Palladian architecture
Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture originally designed by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). Today, any building which (often very loosely) adheres to the rules of architecture to which Palladio subscribed is described as Palladianism. This architectural style can be traced as it spread from the early 16th century in the Veneto, across Europe to buildings designed by Thomas Jefferson in North America in the late 18th century.
The built and published works of Palladio follow the rules of the Roman architect Vitruvius and his later disciples, such as Leone Battista Alberti who all adhered to the classical Roman principles of architecture, as opposed to the rich ornamentation of the Renaissance. Buildings which are truly Palladian are rare, and all in Italy. They include Villa Capra and Villa Foscari and many churches in the Veneto. To explain fully the term Palladian as used outside of Italy one must first understand true Palladian as designed by the master architect himself.
True Palladian architecture
Palladio always designed his villas with reference to their setting. If on a hill, such as Villa Capra, all facades were designed to be of equal value, in order for the occupants to have fine views in all directions; porticos on all sides were for the owners to fully appreciate the countryside while protected from the blazing sun, and were used rather in the way of the proverbial American porch today. An alternative to the portico, sometimes used by Palladio was a loggia, this can most simply be described as a recessed portico, or an internal single storey room, with pierced walls, open to the elements. Occasionally a loggia would be placed at second floor level over the top of a loggia below, this was known as a double loggia. Loggias were sometimes given significance in a facade by being surmounted by a pediment. Villa Godi, (illustrated left) has as its focal point a loggia rather than a portico, plus loggias terminating each end of the main building.
Palladio would often model his villa elevations on Roman temple facades, in fact the temple influence, often in a cruciform design, became a trademark of his work. Palladian villas are usually on just three floors: a rusticated basement or ground floor, containing the service and minor rooms; above this, the piano nobile accessed through a portico reached by flight of external steps, contianing the principal reception and bedrooms; and above this, a low mezzanine floor with secondary bedrooms and accommodation. The proportions of each room within the villa were calculated on simple mathematical ratios like 3:4 and 4:5, and the different rooms within the house were interrelated by these ratios. Earlier architects had used these formulas for balancing a single symmetrical facade: Palladio's designs related to the whole, usually square, villa.
Palladio's villas were often both farmhouses and weekend retreats for wealthy merchant owners, and he gave great consideration to this dual purpose; hence these always symmetrical temple-like houses often have equally symmetrical but low wings sweeping away from them, to accommodate horses, farm animals, and agricultural stores. These wings were designed not only to be utilitarian and functional but also to complement and enhance and accentuate the villa, but were in no way intended to be part of the villa. It is the use of these wings that Palladio's imitators have most altered Palladianism.
The Palladian window
One of the features of Palladio's work, almost a trademark in his earlier work, is the misnamed Palladian window. Mentioned by Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554) in his seven-volume architectural book Tutte l`opere d`architettura et prospetiva expounding the ideals of Vitruvius and Roman architecture, this arched window is flanked by two lower rectangular openings, a motif that first appeared in the triumphal arches of ancient Rome. Palladio used the motif extensively, most notably in the arcades of the Palazzo della Ragione (illustrated right) in Vicenza. It is also a feature of his entrances to both Villa Godi and Villa Forni-Cerato. It is perhaps this extensive use of the motif in the Veneto which has given the window its alternative name of the Venetian window; it is also known as a Serlian window. Whatever the name or the origin, this form of window has probably become one of the most enduring features of Palladio's work seen in the later architectural styles, evolved from Palladianism.
The spread of Palladianism
In 1570 Palladio published his book I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, a book of his designs which was later translated into other European languages, and inspired architects all across the continent. During the 17th century, Palladio was researched by many architects of the age who came to Italy to study, (his book reached even eventually those unable to visit Italy). These architects then returned to their home countries all over Europe and adapted Palladio's style to suit the climate, topography and personal tastes of their clients. In these ways isolated forms of Palladianism can be found throughout the World. However, the Palladian style reached the zenith ot its popularity in England, Ireland, and later North America in the 18th century.
English Palladianism
One of these students was the English architect Inigo Jones, who is directly responsible for importing the Palladian influence to England. The "Palladianism" of Jones and his contemporaries and later followers is a style very much of facades only, and the mathematical formulae dictating layout were not strictly applied. A handful of great country houses in England built between 1640 and circa 1680, such as Wilton House, are in this Palladian style, following the great success of Jones' Palladian designs for the Queen's House at Greenwich and the banqueting house at Whitehall, the uncompleted royal palace in London of King Charles I. However, the Palladian designs advocated by Inigo Jones were too closely associated with the court of Charles I to survive the turmoil of the civil war. Following the Stuart restoration Jones's Palladian was eclipsed by the baroque designs of such architects as William Talman and Sir John Vanbrugh, and even Jones' pupil John Webb.
