Notes HOA III - Renaissance

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History of Architecture III

Renaissance
Prepared by - Shruti Mutalikdesai

Despite the rise of cities as economic and political centers in the Gothic period and the
resultant flourishing of secular life in the growing cities, people’s essential concern was still that
of religion. Accordingly, the building of great urban cathedrals continued and provided the
arena of the most probing architectural experimentation.

The Middle Ages ended in a series of unfortunate concurrent disasters (famine, plague – black
death etc) About 40% of European population died.

Threat from the east was spreading of the Islamic Seljuk Turks, Constantinople was one of the
last places to fall. After the fall, many Greek scholars from Constantinople shifted to Italy. It was
in central Italy by 1400 AD that there was growing optimism in human potential and a renewed
respect for the intellectual and artistic achievements of Classical Greece and Rome. It was
encouraged in part by the arrival of the emigrating Greeks from the East, Italian scholars,
painters, sculptors, and architects.

What the Italian artists and architects endeavored was to reconcile the beauty of Classical art
with Christian thought, to create a new architecture and art that was both Christian and
Classical. As the Middle Ages faded, a new spirit was born, a rebirth of a classical humanism, a
renaissance.

Significant contribution during this period came from the following people
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 –1446)
Michelozzo di Bartolomeo (1396-1472)
Leon Battista Alberti( 1404-1472)
Donato Bramante (1444 –1514)
Andrea Palladio (1508 –1580)
Giacomo daVignola (1507 –1573)
Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475 – 1564)

Filippo Brunelleschi
His work relies on rationally ordered spaces. Notable architectural features include monolithic
columns, semicircular architrave and a stretched entabulature. He believed in working with
repetitive units (modules) to arrive at his spaces and elements. His notable works include the
dome at Santa Maria Della Fiore at Florence, Foundling Hospital at Florence, Church of San
Lorenzo and Church of Santo Spirito.

Santa Maria Della Fiore (Florence Cathedral)


This large cruciform Gothic church had been begun about 1296. On the basis of traditional
medieval building practices, the proposed dome vault seemed impossible to build. Yet,
Brunelleschi knew from his detailed examination of the ancient buildings in Rome especially the
Pantheon that such a span had been covered once and is possible to do so.

Foundling Hospital
This is an exemplary example of Brunelleschi’s system of working with modules. Here the height
of the columns is the same as the distance between the two columns, and this is the same as
the distance between the wall and the line of columns, thus volumetrically creating a cube.
This same measurement would then serve as the diameter for the semicircular arches. Each of
these arches, the column, the entabulature on top, the window atop and the triangular
pediment for the windows forms one module, which is the repeated to form the overall
elevation.

Foundling Hospital

Church of San Lorenzo


Here Brunelleschi uses square modules to organize the spaces. The central nave is a series of
four squares culminating in a square crossing. This square crossing is flanked by by three more
squares on the other three sides to form the cross arms and the end of the church. He uses
semicircular arches in the church and brings in the light using clerestory windows. The exterior of
the church is simple and plain, elements indicative of the spaces inside.
Church of San Lorenzo
Leon Batista Alberti
He was an Italian author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher,cryptographer and
general Renaissance humanist polymath. He worked in Rome after his studies in Florence where
he had many opportunities to see the monuments of antiquities as well as meet the artists who
were visiting them. Alberti studied the writings of the classical world like Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch
and Pliny the Elder. He considered Circle & Centralized plan generated from it, as highly
evocative religious symbols. Alberti & other Renaissance architects did not have open sites, but
had to build around or into existing Gothic basilican planned churches. His notable examples
include St Andrea at Montua, San Maria Novella and Palazzo Rucellai. His buildings tend to
have a simpler outer facade due to the context in which they were located, but with an
elaborate front. He relies on semicircular arches and vaults and classical elements for his
spaces.

St Andrea, Montua
San Maria Novella

Palazzo Rucellai
Andrea Palladio
Mostly worked in the region of Veneta (around Venice). Trained as a builder, used simple cubic
volumes & elemental forms of early renaissance. Most noted for his villas (built over 40 around
Venice). He used a symmetrical plan, creating porticos on multiple sides to get views from all
around. His villas were set amidst well designed large landscaped sites and sat on an elevated
portion to garner better views. They were also perched up on a high plinth, giving these villas a
grand appearance.

Villa Capra (Villa Rotunda)


St Peters Cathedral
Commissioned under Pope Julius II (1503). Rome was just a city with mammoth ruins of the
Paganic Period. The Early Christian Churches had been in use for 13 centuries ,were
dilapidated and in need of repair. That is the reason he decided to undertake a new project,
this new church was located on the Vatican Hill, close to the papal palace. It sas the site of
great pilgrimage of St. Peter ( had an existing church built during the period of Constantine).

Rome had major artists and architects who were jointly assigned the work onn this church. It
has undergone several additions under several architects. Michelangelo was assigned to paint
ceiling frescos of the Vatican Chapel (Sistine Chapel), Raphael to paint the frescos in papal
apartment, Bramante to design and build new St. Peters. Eventually Michelangelo added to
the front of the church and the dome. Moderno added the elaborated front facade and later
on Bernini added the colonnade forming the piazza. Main aim was to establish the power of
church, show humanist values and overshadow the buildings of the paganic period.

Evolution of St. Peter’s Cathedral

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