Eclecticism was an architectural style in the late 19th century that incorporated elements from historical styles to create original designs. It allowed architects more freedom and inspiration compared to reviving a single historical style. Some eclectic styles discussed are Gothic Revival, Orientalism, Beaux-Arts, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco. Eclecticism used elements and motifs from different eras and places in creative combinations suited to the project. It emphasized creation over nostalgia and sought original rather than derivative designs.

1. ARCHITECTURE BEFORE THE WORLD WAR

2. ECLECTICISM

3. • Eclecticism is a nineteenth and twentieth-century architectural style in which
a single piece of work incorporates a mixture of elements from previous
historical styles to create something that is new and original.
• In architecture and interior design, these elements may include structural
features, furniture, decorative motives, distinct historical ornament, traditional
cultural motifs or styles from other countries, with the mixture usually chosen
based on its suitability to the project and overall aesthetic value.
• Eclecticism came into practice during the late 19th century, as Architects
sought after a style that would allow them to retain previous historic
precedent, but create unseen designs.
• From a complete catalogue of past styles, the ability to mix and combine
styles allowed for more expressive freedom and provided an endless source of
inspiration.
• Eclecticism differed, as the main driving force was creation, not nostalgia and
there was a desire for the designs to be original.

4. • Gothic Revival
• Orientalism
• Beaux-Arts
• Arts and Crafts
• Art Nouveau
• Art Deco
Different Styles in Eclecticism

5. GOTHIC REVIVAL

6. Restitutive Gothic-A.W.N. Pugin, St. Giles Catholic
Church, Cheadle, Cheshire, 1841-6

7. Structural Gothic-Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, design
for a concert hall (ca.1866) from Entretiens sur
I’architecture (1863-72)

8. Natural Gothic-Thomas Deane and Benjamin
Woodward, Natural History Mueseum, Oxford,
1854-8

9. Modern Gothic-George Gilbert Scott, Midland Grand
Hotel, London, 1865-76

10. Eclectic Gothic-G.E. Street, Royal Courts of Justice,
London, 1868-82

11. ORIENTALISM

12. Indian Egyptian
Mayan Moorish

13. Indian-John Nash, Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 1787-1823

14. Egyptian-Thomas Stewart, Egyptian Building, Medical College of
Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, completed 1845

15. Mayan-Robert Stacy-Judd, Aztec Hotel. Monrovia, California, 1924

16. Moorish-John A. Wood, Tampa Bay Hotel (now Henry B.Plant Museum, University of Tampa), Tampa Florida,
1888-91

17. Chinese-Sir Willian Chambers, Pagoda, Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew, London, 1761

18. Imperialist-Sir Edwin Lutyens, Rashtrapati Bhavan (formerly the Viceroy’s House) , New Delhi, India, 1912-30

19. Beaux-Art
• Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural
style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
• The Beaux-Arts training emphasized the mainstream examples
of Imperial Roman architecture, Italian Renaissance, and French and
Italian Baroque models especially, but the training could then be applied to a
broader range of models.
• Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production of quick conceptual sketches,
highly finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention to
the program, and knowledgeable detailing.
• Beaux-Arts architecture depended on sculptural decoration along
conservative modern lines, employing French and Italian Baroque
and Rococo formulas combined with an impressionistic finish and realism.

20. Characteristics
• Flat roof
• Rusticated and raised first story
• Arched windows
• Arched and pedimented doors
• Classical details: references to a synthesis of historicist styles and a tendency
to eclecticism; fluently in a number of "manners"
• Symmetry
• Statuary, sculpture (bas-relief panels, figural sculptures, sculptural groups),
murals, mosaics, and other artwork, all coordinated in theme to assert the
identity of the building
• Classical architectural details
• Subtle polychromy.