English Palladian revival (neo-Palladian)
The baroque style, popular in Europe, was never truly to the English taste and it was quickly superseded when, in the first quarter of the 18th century, four books were published in Britain, which highlighted the simplicity and purity of classical architecture. These were:
- Vitruvius Britannicus published by Colen Campbell, 1715 (of which supplemental volumes appeared through the century)
- Palladio's Four Books of Architecture published by Giacomo Leoni, 1715
- Leone Battista Alberti's De Re Aedificatoria, published by Giacomo Leoni, 1726
- The Designs of Inigo Jones... with Some Additional Designs, published by William Kent, 2 vols., 1727 (A further volume, Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. William Kent was published in 1744 by the architect John Vardy, an associate of Kent.)
The most popular of these among the wealthy patrons of the day was the four volume Vitruvius Britannicus by Colen Campbell. Campbell was both an architect and a publisher. The book was basically a book of design containing architectural prints of British buildings, which had been inspired by the great architects from Vitruvius to Palladio; at first mainly those of Inigo Jones, but the later tomes contained drawings and plans by Campbell and other 18th century architects. These four books greatly contributed to Palladian revival architecture becoming established in 18th century Britain; and their three authors became the most fashionable and sought after architects of the era. Colen Campbell due to his book Vitruvius Britannicus' was the architect of Stourhead house (illustration below), for the banker Henry Hoare I, a masterpiece that became the inspiration for dozens of similar houses across England.
At the forefront of the new school of design was the aristocratic "architect earl," Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, who saw baroque as a symbol of foreign absolutism. Burlington, with William Kent, designed in 1729, Chiswick House. This House was a reinterpretation of Palladio's Villa Capra, but purified of 16th century elements and ornament. This severe lack of ornamentation was to be a feature of the Palladian revival.
In 1734 William Kent and Lord Burlington designed one of England's finest palladian revival houses, Holkham Hall in Norfolk. The main block of this house followed quite closely Palladio's dictates, but Palladio's low (often detached) wings of farm buildings were elevated in significance. Kent attached them to the design, banished the farm animals, and elevated the wings to almost the same importance as the house itself. These wings were adorned with Porticos and pediments, often resembling, as at the much later Kedleston Hall, small country houses in their own right. It was the development of the flanking wings that was now to develop English Palladianism from being a pastiche of Palladio's original work.
Architectural styles evolve and change to change to suit the requirements of each individual client. When in 1746 the Duke of Bedford decided to rebuild Woburn Abbey he chose the Palladian style for the design, as this was now the most fashionable of the era. He selected architect Henry Flitcroft, a protegee of Burlington himself. Flitcroft's designs, while Palladian in nature, would not be recognised by Palladio himself. The central block is small, only three bays, the temple-like portico is merely suggested, it is in fact closed; two great flanking wings containing a vast suite of state rooms replace the walls or colonnades which should have connected to the farm buildings; the farm buildings terminating the structure are elevated in height to match the central block, and given Palladian windows, to ensure they are seen as of palladian design. This development of the style was to be repeated in countless houses in Britain. Often the terminating pavilions would have blind porticos and pilasters themselves, competing for attention with the central block. This was all very far removed from the designs of Palladio two hundred years earlier.
English Palladian houses were now no longer the small but exquisite weekend retreats from which their Italian counterparts were conceived, not villas but "power houses" in Sir John Summerson's term, the symbolic centers of power of the Whig "squirearchy" that ruled Britain. As the Palladian style swept Britain, all thoughts of mathematical proportion were swept away. Rather than square houses with supporting wings, these buildings had the length of the facade as their major consideration; long houses often only one room deep were almost theatre sets, giving a false impression of size
Irish Palladianism
During the Palladian revival period in Ireland even quite modest mansions were cast in a neo-Palladian mould. Palladian architecture in Ireland subtly differs from that in England. While adhering like in all other countries to the basic ideals of Palladio, it is often truer to those ideals, perhaps because it was often designed by architects who had come directly from mainland Europe, and therefore were not influenced by the evolution that Palladianism was undergoing in Britain, or perhaps because Ireland was more provincial and its fashions changed at a slower pace than elsewhere. Whatever the reason, Palladianism still had to be adapted for the wetter more cold weather.
One of the most pioneering Irish architects was Sir Edward Lovett Pearce (1699–1733) who became one of the leading leading advocates of Palladianism in Ireland. A cousin of Sir John Vanbrugh, he was originally one of his pupils, but rejecting the baroque, he spent three years studying architecture in France and Italy, before returning home to Ireland. His most important Palladian work is the former Irish Houses of Parliament in Dublin. He was a prolific architect who also designed the south facade of Drumcondra House in 1727, and Cashel Palace in 1731.
