We join Kevin McCloud, as he follows in the footsteps of 17th century British architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, taking the "grand tour" through Italy. We line up the following important contributors, whose active professional lives were basically in succession:
- Brunelleschi (early-mid 1400's)
- Bramante (mid-late 1400's)
- Michelangelo (late 1400's to early 1500's)
- Palladio (early-late 1500's)
- Jones (late 1500's to early 1600's)
- Wren (mid 1600's to 1700)
After Jones and Wren brought Renaissance and Mannerist classicism back to Britain, the British would then spread it all over the world during their age of empire. The episode embedded above follows the development of the dome, from Florence (Duomo) to Rome (Tempieto, St. Peter's), and back to Britain (St. Paul's). From there we can infer the spread to North America: U. S. Capitol, state houses all over the U. S., and even San Francisco's City Hall.
A few things to note
We start with Brunelleschi's dome at Santa Maria del Fiore - here is a screen shot that may give you a sense of the scale of the building: the cathedral placed on MA's campus.
Of course, all of these architects also knew and studied the Pantheon. The Greeks and Romans, were the source the classical "language" or architecture that Palladio codified and cataloged in his Four Books. This volume served as an architectural sourcebook or sampler from which subsequent designers could pick and choose, arrange and re-arrange.
These ideas form the general basis for the Mannerist style of architecture that was typified by Palladio, but had it's start in the late Renaissance with people like Michelangelo. Here is a picture of the Laurentian Library at San Lorenzo in Florence - stairs flow like rushing liquid, the columns are pushed in niches in the walls, columns float on brackets, pilasters taper to the bottom. Rules are established and broken. A new language and a new way of thinking is being invented.
For more, and for your summer reading pleasure:
How Architecture Works
by Witold Rybczynski
For an Architecture of Reality
by Michael Benedikt
Inferno
by Dan Brown
These ideas form the general basis for the Mannerist style of architecture that was typified by Palladio, but had it's start in the late Renaissance with people like Michelangelo. Here is a picture of the Laurentian Library at San Lorenzo in Florence - stairs flow like rushing liquid, the columns are pushed in niches in the walls, columns float on brackets, pilasters taper to the bottom. Rules are established and broken. A new language and a new way of thinking is being invented.
For more, and for your summer reading pleasure:
How Architecture Works
by Witold Rybczynski
For an Architecture of Reality
by Michael Benedikt
Inferno
by Dan Brown
