Department of the History of Art and Architecture

University of Pittsburgh

HAA1407 (CRN 18918) Frick Fine Arts room 203

Syllabus for

ARCHITECTURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Professor Franklin Toker

COURSE MEETINGS

#1 Tu Aug. 30: Political and social context for architecture in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

#2 Th Sep. 1: Contrasts in Eighteenth-Century Architecture, and a question of taste (Goethe's enthusiasm for Gothic and classic art)

How does architecture fit in the social, political, and physical context of the eighteenth century? Discussion of five factors to which architecture responds; similarities and differences in two Neoclassical works.

Among their various differences, Latrobe and Schinkel hold to two different concepts of what architecture is supposed to do for its beholders. Schinkel's architecture was essentially abstract, devoid of any desire to uplift or influence viewers/visitors in any specific way, whereas Latrobe held to the concept of architecture parlante: "speaking architecture," which sets out a specific formulation of how his buildings were to be perceived and how they were to influence the viewer in a particular way. Latrobe's Supreme Court is not just a setting for justice, but its literal embodiment. Schinkel's Altes Museum, on the other hand, is a setting for the efficient viewing of painting and sculpture, nothing more.

Introduction to the first of our "key works." What follows is a good approximation of the buildings, cities, books, and projects we will be studying in detail this term. There will inevitably be substitutions, however: the instructor will cite these in class. Students will be expected to have a detailed visual recall of these buildings, cities, and landscapes for the three tests: the great majority are illustrated in Middleton and Watkin's Architecture of the Nineteenth Century (indicated as MW, with page number; ff means "and following").

--Benjamin Henry Latrobe's Supreme Court, basement of the Capitol, Washington, 1806 and 1817.

--Karl Friedrich von Schinkel: Altes Museum, Berlin, 1823-30

#3 Tu Sep. 6 Heritage from the Baroque; how Neoclassicism differs. Where does Neoclassicism come from, since (superficially) the earlier Renaissance and Baroque movements seem also to have drawn from the same Antique sources? Special interest of the Baroque in "manipulated geometry," dynamics, theatricality, and an architectural setting for absolutism.

Distinguishing four epochs on the motif of the round peripteral temple: Roman, Renaissance, late-Baroque, and Neoclassical "takes" on this standard type.

--Replanned streets of Rome, mostly Domenico Fontana, 1580s

--Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680): St. Peter's Square (piazza S. Pietro), Rome, begun 1656

--Bernini: S. Andrea al Quirinale, Rome, 1660's

--Francesco Borromini (1599-1667): S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 1638-66

--Louis Le Vau, Charles Le Brun, and Claude Perrault: East facade of the Louvre, Paris, ca. 1667 (MW10 ff)

--Versailles Palace, garden facade, 1669-85 begun by Louis le Vau (1612-70), completed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646-1708); park, 1661-68 by Andre le Nôtre, Hall of Mirrors, c. 1680 by Hardouin-Mansart and le Brun; whole complex 1660s--18th c.

--Bramante: Tempietto, S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome, about 1502--08

--Nicholas Hawksmoor, mausoleum at Castle Howard, Yorkshire, about 1720

--Claude-Nicholas Ledoux: Barrière de Monceau, Paris, 1784ff

#4 and #5 Th Sep. 8/Tu Sep. 13: The Rococo palace

A look at palace architecture in the first third of the 18th century shows a predictable move from the heaviness of Baroque to the lighter French-German Rococo taste. But we are introduced also to a theme that will hold sway for over two centuries: the "burden of history," beginning with J. B. Fischer von Erlach's remarkable compendium of architecture through the ages. Significance of Fischer von Erlach's pluralism in choice of style models.

--Johann Baltasar Neumann: Residenz at Würzburg, built 1722--1744, interiors completed 1744--1750s; Kaisersaal and grand staircase painted by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo 1750-53; last interiors by Germain Boffrand.

