19TH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE
Eclecticism in architecture
The use of a variety of historical styles
The development of new materials and
structural methods.
The Industrial revolution
(The Age of Enlightenment)
Domes and apses Rigid symmetry; balance;
rectangular simplicity.
Post and lintel structure; load bearing
columns Façades with a deemphasized
center; unbroken entablatures; straight
colonnades. Rationality combined to produce
clean, crisp, flat lines
NEOCLASSICISM, ROMANTICISM, AND REALISM
18TH
19TH

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The architecture that was defined by the arranged cosmic
order with numerous symbolic meanings was now
deprived of its metaphysical character.
Laugier was among the first theoreticians that used
constructive logic that was more powerful than the secret
symbolic meaning of numbers and proportions in
architecture.
With his radical attitudes he succeeded in starting a
reformation of architecture
LAUGIER’S ARCHITECTURAL THEORY

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Laugier's Primitive Hut is his representation
of the philosophy that all architecture
derives from this simple ideal.
The horizontal pieces that are laid upon
them, afford us the idea of entablatures.

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1. beautés (beauty),
2. licences (necessity or
justification) and
3. défauts (errors),
states that columns should be free
being engaged in the wall",
the use of pilasters, incorrect entasis
(swelling of the column), and setting
columns on pedestals.
1. vérité (truthfulness)
2. simplicité (simplicity)
3. naturalisme (naturality).
Essential elements of architecture
is a statement of purpose
Simplicity of design
The use of natural materials

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He completely rejected the Roman Tuscan and Composite
architectural order, but reformed the classic Greek Ionic,
Doric and Corinthian order.

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▪ BORN : 21 March 1736 , French Architect
▪ He was one of the earliest exponents of French Neoclassical
architecture.
▪ He used his knowledge of architectural theory to design not only
domestic architecture but also town planning; as a consequence
of his visionary plan for the Ideal City of Chaux, he is known as
a utopian.
▪ Ledoux’s greatest works were funded by the French monarchy and
came to be perceived as symbols of the Ancient Régime
▪ This French architect was one of the most advanced builders of the
18th Century . He was one of the representatives of the
architectural revolution.
▪ studied architecture at the private ‘ École des Arts’ collège
under Jacques-François Blondel,
CLAUDE NICOLAS LEDOUX 1736-1806 -18th CENTURY

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1. Ledoux interest in Greco-Roman architecture that constitutes a defining
attribute of neoclassicism,
2. His teacher, Blondel, instilled the grandeur and compositional logic in the
buildings architects must infuse their designs with an expressive character
appropriate to their purpose.
3. Ledoux pursued this attitude by exploring typology and the ways by which
architecture can convey meaning.
4. Ledoux's formal language was informed by a lifelong interest in three-
dimensional geometry and also by the compositional vocabulary of Andrea
Palladio
5. the grandiose scale of many of his compositions and the forceful
massiveness of his simple architectural forms.
CUBIC DESIGN BROKEN BY A PROSTYLE PORTICO

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THE ROYAL SALTWORKS AT ARC-ET-SENANS (1775–1778)

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THE ROYAL SALTWORKS AT ARC-ET-SENANS (1775–1778)
▪ In the 18th century salt was an essential and valuable commodity. Salt served as a
valuable source of income for the French king. Salt was then the meaning as the oil in
the present.
▪ In Franche-Comté, due to subterranean seams of halite, ( rock salt) salt was extracted
from saline wells by vaporizing in wood-fuelled furnaces.
▪ In Salins-les-Bains or in Montmorot, the saltworks' boilers were built close to the
wells, and the wood was brought from the adjacent forests.
▪ Contrary to what the French government wanted, Ledoux placed the salt works near
the woods as opposed to the source of the salt water.
▪ He logically reasoned that it would be easier to transport water than wood.
▪ Close to the first of these sites, the Fermiers Généraux decided to explore a more
mechanized and efficient method of extraction, by constructing a purpose-built factory
near the forest of Chaux, in theVal d'Amour.
▪ The saline water was to be brought to the factory by a newly constructed canal.

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The plan of the First Project shows all the houses coherently arranged
around a square court, with bordering alleys forming an outer square
Within the court, diagonal corridors serve as additional communications
between the central pavilions. The pattern of the ground plan is strictly
geometrical. The main entrance is marked by a portico of four large,
ringed columns. The geometrical layout is masked by a conventional
front with a dominant center and subordinated sides. the main front is,
in all its plainness, basically Baroque The two-storied center and
pavilions project from the one-storied wings and are distinguished by
quoined angles.
The forefront contains the gateway, flanked by the apartments of the
director and the employees; the left corner pavilion houses the circular
chapel with the altar in its center. The wings and the pavilion of the lateral
fronts include the homes of the workers. The rooms destined for the
fabrication are located in the rear. The center of the court is a fountain.
First Project proposal

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Ledoux then made a Second Project, adding to the apartments
and the workshops a number of buildings for common use, and
fundamentally changing the general form
The entire system was regarded as a model
system and is an ensemble of eleven
buildings that stand in a semicircle to each
other. Thus, they form an integrated operation
,a working class neighborhood and a
fantastic building for the Directorate.
The house of the director rises in the center
of the whole. On either side it is flanked by the
factories; behind it the coach house has its
place. In front, where the major diameter
intersects the ellipse, is the portico, inserted
between the houses of the workers and
employees.