21. Modern Building Types-Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore, Grand Central Terminal, New York City, 1903-
13

22. Civic Buildings-Carrere and Hashtings, New York Public
Library, New York City, 1897-1911

23. Iron Structures-Henri Labrouste, Reading Room Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris

24. Imbricated Facades-Charles Girault, Petit Palais, Paris, 1896-1900

25. Arts and Crafts
• Led by William Morris
• Aesthetic and idealistic reaction to the forces and the conditions of
modernity. A revolt against the hard mechanical conventional life and its
insensibility to beauty (quite another thing to ornament).
• Reintegration of high aesthetic and everyday craftsmanship.
• If artists and architect became craftsmen once more, the tyranny of the
machine could be overthrown
• Characterised by a romantic historicism that harked back to the traditional
rural lifestyle before the advent of modernity and the squalor of industrial
cities.
• Traditional building crafts were combined with an eclectic range of
architectural styles like, Dutch Renaissance and English Baroque.

26. Vernacular-Philip Web, Red House, Bexleyheath, Kent, England, 1859

27. Picturesque sensibility-Richard Norman Shaw, Bedford
Park Garden Suburb, London, 1875-86

28. Domestic-M.H.Baillie Scott, Blackwell, Bowness-on-Windermere,
Cumbria, England, 1898-1900

29. Indegeneous Materials and crafts-Charles Voysey, Broad Leys, Windermere, Cumbria, 1898

30. Garden Suburbs
Garden Suburbs-G.G. Winbourne, Lytton Close, Hampstead Garden Suburb, Barnet (now London), 1934-6

31. Decentralization-Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, begun 1903

32. Art Nouveau
• By the 1890s in Europe, the supremacy of French Beaux- Art and English
Victorian styles were being challenged by Architects in places that were
somewhat remote from the English and French spheres of influence like in
Spain, Austria, Germany, Scotland and Holland.
• Emerging at the end of the 19th century and prevalent until the outbreak of
World War I in 1914.
• Arguably the first avant-garde architectural style.
• Whereas the Arts and Crafts movement aimed to heal the alienation that had
arisen as a consequence of industrialization, Art Nouveau stressed creativity.
• Art Nouveau artists tended to avoid the heavy, neo medieval look of the Arts
and Crafts, preferring sinuous organic shapes and plant like motifs.

33. Art Nouveau
• By the end of the 19th Century, Art Nouveau had drifted toward a virtuostic
display of form, a complicated intermingling of materials, and an interlacing of
structure and ornament. It was unabashedly expensive.
• Art Nouveau provided a connection between the inherent subjectivity of craft
and the objectivity of modern mechanized production.

34. Organic Forms-Victor Horta, Hotel Tassel,
Brussels, 1892-2

35. Articulating Modernity-Hector Guimard, Porte Dauphine Metro Station, Paris, 1900

36. Symbolism-Antonio Gaudi, Expiatory Church of the Holy Family (Sagrada Familia), Barcelona, Spain, begun 1884

37. Material Contrasts
Anti Ornament
Anti-historicism

38. Material Contrasts
Anti Ornament
Anti-historicism

39. Material Contrasts-Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Library, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland, 1903

40. Art Deco(between World Wars)
• Art Deco burst onto the world stage at the Exposition Internationale des Arts
Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris 1925.
• The aim of the exhibition, which gave Art Deco its name, was to re-establish
Paris as the centre of Design, Fashion and high-end consumer products.
• The exhibition asked for the submissions that were modern. But the
submissions were somewhere between tradition and modernity.
• Art Deco, later was devoid of any intellectual content or of a social or moral
agenda. It was style in its purest sense, and embrace of eclectic ornament,
colour, rich materials and lustrous surfaces.
• Art Deco represented a vague optimism in the possibilities of modernity, not
as a break from the past, but in a way that ‘consumerized’ luxury.

41. Speed and Movement-William Van Alen, Chrysler Building,
New York City, 1928-30

42. Glamour-Ellis & Clarke with Sir Owen Williams (entrance hall by Robert Atkinson), Daily Express Building, London,
1929-33

43. Exoticism-Ernest Arthur Williams, Daily Telegraph Building, Napier, New Zealand, 1932

44. Rectilinear-Wallis Gilbert and Partners, Hoover Factory, Perivale, London, 1935

45. Geometric Forms
Residual Classicism

46. Geometric Forms-Edward Durell Stone (interior design by Donald Deskey), Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller
Centre, New York City, 1932