--Filippo Juvarra: Stupinigi, near Turin, 1729-33

--Matthäus Daniel Pöppelman: Zwinger Pavilion, Dresden, 1705-22

--Sir John Vanbrugh: Castle Howard, England, 1699

--Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor: Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England, 1705--25

--François de Cuvilliés, Sr., Amalienburg Pavilion, Nymphenburg Park, near Munich, 1734--39

#6 and #7 Th Sep. 15 and Tu Sep. 20 : The Rococo Church

Readings: Summerson, pp. 39--73

As in palace architecture, the Rococo church, particularly in the hands of Johann Balthasar Neumann (1687-1753) and his German contemporaries, has its starting point as a Late Baroque German development out of Borromini's style. Intersecting ovoid spaces and interpenetrating vaults create a sense of weightlessness and of lively movement. White walls, the extensive glass surfaces of large windows, and the illusionistic decoration of walls and ceiling produce an impression of openness and lightness. The delicate web of thin mouldings and crisp, curvilinear patterns, the stucco figures perched casually on architectural members or floating above them, and the rhythmic designs of the paintings give decorative liveliness to the curving surfaces. (The interior design at Vierzehnheiligen was mainly by Johann Jakob Michael Küchel, after Neumann's death.)

--Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723): St. Paul's Cathedral, London, 1675-1710 (Greek cross plan, 1672; "Great Model" design 1673; Warrant design 1675; redesigned 1675 as is).

--Nicholas Hawksmoor: three London churches for the Church Commission of 1711: St. Alfege, Greenwich; St. George, Bloomsbury; St. Mary Woolnoth, all 1710s and 20s.

--Hawksmoor: Christ Church, Spitalfields, London, 1714--1729

--James Gibbs: St. Martin's in the Fields, London, 1721--26

--Jules Hardouin Mansart and Robert de Cotte, Royal Chapel, Versailles, 1698-1710 (MW14ff. and color plate opp. p. 36)

--Egid Quirin and Cosmas Damian Asam: Sankt Johannes Nepomuk (the Asamkirche), Munich, 1733-46

--Balthasar Neumann, Vierzehnheiligen (country pilgrimage church) Germany, designed 1738; redesigned by Neumann 1744, completed 1772

--Dominikus Zimmerman: die Wies pilgrimage church, nr. Munich, 1745-1754

#8 Th Sep. 22: course review

Exchange e-mails or telephone numbers with others in class if you want to work with study partners.

#9 Tu Sep. 27: first test: Late Baroque and Rococo architecture

#10 and #11 Th Sep. 29 and Th Oct. 6 (no class Tu Oct. 4): Neoclassicism's Double Inheritance: Palladio and Antiquity

Readings: Summerson pp. 14--15; 59; 75--84; and chapter three of Rosenblum's Transformations on "Aspects of Neoclassic Architecture," pp. 107--145 (on reserve).

Neoclassicism begins in architecture much earlier than in painting. It was first announced not by a building but by a book, or rather by two books. The Abbé de Cordemoy's "New treatise on architecture" (1706; details below) begins the century with a statement of the superiority of Greek over Roman architecture. A decade later, Colen Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus (1715) reaffirmed the authority of the 16th-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, and of Antiquity, with a celebrated attack on the Italian Baroque master Francesco Borromini:

"[Borromini had] endeavoured to debauch Mankind with his odd and chimerical Beauties, where the Parts are without Proportion, Solids without their true Bearing, Heaps of Materials without Strength, excessive Ornaments without Grace, and the Whole without Symmetry."

What does Campbell see as the antidote to the licentiousness of the Baroque? "[T]o judge truly of the Merit of Things by the Strength of Reason." (from: John Summerson, Architecture of the Eighteenth Century, p. 10.)

It is an oddity (as Summerson p. 80 points out) that the earliest visible examples of Neoclassicism in architecture came from England and Scotland, in the corner of Europe farthest removed from Rome. Arbitrary selection of motifs by Lord Burlington, sometimes from Palladio, sometimes overruling Palladio in favor of Vitruvius.

--Andrea Palladio: Villa Capra (Villa Rotonda), nr. Vicenza, c. 1567

--Inigo Jones (1573-1652): Queen's House, Greenwich, begun 1616.

--Jones: Banqueting House, Whitehall, London, 1619-22; projected expansion, 1638.

