Egyptian Revival architecture

Quay in Saint Petersburg, with two sphinxes of Amenhotep III brought from Egypt in 1832

Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and Admiral Nelson's defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Napoleon took a scientific expedition with him to Egypt. Publication of the expedition's work, the Description de l'Égypte, began in 1809 and was published as a series through 1826. However, works of art and architecture (such as funerary monuments) in the Egyptian style had been made or built occasionally in Europe and the British Islands since the time of the Renaissance.

Egyptian Revival architecture before Napoleon

The obelisk in Piazza Navona

The most important example is probably Gian Lorenzo Bernini's obelisk in the Piazza Navona in Rome. Bernini's obelisk influenced the obelisk constructed as a family funeral memorial by Sir Edward Lovatt Pierce for the Allen family at Stillorgan in Ireland in 1717, one of several Egyptian obelisks erected in Ireland during the early 18th century. Others may be found at Belan, County Kildare and Dangan, County Meath. The Casteltown Folly in County Kildare is probably the best known, albeit the least Egyptian styled, of these obelisks.

Egyptian buildings had also been built as garden follies. The most elaborate was probably the one built by Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg in the gardens of the Château de Montbéliard. It included an Egyptian bridge across which guests walked to reach an island with an Egyptian swing and an elaborate Egyptian "bath house". The building featured a billiards room and a "bagnio". It was designed by the duke's court architect, Jean Baptiste Kleber.

Egyptian revival in the wake of Napoleon

The facade of the Egyptian Hall in 1815

An illustration of a small Egyptian temple from William Hosking's chapter on 'Architecture' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (offprint pub. 1832). Hosking was chosen later by the initiators of Abney Park Cemetery to design a pair of similar Temple Lodges for its front entrance.

What was new after the Napoleonic invasion was the sudden increase of the number of works of art and the fact that, for the first time, European buildings began to be built to resemble those of ancient Egypt.

The first of the Egyptian style buildings was a newspaper office. The Courier, a London newspaper, built a new office on the Strand in London in 1804. It featured a cavetto (coved) cornice and a pair of Egyptian-looking columns with palmiform capitals.

The most important building of the Egyptian revival in France was the Egyptian Temple in the Place des Victoires, built as a memorial to generals Desaix and Kleber. The cornerstone was laid on 19 Fructidor Year VIII (September 6, 1800.)

An Egyptian Revival building that can still be seen in Paris is the 1812 Fountain of the Fellah, Rue de Sèvres, by François-Jean Bralle.

The Egyptian Hall in London, completed in 1812, and the Egyptian Gallery, a private room in the home of connoisseur Thomas Hope (1769-1831) to display his Egyptian antiquities, and illustrated in engravings from his meticulous line drawings in his book Household Furniture (1807), were a prime source for the Regency style of British furnishings.

The Highgate Cemetery, with its Egyptian Avenue, is an example of the popularity Egyptian style continued to enjoy as funerary architecture.

The Egyptian Bridge, St. Petersburg

The Regional Studies Museum in Krasnoyarsk

In Russia, this fashion—associated primarily with the discoveries of Champollion—produced similar monuments:

• Egyptian Bridge in St. Petersburg, 1825–26
• Quay (1832–1834) designed by Konstantin Thon in front of the Imperial Academy of Arts building.
• Egyptian Gate.
• The Regional Studies Museum in Krasnoyarsk.

In the United States and British colonies

The Egyptian revival enjoyed greater popularity as an architectural form in the United States and the British colonies than in Europe. A number of Egyptian-style buildings were built, of which some survive.

• 1820 pyramid, memorial to Elizabeth, Lady Rufane on Donkin Hill at Old Portuguese Algoa Bay in what is now South Africa.
• The 1824 building of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by architect William Strickland (who later designed the 1851 Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee).
• Bunker Hill Monument 1827.
• Groton Monument, 1826, 1881.
• The 1833 First Presbyterian Church (Sag Harbor) by Minard Lafever, a rare example of an Egyptian revival church.
• The 1835 Philadelphia County Prison (demolished in 1968), design by architect Thomas U Walter.

The Tombs, New York, 1838

• The Tombs, an 1838 court and jail complex in New York City.
• the 1845 Hobart Synagogue, Tasmania, Australia.
• The 1840 railroad station in New Bedford, Massachusetts was done in Egyptian Revival style.
• 1840 gates of the Granary Burying Ground in Boston by Isaiah Rogers.
• College of Cape Town, South Africa, now the University of Cape Town.
• The 1843 gates and gatehouses of Mount Auburn Cemetery by Jacob Bigelow.
• The 1843 Union Suspension Bridge linking Ottawa with Hull in Quebec, Canada.
• The 1845 massive brownstone entry gates of the Grove Street Cemetery at Yale by architect Henry Austin.
• 1845, the Egyptian Building of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.

