Renaissance Architecture Research Articles

СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ ЕВРОПЕЙСКОЙ АРХИТЕКТУРЫ БАНКОВСКИХ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЙ Г. ГУАНЧЖОУ КОНЦА XIX – НАЧАЛА XX В. НА ПРИМЕРЕ О. ШАМЯНЬ

The article is devoted to the architecture of European banking institutions in Guangzhou, built on the territory of Shamyan island in the late 19th – early 20th century. A brief historical excursion into the history of the formation of the British and French concessions is given. This publication examines the stylistic and compositional features of the architecture of such banking institutions as: Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation; The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China; International banking corporation (City Bank); Bank of Taiwan; Commercial Corporation of Mitsubishi; Yokogama Specie Bank; The E.D.Sassoon & Co.Ltd. и D. Sassoon Sons Co. Ltd; Bank of Indochina; China & France Industry Bank. A composite and stylistic analysis was conducted, an iconographic description of the buildings of the main banks located within the boundaries of the former European concessions on Shamyan Island is given The study reveals the general principles of the development of the architecture of banking institutions in Guangzhou. The materials and results of the research carried out by the authors of this article allowed us to formulate the following conclusions: 1. The territorial isolation of the Shamyan island from the Chinese part of Guangzhou, as well as the operation within the concessions of British and French laws, contributed to the fact that the development of the architectural ensemble of the island as a whole was carried out in line with the advanced West European architectural and urban trends. 2. Most of the banking buildings here are built in the eclectic style with the predominance of neoclassicism features, of course, this fact is connected with the desire of the owners of bank corporations to demonstrate to the clients and competitors the financial strength of their organizations. 3. In the architecture of the considered banking institutions there is an active use of tectonics and elements of the order system, colonnades, arcades, the allocation of the first floor in the form of a rustic plinth. The motifs of Renaissance architecture, Baroque and Art Nouveau are also traced. 4. The formation of the appearance of banking buildings in Shamyan was strongly influenced by local conditions. The hot and humid subtropical climate of the south of China contributed to the spread in the architecture of the structures of this type of order colonnades, forming deep open verandas, as well as the use of X-shaped creaks-elements to ensure the natural ventilation of buildings, which, in addition, became an expressive element of the facade decoration

Композиция церковного фасада в архитектуре раннего венецианского Возрождения: постановка проблемы

In the history of the early Italian Renaissance architecture in Venice, the issue of church facade design seems to be an exceptional phenomenon. Even before the strict classical compositions of Andrea Palladio and Sebastiano Serlio, Venetian architecture already had an elegant solution of the church facade based on the concept of the classical order — a trilobe scheme, reinterpreted in the façade of San Michele in Isola (1468–1479, Mauro Codussi). In the second half of the 15th century — the first third of the 16th century, this form determined the architectural agenda not only in Venice itself, but also in Dalmatia, its sphere of influence. At the same time, in Venice, there were several options for the composition of a church facade: semicircular lunettes and triangular pediments. In the context of the political and urban planning specifics of Venice, the design of a church facade was an independent task, and it had been successfully solved in the works of Mauro Codussi and Pietro Lombardo. Based on the analysis of the key monuments of the early Renaissance religious architecture of Venice, the article presents an attempt to highlight the main characteristics of the facade design issue and some further directions of the research.

Out-of-Frame Figures The Emergence of the Sculpted Body in Renaissance Architecture in France

Sculpted Renaissance medallions, inspired by ancient coins and clipeatae imagines, were developed in French monuments from around 1500 to 1550. First applied to the surface of the wall and restricted to a face, they showed, around 1530-1540, transformations related to the adaptation and variation of the body in the decoration. Characters in very high relief, sometimes represented up to the hips, were multiplied, freed from their frame, addressing the viewer and creating illusion games when they were placed in false windows. These decorations thus testify to the relationship between structure and sculpture and the growing humanisation of the wall.