--Colen Campbell: Vitruvius Britannicus or The British Architect (1715--25)

--Campbell: Andrea Palladio's Five Orders of Architecture (1728-29)

--Campbell: Mereworth Castle, Kent, 1723

--The Earl of Burlington (Richard Boyle) and William Kent: Chiswick House, Middlesex, near London, begun 1725; Kent's gardens begun 1836

--Lord Burlington, Assembly Rooms ("Egyptian Hall"), York, 1730 (MW86ff)

(Tu Oct. 4: no class)

#12 Tu Oct. 11: Archaeology and Rationalism The rationalist school, so important to the 18th century and beyond, makes its appearance right at the start of the century, in the Abbé de Cordemoy's "New treatise on architecture" of 1706, in which Cordemoy attacked the Renaissance mode of turning antique structural elements into purely decorative motifs. This theme was stated even more boldly at mid-century by the Abbé Laugier's "Essay on Architecture" of 1753, in which Laugier articulated architecture in purely structuralist and rationalist terms.

Impact of archaeological knowledge on contemporary architectural development. Change of taste marked by the 1732 competition for the facade of St.-Sulpice. Soufflot works out a fully rational building in the Panthéon--or was it? Reading: MW7--34; 104--176.

--Abbé Jean-Louis de Cordemoy: Nouveau Traité de toute l'Architecture, 1706

--Re-evaluation of Paestum, Italy

--Excavations at Pompeii, 1748ff

--Juste-Aurèle Meissioner: project for the facade of St. Sulpice, Paris, c. 1729

--J.-N. Servandoni: facade of St. Sulpice, Paris, design 1732, completed 1777 (MW104, 105)

--Abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier: Essai sur l'architecture, 1753; 1755 edition carried the frontispiece showing the "natural" state of architecture (MW20)

--Jacques-Germain Soufflot: Panthéon, Paris (ex-church of Ste.-Genevieve), 1755-92 (MW22ff and color plate opp. p. 37)

--Carl Gotthard Langhans, Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 1789-94

(Th Oct 13: no class)

#13 and #14 Tu/Th Oct. 18 and 20: Archaeology and Romanticism Kenneth Clark (The Romantic Rebellion) points out that Winckelmann's initial defense of Greek art (1755), so important to Neoclassicism in painting, was followed just one year later by Burke's inquiry into the pleasure we take in the Sublime (basically our obsession with fear and destruction), which was the foundation-stone of the Romantic movement. The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 as another monument to irrationalism and emotion over Neoclassical reason and equilibrium.

Since buildings are generally designed to stand up, and not self-destruct, there can be no precise architectural equivalent to Romanticism in painting and sculpture. The closest we get in a literal sense to Romanticism in architecture are some buildings errected as "instant ruins" and the engravings of Piranesi, both in his views of the decaying monuments of Antiquity and in his terrifying "Carceri" engravings of imaginary but terrifying prisons. Reading: MW35--64; 65--103; Summerson, pp. 84--149

--William Kent, Temple of Ancient Virtue, Stowe, 1734 (MW40)

--Kent, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, 1734 (MW81, 88, color plate opp. p. 85)

--Henry Hoare and Hentry Flitcroft, gardens at Stourhead Park 1743-56 (MW40ff and color plate opp. p. 49); Flitcroft's Temple of the Sun, 1765 (MW44)

--Racine de Monville (attr. to François Barbier): Column-house and other exotic designs at Le Desert de Retz, 1774 (MW183)

--Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Antichità Romane, 1756 (MW80)

--Piranesi: Carceri (prisons) series, 1750s

--Robert Adam: The Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalato, 1764

--Adam: No. 20 Portman Square (Home House), London, 1775

--Adam: Derby House, London, 1773

--Adam: Syon House, nr. London, 1761-76

--Adam: Osterley Park House, Middlesex, England, begun 1761

#15 and #16 Tu/Th Oct. 25 and 27: Romanticism in architecture: Europe

The architects of the era of the French Revolution, especially the "visionary" designers Boullée and Ledoux are superficially rationalists, but they carry their works to such extremes of scale and severity that their final effect is romantic, too. Importance of architecture parlante ("speaking architecture") to the reformist architectural rhetoric of the late 18th century. Reading: MW 177-207

--Etienne-Louis Boullée, project for a large church (Metropolitan Cathedral) and National Library, 1781, 1784 (MW179; MW180)

--Boullée, Projected cenotaph for Newton, 1784 (MW182)

--Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806): industrial city for the Royal Saltworks at Chaux (the Salines de Chaux), Arc-et-Senans, France, 1775-79, partially built, partially developed later into an ideal city plan (MW193 and color plate opposite, 194)