One of the most notable examples of Palladianism in Ireland is the magnificent Castletown, near Dublin. Designed by the Italian architect Alessandro Galilei (1691–1737), and said to be the only Palladian house in Ireland to have been built with Palladio's mathematical ratios, it is also one of the two Irish mansions which claim to have inspired the design of the White House in Washington.
Other fine examples include Russborough, designed by Richard Cassels, an architect of German origin, who also designed the Palladian Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, and Florence Court, County Fermanagh. Irish Palladian Country houses often have robust Rococo plaster-work,frequently executed by the Lafranchini brothers, an Irish speciality, which is far more flamboyant than the interiors of their contemporaries in England. So popular did Palladianism become in Dublin, a city with large rebuilding in the mid-18th century, that it is frequently referred to as Georgian Dublin, Georgian being the British euphemism for the style of Palladianism which evolved there.
North American Palladianism
The amateur architect Thomas Jefferson (1743– 1826) once referred to Palladio's "I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura" as my bible. Jefferson acquired an intense appreciation of Palladio's architectural concepts, and his designs for the Jefferson Monticello estate and the University of Virginia, were based on drawings from Palladio's book. Realising the powerful political significance pertaining to ancient Roman buildings, Jefferson designed many of his civic buildings in the Palladian style. Monticello (remodelled between 1796 and 1808} is quite clearly based on Palladio's Villa Capra, however with modifications, a style which is described in America today as Colonial Georgian. Jefferson's Pantheon, or Rotunda, at the University of Virginia, is undeniably Palladian in concept and style.
In Virginia and Carolina, the Palladian manner is epitomized in numerous Tidewater plantation houses: Stratford Hall or Westover, or Drayton Hall near Charleston are all classic American colonial examples of a Palladian taste that was transmitted through engravings, for the benefit of masons— and patrons, too—who had no first-hand experience of European building practice. A feature of American Palladianism was the re-emergence of the great portico, which again, as in Italy, fulfilled the need of protection from the sun; the portico in various forms and size became a dominant feature of American colonial architecture. In the north European countries the Portico had become a mere symbol, often closed, or merely hinted at in the design by pilasters, and sometimes in very late examples of English Palladianism adapted to become a porte-cochere; in America, the Palladian portico regained its full glory.
Thomas Jefferson must have gained particular pleasure, as the second occupant of the White House in Washington, which was doubtless inspired by Irish Palladianism; both Castletown and Richard Cassel's Leinster House in Dublin claim to have inspired the architect James Hoban who designed the executive mansion which was built between 1792 and 1800. Hoban born in Callan, County Kilkenny in 1762, studied architecture in Dublin, where Leinster House (built circa 1747) was one of the finest buildings at the time. The Palladianism of the White House is interesting, as it is almost an early form of neoclassicism, especially the South facade which closely resembles James Wyatt's design for Castle Coole of 1790, also in Ireland. Ironically, the North facade lacks one of the floors from Leinster House, while the Southern facade gains a floor extra than Castle Coole, and has an external staircase more (in the Palladian manner). Castle Coole is, in the words of the architectural commentator Gervase Jackson-Stops "A culmination of the Palladian traditions, yet strictly neoclassical in its chaste ornament and noble austerity". The same can be said of many houses in the American Palladian style.
One of the adaptions made to Palladianism in America was that the piano nobile tended to now be placed on the ground floor, rather than above a service floor, as was the tradition in Europe. This service floor, if it existed at all, was now a discreet semi-basement. This negated the need for an ornate external staircase leading to the main entrance as in the more original Palladian designs. This was also to be a feature of the neoclassical style which followed Palladianism.
Decline of Palladianism
By the 1770s, in England, such architects as Robert Adam and Sir William Chambers were in huge popular demand, but they were now drawing on a great variety of classical sources, including ancient Greece, so much so that their forms of architecture were eventually defined as neoclassical rather than Palladian. In Europe, the Palladian revival was over by the end of the 18th century. In North America, Palladianism lingered a little longer: Thomas Jefferson's floorplans and elevations owe a great deal to Palladio's Quattro Libri. The term "Palladian" today is often misused, and tends to describe a building with any classical pretensions.
External Links
- Palladio's Villas [1]
- Holkham Hall:[2]
- Woburn Abbey: [3]
- Thomas Jefferson's architecture: [4]
References
- Cropplestone, Trewin (1963). World Architecture. Hamlyn.
- Dal Lago, Adalbert (1966). Ville Antiche. Milan: Fratelli Fabbri.
- Halliday, E. E. (1967). Cultural History of England. London: Thames and Hudson.
- Jaskson-Stops, Gervase (1990). The Country House in Perspective. Pavilion Books Ltd.
- Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press
- Marten Paolo,(1993). Palladio. Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, Koln
- Watkin, David (1979). English Architecture. London: Thames and Hudson.