ІКОНОСТАСИ СПАСО-ПРЕОБРАЖЕНСЬКОГО КАФЕДРАЛЬНОГО СОБОРУ ОДЕСИ: ТЕМАТИКА І СТИЛІСТИКА

The purpose is to study the themes and the stylistics of the upper and lower churches’ iconostases of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa. The comparative method was used in order to study the topic and identify the artistic and stylistic features of Odessa Cathedral iconostases. It allows comparing the objects of study with analogues from the world art. Iconological, iconographic methods and figurative-stylistic analysis were also applied. The iconostases of the Transfiguration Cathedral upper and lower churches in Odessa are organically inscribed in the architectural environment, thanks to which the synthesis of arts is reached. Classical architecture and the original spatial architectonics of the upper temple altar barrier determined the theme and the style of the icon-painting. It was found out that the decoration and the icons in the Transfiguration Cathedral upper and lower churches’ iconostases combine the multi-temporal traditions of Christian art. The upper church central iconostasis reflects the influence of Renaissance architecture and art. The icon painting characteristic feature is a combination of the European art heritage, specifically Italian and Northern Renaissance, classicism, baroque and academicism of the XIX century. A three-dimensional style of painting based on the Western European tradition is observed. The decoration of the lower temple altar barrier contains architectural elements of Byzantium, Ancient Rus and baroque. The icon painting was created in the canonical Byzantine style of the Paleologue Renaissance period. By studying the features of the Transfiguration Cathedral iconostases, the main trends in church art of the second half of the XX–XXI centuries were identified: the application and combination of the renaissance-academic and the Byzantine-Ancient Rus styles. A detailed study of Odessa Cathedral iconostases was conducted for the first time. The features of the icon-painting themes and stylistics in the connection with the architectonics of the iconostases and the temple’s architecture were revealed. Practical significance is due to the possibility of using research materials in monographs on art history of Odessa, in the preparation of textbooks and methodological instructions with an in-depth study of icon-painting, monumental and decorative art, in the working-out of lectures’ and practical classes’ texts.

Michelangelo in 1964: The Critical Model as Dialectical Image in Bruno Zevi’s Renaissance Architecture

In 1964 Bruno Zevi and Paolo Portoghesi launched an ambitious retrospective of Michelangelo’s oeuvre to commemorate the fourth centenary of his death. Held at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, the exhibition, titled Mostra Critica delle Opere Michelangiolesche, offered a comprehensive experience of Michelangelo’s work entirely through replicas and reproductions. A controversial aspect of Zevi’s didactics were the inclusion of student designed critical models that were intended to support a visual criticality alongside Oscar Savio’s photographs. The models operated as a touchstone for Zevi’s larger investigation into the representational possibilities for architectural history, and student photographs of the critical models appeared in a special editorial that was published in Zevi’s periodical, L’architettura: cronache e storia. Using installation photographs, unpublished preparatory photographs, and the final published images, this essay examines the unique indexicality constructed through a remediation of the critical model as it evolves from the exhibition to the pages of Zevi’s journal. By working through the photographic archive of the Fondazione Bruno Zevi and the personal archive of Paolo Portoghesi, this essay argues that the lens(es) used to frame Michelangelo’s architectural theory operated through a type of Benjaminian dialectics; one that reveals the “modern key” used by Zevi to approach Renaissance architecture at mid-century.

“National” and “international” in the architecture of French Renaissance

This article is dedicated to the problem of formation of national style in the architecture of French Renaissance. The indicated problem is the topic of intense discussion within the historiography of Renaissance. Leaning the concept of J. Burckhardt, who describes Renaissance as a specifically Italian phenomenon, a number of scholars identity French Renaissance with “Italianism”. On the other hand, there is a contradictory historiographical trend that acclaims national medieval tradition that views the revival of classical antiquity as a foreign and shallow phenomenon. An attempt is made to examine the problem from the perspective Renaissance itself, relying on the reasoning and assessments expressed by the three theoreticians of architecture: Sebastian Serlio, Philibert de l'Orme, and Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau. The conclusion is made that the theoreticians of French Renaissance were not prone to contrapose the shapes borrowed from antiquity to national tradition. They perceived antiquity as the common past of the entire contemporary to them culture. They did not see any preponderance of Italian Renaissance over the national culture. The contradiction between antiquity and Gothicism was interpreted as a contradiction between the ancient and the new, rather than foreign and native. In creation of the style of Renaissance architecture they resorted to synthesizing heritage of the antiquity with national medieval tradition.

Experimental Investigations of Timber Beams with Stop-Splayed Scarf Carpentry Joints.