--Claude-Nicholas Ledoux: new taxation wall for Paris, 1784ff., including Barrière de Monceau, Barrière de la Villette, Barrière d'Enfer etc. (MW189--192)

--Ledoux: Projected Prison for Aix-en-Provence, c. 1780

--George Dance: Newgate Prison, London, 1770s (MW198)

--Ledoux: house for the Loue River superintendent, c. 1785 (project; published 1804 and 1847)

#17 and #18 Tu/Th Nov. 1 and 3: Romanticism in Architecture: the New World

A trio of Americans, Latrobe, Jefferson, and Mills, make this "romantic classicism" the national style of the new American republic. Reading: MW318--322

--Charles Bulfinch, State House, Boston, 1793--1800 (MW315)

--Benjamin Henry Latrobe: Bank of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1798

--Latrobe: Supreme Court, basement of the Capitol, Washington, c.1817 (MW316)

--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826): Monticello, Charlottesville, VA, 1770-84 and 1796-1806

--Jefferson: Virginia State Capitol, Richmond, 1785-89

--Jefferson: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1814; 1817--1826 (MW315, 319)

--Robert Mills: Monument to George Washington, Washington DC, 1836

--Romanticism in architecture today: James Ingo Freed, Holocaust Museum, Washington, c. 1992.

#19 Tu Nov. 8: second test: archaeology, rationalism, and romanticism in eighteenth-century architecture

#20, #21, and #22 Th Nov. 10 and Tu/Th Nov. 15 and 17: The City Shaped

Readings for this week: Summerson, pp. 151--169; Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, pp. 47--73

The earlier 18th century applied an essentially Baroque philosophy to the shaping of cities: the building was the urban highpoint, and the streets were laid out to give a proper theatrical setting to the main monuments. The later 18th century took instead a holistic view to city life. So intent on reforming society, some of these planners sought to shape cities to improve hygiene (Savannah, Edinburgh) or, minimally, to lay out cities for the promotion of maximum social interaction for their inhabitants (Karlsruhe, Paris, Nancy, Bath). John Nash introduces an entirely pragmatic note in his minimal redesign of Regency London.

--Francesco de Sanctis: Spanish Steps, Rome, 1723-25

--Nicola Salvi: Trevi Fountain, Rome, 1732-62

--Friedrich von Batzendorf and others: Karlsruhe plan, Germany, 1715ff, completed by Friedrich Weinbrenner with the Marktplaz, 1797

--Place Louis XV (now Place de la Concorde), Paris, 1748--1775; Ange-Jacques Gabriel

--Pierre Patte: design for the places royales for Louis XV in Paris, 1765

--Emmanuel Héré de Corny and others, places at Nancy, France, mid to late 18th c

--John Wood the Elder and Younger: Circus (1764) and Royal Crescent (1767), Bath, England

--James Craig: new town, Edinburgh, 1766

--Pierre L'Enfant, plan of Washington, 1783

--John Nash: Regent Street, London, 1815 (MW60)

--Nash: Chester and Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, 1827 (MW61, 63)

#23 Tu Nov. 22: Glimpses of functionalism The functionalist tradition in architecture is yet another child of the 18th century. In one form, it means the application of new technology to architecture, particularly iron and glass. In another form, it presents architecture as problem-solving rather than artistic creation. Summerson's Chapter Five surveys new solutions to the "problems" of the theater, library, hospital, mental asylum, prison, museum, and commercial building.

--Abraham Darby III, Iron Bridge over the Severn River, Coalbrookdale, England, 1779

--applications of cast-iron to architecture

--Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, England, designed 1829, completed 1864

--Bernard Poyet, Project for a hospital for La Roquette, near Paris, 1787

--J.-N-.L. Durand, Recueil et Parallèle des Edifices and Précis des Leçons, Paris, 1802ff (MW30)

--Sir John Soane: Bank of England, London, 1788ff (MW202ff.)