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Entrance is through a massive Doric portico, inspired by
the temples at Paestum.
The alliance of the columns is an archetypal motif of
neoclassicism.

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▪ The entrance was to house the room of the
guards, the prison, and the bakery.
▪ With all the traditional apparatus of columns,
entablature, etc., the porch of the Gateway has a
character of its own.
▪ Its block like mass emerges from lower wings, its
back wall is shaped as a grotto in uneven rock.
▪ Thus three non-homogeneous elements are
combined: classical features, pseudo-natural
Romantic finishing, and the new cubism.

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▪ Inside, a cavernous hall gives the impression of entering an actual salt mine, decorated with concrete ornamentation representing the
elementary forces of nature and the organizing genius of Man, a reflection of the views of the relationship between civilization and
nature endorsed by such eighteenth-century philosophers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

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▪ Columns of the house of the director.
▪ The circular shafts are pierced by squares -
DIRECTORS HOUSE

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▪ This entrance consists of a sturdy, squat
lower portion and a disproportionately high
triangular, sloping roof.
▪ The latter opens in threeVenetian windows,
which in liveliness form an effective contrast
to the surface behind them.
▪ There is, moreover, on the walls of the
ground floor, the dramatic contrast of
smooth ashlar, the rustication of the quoins,
and the framing of the doors.
▪ The vigorous exploitation of the material is
an outstanding characteristic of all the
structures erected at Arc-etSenans

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QUATREMÈRE DE QUINCY
Born Antoine Chrysostôme Quatremère de
Quincy on October 28, 1755 in Paris, France.
study law and later learned sculpture.
Received no professional training in architecture.
Quatremère did not write a formal treatise;
instead, he was commissioned to write the first
formal dictionary of architecture.
I D E A O F I M I T A T I O N

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QUATREMÈRE’S FOUR CLASSES OF RULES
(first two are based on nature and the second two are based on conventions)
1. Reason or “the nature of things”
• The theory of art in architecture – imitation, invention, principles, rules
2. Constitution of the soul, mind, and senses
• Beauty in architecture – symmetry, rhythm, proportion, ordnance
3. Authority of precedents
• Retrieval of traditional knowledge – antique, restoration, restitution
4. Even habit and prejudgement
• Theoretical parameters influencing renewal within tradition – in dissociable
couples imitation and invention, conventions and genius

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Quatremère distinguishes three meanings of architectural character:
1. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER – natural character, the purest simplest
essence of something
2. DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER – refers to a building’s dominant quality
3. RELATIVE CHARACTER – two parts
a) Ideal – art of architecture metaphysically considered
b) Imitative – allows for sensuous ideas through manipulation of forms
*Relative character is much like that of ideal beauty and imitative beauty

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IN 1791 QUATREMÈRE DE QUINCY TRANSFORMED THE
CHURCH OF ST. GENEVIEVE INTO THE PARTHENON.
Soufflot, its architect.
After the Revolution, the building was adapted by architect
Quatremere de Quincy to its new function as a pantheon.
In 1806 the building was converted back into a church, but
reverted to a pantheon again in 1885

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Its ambitious lines called for a vast building 110
meters long by 84 meters wide, and 83 meters high.
The overall design was that of a Greek
cross with massive portico of 24 large
Corinthian columns
The pantheon is a building in the latin quarter in paris.
It was originally built as a church dedicated to st.
Genevieve, but now functions primarily as a burial
place for famous french heroes.
It is an early example of neoclassicism, with a facade
modelled after the pantheon in rome surmounted by a
dome that owes some of its character to bramante’s

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Greek cross in plan (nave, north and south transepts, and
choir are of equal dimensions), and originally the walls were
pierced with windows in each bay between the columns
This structure created a Gothic sense of openness
out of the classical columns and round-arched
(as opposed to Gothic pointed-arch) vaults.

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“To great men, the grateful homeland”
The interior is decorated with
mosaics and paintings of
scenes from French history

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The triple dome, each shell fitted within the others,
permits a view through the oculus of the coffered inner
dome of the second dome, frescoed by Antoine Gros
with The Apotheosis of Saint Genevieve
The dome features three superimposed shells,
similar to the St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

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The large crypt, covering the whole
surface of the building accommodates the
vaults of great French public figures
Foucault’s pendulum beneath the central dome

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GOTTFRIED SEMPER 19TH CENTURY
▪ BORN: 29 November 1803, Altona,(later greater Hamburg),
Germany.
▪ He was among the principal practitioners of the Neo-Renaissance
style in Germany and Austria.
▪ He was the most influential and prolific German theorist on
architecture in the nineteenth century.
▪ He developed ideas about technology, architecture and art history.