The paper presents the results of an experimental investigation of stop-splayed scarf joints, which was carried out as part of a research programme at the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. A brief description and the characteristics of scarf and splice joints appearing in historical buildings are provided, with special reference to stop-splayed scarf joints (so-called ‘Bolt of lightning’) which were widely used, for example, in Italian renaissance architecture. Analyses and studies of scarf and splice joints in bent elements presented in the literature are reviewed, along with selected examples of analyses and research on tensile joints. It is worth noting that the authors in practically all the cited literature draw attention to the need for further research in this area. Next, the results of the authors’ own research on beams with stop-splayed scarf joints, strengthened using various methods, e.g., by means of drawbolts (metal screws), steel clamps and steel clamps with wooden pegs, which were subjected to four-point bending tests are presented. Load-deflection plots were obtained for load-bearing to bending of each beam in relation to the load-bearing of a continuous reference beam. A comparative analysis of the results obtained for each beam series is presented, along with conclusions and directions for further research.

Образ регулярной площади в архитектуре московского классицизма: между проектом и реальностью

The first architectural plan of Moscow will soon celebrate its 250th anniversary. The plan designedin order to improve this historical city as soon as possible was approved by Ekaterina II in 1775. The techniques used in this project reflected authors’ insight into best achievements of Western European architects and creators in the field of town planning. However, not all advanced ideas projected in this document were implemented completely. This paper investigates history of implementation of the master plan and attempts to create first geometrically regular squares in the medieval town, which would match the Classic principles of Western European town planning. The paper fills the considerable gap existing in knowledge of the townplanning policy of Ekaterina the Great and seeks to introduce a stratum of drawings newly found in stocks of the Moscow Deanery Board into the scientific discourse. Analysis of these documents provides for more accurate assessment of the evolution of architectural language, the mechanism of record keeping, and the level of proficiency of contractors in Classic Moscow. Along with specific questions concerning attribution of the architectural plan, this paper involves a wide quarter of problems related to Russian-French town planning contracts. An emphasis is placed on analysis of architectural terms, and comparison of interpretations of the term “square” by different Renaissance architecture schools. The significance of correct interpretation of unimplemented architectural ideas underpinning historical plans of a classic “Capital City” helps us to explain logistics of subsequent urban reforms. These and other abovementioned provisions explain the significance and topicality of this problem both for understanding the evolution of town planning principles of Classicism and in the context of current issues in reconstruction of Moscow urban space.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Antonio da Sangallo the Younger's Reactions to the Pantheon:

In Antonio da Sangallo the Younger's Reactions to the Pantheon: An Early Modern Case of Operative Criticism, Francesco Benelli looks at three annotated drawings by Antonio in which he analyzed features of the Roman Pantheon. The architect's analysis of this ancient monument drew on both his close, methodical, and pragmatic investigations of the building and his deep knowledge of Vitruvian theory. Together, the drawings and text represent an unprecedented critique of a building then almost universally admired. Yet Antonio's dependence on Vitruvius, who belonged to a different period of Roman history than did the Pantheon, led to certain discrepancies within his conclusions. Nonetheless, Antonio's study marks a new level of professional confidence, objectivity, and critical detachment among Renaissance architects, as ancient monuments were no longer seen as perfect and unquestionable, but as sources to be praised, criticized, utilized, adapted, or ignored according to the specific needs of modern architectural practice.

Diagnosis and Structural Assessment of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary Chapel in Prague (CZ)

This paper illustrates the results of the activities of analysis and structural assessment of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary chapel, in Prague. The chapel, an oval-shaped building covered with a dome, was built at the end 16th century and can be considered the last example of renaissance architecture and at the same time the first example of baroque architecture in Prague: it is a significant testimony of the close connection between local artists and their Italian teachers. The building closed to visitors during the last decades for the presence of some structural damages and because severely degraded due to lack of maintenance, was reopened in the 2017 after a notable restoration process. This paper gives attention to the interdisciplinary approach used to diagnosis and structural assessment of the chapel, based on the activities of the “knowledge path,” the subsequent structural analysis and the intervention design. Particular attention was paid to the contribution of the historical review, geometric laser scanner survey and mechanical characterization of the structural materials. All these steps result necessary to identify potential vulnerabilities and to enable the understanding of the effective structural models, also in view of proposing adequate retrofit solutions. A numerical model of the chapel was prepared and calibrated. Finally, the structural assessment for the vertical and seismic loading was performed.