--Soane, the architect's house, 13 Licoln's Inn Fields, 1812 (MW205ff; color plate opp. p. 197)

--Soane, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich suburb of London, 1812

Th Nov. 24: no class

#24 and #25 Tu/Th Nov. 29 and Dec. 1: From Gothick back to Gothic

The most unpredictable element in 18th-century architecture was the return to Gothic, which had been banished by the Renaissance centuries before. Yet Gothick, as used by Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, was particularly valued by the Romantics for its "sublime" associations: ruins and other reminders of past grandeur and of the melancholy passage of time; manifestations of the forces of nature and man's impotence before them; and expressions of extreme emotion, reflecting the uncontrolled forces in man's nature, from passion to insanity.

Soon all historical styles, including those of China and Moghul India, were thought to be natural and desirable as antidotes to Rococo artificiality and the ugliness of the industrial revolution. Intimately tied to this was the cult of the Picturesque in landscape architecture. Reading: MW324--330.

--Fischer von Erlach's history of architecture: Entwurf einer historischen Architektur, 1721 (MW67ff)

--Horace Walpole: Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, England, nr. London, 1749--1777 (MW49)

--Sir William Chambers: Pagoda, Kew Gardens, London, 1757--63

--Richard Mique: Hameau (fake village and dairy) for Marie Antoinette at Versailles, 1778-82 (MW184)

--James Wyatt, Fonthill Abbey, 1796--1807 (MW326)

--Sir Charles Barry & A.W.N. Pugin: Houses of Parliament, London, designed 1836, built 1840--1860s

--John Nash: Blaise Hamlet, Bristol, 1811 (MW62)

--Nash: Royal Pavilion, Brighton, England, 1815--18

--Henry Hoare and Hentry Flitcroft, gardens at Stourhead Park 1743-56 (MW40ff and color plate opp. p. 49)

--Lancelot "Capability" Brown: gardens of Blenheim Palace, 1764

--Humphrey Repton: gardens at Burley House, 1796

#26 and #27 Tu/Th Dec. 6 and 8: From Antiquity back to Antiquity: the Greek Revival of the Nineteenth Century Though stylistically linked to the Neoclassical mode that had its first episodic appearance in the first third of the eighteenth century, the Greek Revival at the very end of the century and through the first half of the nineteenth century was marked by huge scale, an almost icy precision, and (often, but not always) greater concern for archaeological accuracy. Projects commissioned by Napoleon, or contemporary with him, began this "second wave" of Neoclassicism, but German examples tended to move from functionalism (Schinkel, most times) to an increasing romanticism (von Klenze, generally). Reading: MW 211-215; 271--280.

--Alexandre-Pierre Vignon: Church of the Madeleine, Paris; projected 1761, completed 1807-45 (MW214)

--J-F-T. Chalgrin, Arc de Triomphe for Napoleon, Paris, 1806--36 (MW213)

--Charles Percier and P.-F.-L. Fontaine: Arc du Carrousel, Paris, 1806-08

--Karl Friedrich von Schinkel: Altes Museum, Berlin, 1824-30 (MW278)

--Schinkel: Bauakademie (School of Architecture), Berlin, 1831--36 (MW278 and color plate following)

--Schinkel: project for a palace on the Acropolis, Athens, for Prince Otto of Bavaria, 1834 (MW279 and color plate following p. 278)

--Leo von Klenze, Walhalla, nr. Regensburg, 1830--42 (MW102, 103, color plate opp p. 97)

--von Klenze, Propylaeon, Munich, 1846-60 (MW95)

Third test: Urbanism, functionalism, Gothic Revival and Greek Revival; Wednesday December 14, 8:00 to 9:50 a.m., regular classroom. Corrected tests and term grades will be available on Wednesday Dec. 21 in room 104.

COURSE INFORMATION

Theme of HAA1407 The discovery of Pompeii, the beginnings of industrial architecture, fierce rationalism in the architectural theory of neoclassicism, far-out romanticism in "instant ruins" that were built in England and France, the luxuriousness of French and German Rococo, the towering strength of buildings by Ledoux and Boullee--what era promised more (and delivered much) in its buildings than the eighteenth century? In this age of Revolution, the role of the architect and the function of architecture in public life were similarly redefined. This course traces these shifts, eruptions, conflicts and developments in architecture and urbanism through the "long" 18th-century (1700-1825), with special emphasis on its unruliness, and on the interchange of architecture, society, and the kindred arts.