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THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE
a) Hearth- fire, ceramics
b) Roof – carpentry
c) Enclosure- weaving
d) Mound – earthwork
stone masonry

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The theories on patterns are wide and concern
of different disciplines. In his searchfor the
Origin of Art and Architecture, Gottfried Semper
in his discourse on Dressingand Textile, sees
the patterning as structural generative from the
process of joiningparts together – the knot:
The patterns that human beings used, be those
for ornamenting their faces or for theweaving
techniques; fall slightly under the ancient and
classical theory of mimesis.Taking motifs from
nature is a primordial process

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THE DRESDEN OPERA HOUSE OF 1838—41
The Semperoper is the opera house (Saxon State Opera)
the concert hall. It is also home to the Semperoper Ballett.
The building is located near the Elbe River in the historic centre
of Dresden, Germany.
The facade consisted of a two-storeyed semi-circular loggia
(Doric and Ionic), with the higher auditorium, also semi-circular,
set back behind it and articulated with Corinthian pilasters.
Gottfried Semper's facade of the Dresden Opera House
revealed the semi-cylinder of the auditorium for the first time
since antiquity, though it had been advocated in several
eighteenth-century ideal projects. With its semi-circular foyers
on two levels and staircases in 'transept positions at the sides

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constructed to a design by Gottfried
Semper which combined a late Classical
style with Renaissance elements

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the centre of the facade into the semi-circular vestibule, but the main staircases were at the
sides, entered by way of separate lateral porches. The high roof of the auditorium was extended
sideways over these porches, like the transepts of a cathedral. The auditorium, in deference to
contemporary usage, was in fact not semi-circular but horseshoe-shaped.,

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▪ BORN- February 12, 1728, Paris, France.
▪ OCCUPAION- French visionary neoclassical
architect, theorist, and teacher.
He studied under Jacques-François Blondel, Germain
Boffrand and Jean-Laurent Le Geay,
1. His work was characterized by the removal of all unnecessary ornamentation,
inflating geometric forms to a huge scale and repeating elements such as
columns in huge ranges.
2. Boullée promoted the idea of making architecture expressive of its purpose, a
doctrine termed Architecture parlante ("talking architecture") by his detractors,
3. His style was most notably exemplified in his proposal for a cenotaph for the
English scientist Isaac Newton
4. For Boullée regularity, symmetry and variety were the golden rules of
architecture.
5. Boullee admired the clear, bold lines of neoclassic architecture but considered
emotion equally as important to architecture as classical rules of
proportioning.
6. The distinguishing aspect of Boullée’s mature work is his abstraction of the
geometric forms suggested by ancient works into a new concept of
monumental building that would possess the calm, ideal beauty of classical
architecture while also having considerable expressive power.

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CENOTAPH FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON
Possibly Boullée’s most emblematic project. The project aims to
explore the idea that the architect should aim at the sublime.
‘Newton’s cenotaph –plan.
It was designed to isolate, to reinvent, the huge
movement of time and celestial phenomena. Inside,
the viewer is isolated too, on a small viewing platform
SPHERE

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 The building itself was a 150m (500ft) tall sphere
encompassed by two large barriers circled by
hundreds of cypress trees.
 Though the structure was never built, its design was
engraved and circulated widely in professional circles.
 Basically, the building is a large sphere that represents
both the land and Newton’s discoveries. Its access can
be gained through the base and, despite its size, only a
small area of such base can be occupied.
 The small sarcophagus for Newton is placed at the
lower pole of the sphere.
 The design of the memorial creates the effect of day
and night. The night effect occurs when the
sarcophagus is illuminated by the sunlight coming
through the holes in the vaulting.
 This gives the illusion of stars in the night sky. The
day effect is an armillary sphere

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Boullée’s ‘Monument intended for tributes due to the Supreme
Being’ is an expression of the metaphorical, emotional, and
symbolic aspects of the architecture’s purpose. Function,
shape, setting, lighting, and even scent were all
considered in an effort to realize the unique character of
the monument within a defined aesthetic environment.
Boullée believed that a building’s “character” should be poetic
and evoke an appropriate feeling in those who experienced it
 Boullee was a sensationalist in his aesthetics and spoke of
architecture as poetry, by which he meant a kind of poetry
composed of symmetry, regularity, varied form, and character
 It is because it is simple in form, its planes are regular and it
repeats itself.
 But since we gauge the impression that objects make on us by
their clarity, what makes us single out regular volumes in
particulars is the fact that their regularity and their symmetry
represent order, and order is clarity.

Theory of architecture

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