Dario Donetti. Review of "Pliny the Elder and the Emergence of Renaissance Architecture" by Peter Fane-Saunders.

Dario Donetti. Review of "Pliny the Elder and the Emergence of Renaissance Architecture" by Peter Fane-Saunders.

Review: Pliny the Elder and the Emergence of Renaissance Architecture, by Peter Fane-Saunders

Peter Fane-Saunders Pliny the Elder and the Emergence of Renaissance Architecture New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016, 491 pp., 8 color and 75 b/w illus. $142 (cloth), ISBN 9781107079861 Although De architectura is celebrated as the only architectural treatise to have come down from antiquity, its author, Vitruvius, was not the most gifted of writers, and his text was challenging for Renaissance readers. Leon Battista Alberti famously criticized Vitruvius: “What he handed down was in any case not refined … his very text is evidence that he wrote neither Latin nor Greek, so that as far as we are concerned he might just as well not have written at all, rather than write something that we cannot understand.”1 In fact, Vitruvius was not the only ancient author to address architectural topics. Foremost among other ancient writers who discussed architecture was Pliny the Elder. As Peter Fane-Saunders reveals in his expansive study Pliny the Elder and the Emergence of Renaissance Architecture , originating from his doctoral dissertation, Pliny's Natural History was also an invaluable source to Italian Renaissance investigators, second only to De architectura written a century earlier. Although Pliny's writings have been long recognized as a key source for Renaissance artistic practice, the degree to which Pliny's writings permeated the architectural culture of the period remains surprisingly unexplored.2 Fane-Saunders redresses this shortfall by surveying the key significance of Pliny for Renaissance authors and practitioners. In his introduction and chapter 1, Fane-Saunders situates Pliny's work among classical authors, introduces his encyclopedic text, and considers its early reception. Pliny completed his Natural History in 77 AD, just two years before he perished during the eruption of Vesuvius. In thirty-seven books, Pliny attempted a thorough discussion of the wonders of the natural world, including those of the Mediterranean as well as the Near East and India. The text remained well regarded throughout the Middle …

Drawing on the Past: Palladio, His Precursors and Knowledge of Ancient Architecture c. 1550

The argument set out here provides a new understanding of the methods followed by the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508–80) for depicting the monuments of classical antiquity—in both his ...

The long after-life of Christopher Wren’s short-lived London plan of 1666

ABSTRACTImmediately after the 1666 Great Fire, Christopher Wren sought to persuade King Charles II to rebuild London according to the best principles of baroque urbanism, with wide straight streets, axial symmetry, monumental endpoints, and a waterfront with open quays. The plan was quickly rejected as impracticable and Wren’s creative energy went into the design of St Paul’s Cathedral and more than fifty parish churches. But his scheme was memorialized by his son and grandson as a scandal of lost opportunity, a noble vision ‘unhappily defeated by faction’. Widely reproduced by print-makers, it gained iconic status, influencing street improvement in eighteenth-century London, nineteenth-century public health reform, late-Victorian advocacy of municipal autonomy, and twentieth-century planning controversies including the Paternoster Square redevelopments of 1955 and 2000. The paper shows how archival research disproving the received narrative of Wren’s plan opened the way for different understandings both of the planning legacy of reconstruction after the Great Fire, and of his own accomplishments as a Renaissance architect working within a mediaeval street plan.

La Capilla mayor y la Sacristía de la Iglesia Conventual de la Merced de Baza

La capilla mayor y la sacristía de la iglesia de la Merced de Baza, obras notables de la arquitectura conventual del sudeste español, siguen la solución más habitual en las construcciones de cantería del siglo XVI en el norte del Reino de Granada, una síntesis entre lo moderno y lo antiguo, una simbiosis entre la arquitectura renacentista y los últimos coletazos del gótico. Estas edificaciones nos hablan de la importancia de la producción arquitectónica del quinientos en las altiplanicies granadinas y del destacado papel de Rodrigo de Gibaja, y otros canteros, a nivel andaluz.