Readings The class text is Robin Middleton and David Watkin's Architecture of the Nineteenth Century, a paperback reissue of their earlier Neoclassical and 19th Century Architecture. The great majority of "key works" are illustrated there, plus the text (we will concentrate on the first half) is the best available for the era. The book is on sale at the Book Center and available on the reserve shelf in Frick Library.

Below you will find a list of reserve books in Frick Fine Arts Library, downstairs. They have been selected for their important background material; the difference between a B and an A on your tests will be what you know from these additional readings. One book is an especially valuable adjunct to the Middleton and Watkin book, namely John Summerson's short but important Architecture of the Eighteenth Century.

Key works and the class website There are roughly 100 "key works" on this syllabus. These are buildings you will need to know thoroughly as the "vocabulary" of this course; for the most part they are illustrated in Middleton and Watkin, with certain others in Summerson. The website for this course is under "Eighteenth-Century Architecture" at www.pitt.edu/~tokerism; there you will find a complete copy of this syllabus. The instructor reserves the right to add more or fewer key works; such buildings will always be illustrated in classroom lectures, but not necessarily in the backup texts.

Grading in the course is based 20, 20, and 20% on the section tests on September 27, November 8, and December 14; 20% on a short class presentation on Eighteenth-century architecture or urbanism; and 20% on attendance and participation. The tests will combine analytical questions and factual questions based on the readings and lectures. Your term grade will reflect motivation, not just data-processing, so excellent effort and attendance can offset a weak grade in one of the tests.

Meeting me I invite you to discuss your progress in this course (or anything else) with me any Tuesday afternoon in my office on the balcony of the Frick Library reading room, between 4 and 6 p.m., or at other times by calling me at 412.648.2419 or emailing me at ftoker@pitt.edu. Though it might be a bit early, I'd be happy to go to lunch with students when class gets out, around 11 a.m.

Students with disabilities If you have a disability for which you are requesting accommodation, please contact me and the Office of Disability Resources and Services, 216 William Pitt Union 412.624.7890.

Cheating and plagiarism This course adheres to the following statement of the Senate Committee on Tenure and Academic Freedom: "The integrity of the academic process requires fair and impartial evaluation on the part of faculty and honest academic conduct on the part of students. To this end, students are expected to conduct themselves at a high level of responsibility in the fulfillment of the course of their study. It is the corresponding responsibility of faculty to make clear to students those standards by which students will be evaluated, and the resources permissible for use by students during the course of their study and evaluation. The educational process is perceived as a joint faculty-student enterprise which will perforce involve professional judgment by faculty and may involve--without penalty--reasoned exception by students to the data or views offered by faculty." In simple terms, you'll get an F for the class, and a recommendation for disciplinary action by the Dean of Students.

Attendance and participation Regular attendance at the lectures is required, and will be taken regularly. There are two reasons for this: students who attend regularly do better than students who do not, and I am a more lively professor if there is good attendance and participation in class. The 20% of your term grade will not be assigned specifically to how many classes you miss, so please do not e-mail me if you're away for one or two classes. (If you miss many, though, you should pass in University-approved documentation.) But I'll keep the attendance sheets that I pass around, or call out, and in December I'll assign from 0 to 20%, based on your attendance and participation. Regular attendance and participation will certainly get you a full 20%.

By participation I mean questions, observations, and responses you give in class. If some day in class you've made a particularly keen question, observation, or response to a question of mine, please e-mail me later that day (ftoker@pitt.edu) with a reminder--at least till I get to recognize everyone in class.

The building presentation: Because our class size permits and encourages it, everyone can present in class a building (or city plan, landscaping, project, publication, or architect) of the period 1700--1825. The topic will be of your choosing, but must be approved by the instructor.rather than just write a building report. The talk should be 5 to 10 minutes in length, at the beginning of class, and not more than two per class. There can be exceptions, but in the main I'd like to see you speak on key works (the bolded ones), and you should speak on the day, or at least the week, on which that building (I call it that, but it could also be a city, landscape, or project, or broader topic) is slated to be discussed.

Everyone has to have a topic and date settled by Thursday September 29.

Format: four basic questions: 1) description of the building (or other); 2) history of how it came about; 3) analysis of how it works, what decisions the architect took, where it fits in its context; 4) critique of how successful or unsuccessful the building is.