Egyptian Building of the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, 1845

• the 1846 First Baptist Church of Essex, Connecticut.
• the 1846-8 Old Synagogue at Canterbury, England.
• the 1848 Washington Monument is an obelisk. It originally featured doors with cavetto cornices and winged sun disks, later removed.
• 1848 United States Custom House (New Orleans).
• 1849 Lighthouse of l'Agulhas, the second-oldest lighthouse in South Africa, also called the "Pharos of the South".
• the 1851 Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, by architect William Strickland (who also did the Tennessee State Capitol).
• the 1856 Skull and Bones undergraduate secret society at Yale. Architect's attribution in dispute, but may also be Henry Austin of the Grove Street Cemetery Gates.
• the 1867 Queen's Park Church, Glasgow.
• the old Dubuque County, Iowa, jail, designed by architect John Francis Rague, and completed in 1859. It is now a historical museum. Rague is better known as architect of the old Iowa statehouse in Iowa City, Iowa.
• the 1913 Masonic Temple in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The National Museum of Beirut

In the Middle East

A number of buildings in Middle Eastern countries, especially Egypt itself, have been built in this style, where it competed with versions of the Moorish Revival style, a revival of the style medieval Islamic architecture in Egypt, as well as Western styles. The National Museum of Beirut, completed in 1937, is an example. A number of entries for the competition for the proposed Grand Egyptian Museum near the Pyramids of Giza mixed modernism with various elements of Ancient Egyptian tomb and temple architecture. The current building of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt, opened in 2001 in the Maadi district of Cairo, is a more recent example of the Egyptian Revival style.

Twentieth century

Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood

The expeditions that eventually led to the discovery in 1922 of the treasure of Tutankhamun's tomb by the archaeologist Howard Carter resulted in a third revival. Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, USA, now home to the American Cinematheque, is an Egyptian Revival theatre from the era. Interestingly, the Egyptian Theatre was designed, built and opened in October 1922, two weeks before the historic discovery in November 1922 of the tomb.

The Reebie Storage Warehouse in Chicago, Illinois, features twin statues of Ramses II and accurate use of ancient Egyptian images and hieroglyphics. Plaster reliefs depict ancient Egyptians moving grain on barges. The warehouse is one of the nation's best examples of pure academic-style Egyptian Revival commercial architecture, and is designated as a Chicago Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Simultaneously, Aleksey Shchusev designed Lenin's Mausoleum (1924; rebuilt in 1929) with many elements borrowed from the Pyramid of Djoser. The Egyptian revival of the 1920s is sometimes considered to be part of the Art Deco decorative arts style. It was present in furniture and other household objects, as well as in architecture.

The Louvre Pyramid in Paris and Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California, are modern-day examples of Egyptian Revival structures. Additionally, Rosicrucian Park contains many examples of Egyptian Revival architecture.

Gallery

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  Medical College of Virginia, 1845

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  Medical College of Virginia detail

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  Medical College of Virginia detail

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  Courthouse, Independence, Missouri, ca. 1852

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  Downtown Presbyterian Church, William Strickland, Nashville, Tennessee, 1851

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  Downtown Presbyterian Church detail

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  Egyptian Theater, DeKalb, Illinois

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  Egyptian Theater detail (1)

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  Egyptian Theater detail (2)

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  Scottish Rite Temple in Mobile, Alabama, 1921

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  The entrance to the Egyptian Avenue in Highgate Cemetery in London, England.

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  Garage in Irish Channel historic district, New Orleans

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  Alexander Thomson's Egyptian Halls on Union Street in Glasgow.

Late 20th century/Early 21st century

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  Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California, 1966

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  Louvre Pyramid and museum in Paris

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  Pyramid Arena in Memphis, Tennessee, 1991

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  Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, 1993

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  Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt, Maadi, Cairo, 2001

Egyptian-influenced funerary architecture

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  Dodge Brothers Mausoleum, Detroit

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  Mausoleum of Major A. B. Watson, Oakhill Cemetery, Grand Rapids, Michigan

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  Mausoleum, Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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  Lowenstein mausoleum in Sha'arai Shomayim Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama

See also

• List of pyramid mausoleums in North America
• Ancient Egyptian architecture
• Egyptian revival decorative arts
• Egyptian Hall
• Egyptian Building
• Mayan Revival architecture
• Revival architecture