Review: The Church of Saint-Eustache in the Early French Renaissance, by Anne-Marie Sankovitch

Anne-Marie Sankovitch The Church of Saint-Eustache in the Early French Renaissance Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015, 261 pp., 354 b/w illus. $129 (paper), ISBN 9782503555140 The posthumous publication of Anne-Marie Sankovitch's PhD dissertation (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1991) on the Parisian church of Saint-Eustache is a gift for those architectural historians interested in the complex panorama of early French Renaissance architecture and, more generally, in the architecture of late medieval and early modern Europe. Sankovitch's study is preceded by a series of short essays by Krista de Jonge, Jean Guillaume, Etienne Hamon, and Marvin Trachtenberg, the volume's editor, that help to contextualize the author's pioneering contributions within the abundant recent literature in the field.1 Sankovitch's original bibliography has been updated to include the most relevant recent publications. The book is beautifully illustrated with 354 photographs, the vast majority of which Sankovitch took herself. The care taken by the editor and publisher in arranging and scaling the photographs is exemplary: not only do readers have visual access to Saint-Eustache through an abundance of high-quality, full-page images, but also the grouping of scaled sets of architectural details (for instance, figs. 52–59) eloquently supports Sankovitch's compelling analysis of the building. The volume is organized into seven chapters that focus on the conception, design, and early construction phases of Saint-Eustache, from 1519 to approximately 1545. Chapter 1, “A Critical Historiography of Saint-Eustache,” provides an intellectual map to the …

From Structural Performance to Performative Structures: New Narratives in Footbridge Design

In most cases, bridges are an integral part of a grown, long-term development of infrastructure. While for the Renaissance architects and engineers bridges were part of the general infrastructure, urban bridges have become a natural continuation of the city with its various layers of meaning. Technological advancement and scientific thought during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries brought the concept of efficiency and the domination of fabrication processes into the design of structures; whereas in the past bridges were often considered as technical devices with a clearly expressed inner logic of form, today new forms of development for structures in footbridge design—in combination with modern materials—are resulting in greater effectivity and broader functionality. In order to shape the spaces on and around bridges, the load-bearing structures are often made visible above the deck, manipulating the spatial experience either directly or through a diagrammatic articulation of the structural behavior in the arrangement of the bridge’s components. Recently there has been an intentional shift away from common perceptions of bridge design through the manipulation and dissection of structural typologies, leading to new interpretations and multilayered narratives. The aesthetic conception of the user’s perception has been shifted away from the subtle reading of a familiar structural grammar toward a more direct influence on the user through the creation of clearly expressed structural figures. The structure itself is now not only more visible and actively involved in the spatial experience but it is also designed to suggest a greater form of immediacy through its increasingly performative character. This paper reflects the changing understanding of the role of structures in the design of bridges, and examines the ways in which the strategies for contemporary footbridges can be contextualized both historically and aesthetically.

Mathematics and the Islamic Architecture of Córdoba

In 10th-century Córdoba, mathematics—and particularly geometry—was applied to architectural design in new ways, constituting a “mathematical turn” of Islamic architecture. In the mosque of Córdoba and in the palaces of Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ, geometry was employed in the design of ground plans, elevations, decorative patterns, and even to measure the human view. While Roman architects like Vitruvius had used mathematics to place each element of a building in its appropriate relation to all other elements of a building, the architects at Córdoba employed geometry to create a spatial web in which all parts are equal to each other and part of a single, unified space. The architects of Córdoba thus pointed the way to new possibilities of designing architecture, possibilities which were to be tested further by architects of Gothic and Renaissance architecture, though to different ends.

Aportación a la obra del arquitecto Juan de Aranda Salazar: el proyecto de la torre parroquial de Luque (Córdoba)

Juan de Aranda Salazar (ca. 1605-1654) fue uno de los miembros más destacados y sobresalientes de la baezana familia de los Martínez de Aranda, conocida por su larga tradición en el arte de la cantería en época moderna. Este arquitecto afianzó el eslabón final de un largo periodo de desarrollo de la arquitectura renacentista en la ciudad de Jaén. En el presente trabajo revisaremos su intervención en la torre de la iglesia parroquial de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Luque (Córdoba), en base a unas referencias localizadas en las cuentas de fábrica de su archivo parroquial.