Logistics: you may want to bring in your laptop for a PowerPoint presentation, in which case you can link it to the digital projector of not--we can also just follow the building on your laptop. Alternately, discuss it with me: I probably have some scans already, and you can add more. Once you tell me the order you want, I'll run the scans for you.

Draft: by all means give me an outline, or full text, of your presentation in my office (Tuesdays 4--6 pm), or by telephone, or hardcopy, or e-mail about a week beforehand, and I'll respond quickly with some praise or advice.

Best wishes for a great term!

--Frank Toker

Political and social context for architecture in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

A short investigation shows the exceptional richness in the cultural background to the architecture of the eighteenth century (taken here as the years 1700--1825). In the visual arts, notable were the French Rococo painters Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. In art history, the re-evaluation of Greek art begins with Johann Joachim Winckelmann's On the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture (1755) and his History of Ancient Art (1764). In history painting and romanticism, the achievements of Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Joseph Wright of Derby, William Blake, and Francisco Goya. In Neoclassical painting, Jacques-Louis David.

In music, Handel's Water Music and Messiah (1717 and 1741), Bach's St. Matthew Passion (1729), Mozart's Marriage of Figaro (1786), and, in 1824, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, around 1830, introduces an entirely different mood of romanticism.

In literature, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), Richardson's Pamela (first true novel), and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726).

In historical writing, Edmund Burke's Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), J.W. von Goethe's "On German Architecture" (1772), and Edward Gibbons's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776).

In scientific and philosophical writing: 1751 Denis Diderot begins to publish his Encyclopedia; 1771 Encyclopaedia Britannica first published; 1781 Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason; 1798 T.R. Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population (idea that overpopulation regulates itself by famine and disease); 1817 Hegel's Encylcopedia of the Philosophical Sciences.

Some military landmarks of the era were: 1704 Marlborough wins battle of Blenheim for England; 1759 Wolfe victorious at Quebec; 1783 England defeated at Yorktown; and 1815 final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

Some of the main political landmarks were: 1715 Louis XIV dies; 1762 publication of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Social Contract; 1764 Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary; 1787/88 US constitution adopted; 1789 French Revolution begins; 1790 Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France; 1804 Coronation of Napoleon.

Certain of the scientific landmarks were: 1704 Sir Isaac Newton's Optics defends emission theory of light; 1742 Anders Celsius's centigrade thermometer; 1760 Botanical Garden opens at Kew; 1768 James Cook circumnavigates the globe (to 1771); 1752 Benjamin Franklin's lightning rod; 1753 Linnaeus's On Species of Plants; 1777 Lavoisier's analysis of air; 1796 Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccine; 1800 Alessandro Volta's electricity from a cell.

Outstanding among many technological achievements were: 1760 Josiah Wedgwood's pottery works; 1765 Hargreaves's spinning jenny; 1779 Abraham Darby's Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale, Shropshire; 1775 James Watts perfects steam engine; 1783 Montgolfier brothers' ascent by hot-air balloon; 1789 Edmund Cartwright's steam-driven looms; 1800 Eli Whitney's musket from interchangeable parts; 1803 Fulton's steamboat; 1810 Francois Appert's canned food; and the most dramatic of all, 1814 George Stephenson's railroad locomotive.

A question of taste: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's enthusiasm for Gothic and classic art.

In his Italian Journey (1786/87 the journey; 1816 rewritten for publication as a book), Goethe had only contempt for the Gothic basilica of S. Francesco in Assisi in his ecstacy at finding the Roman Temple of Minerva in the same town. (Today we regard the first as glorious; the second as commonplace.) As Goethe wrote:

"I left Perugia on a glorious morning and felt the bliss of being once more alone. The situation of the town is beautiful and the view of the lake charming. I shall remember them both. At first the road went downhill, then it ran along a lovely valley, flanked on either side by distant hills, until, finally, Assisi came into view.

"From reading Palladio and Volkmann, I knew there was a Temple of Minerva here, built during the reign of Augustus and still perfectly preserved. When we got near Madonna degli Angeli, I left my vetturino and let him go on to Foligno. I was longing to take a walk by myself in this silent world, and climbed the road to Assisi on foot with a high wind blowing against me. I turned away in distaste from the enormous substructure of the two churches on my left, which are built one on top of the other like a Babylonian tower, and are the resting place of St. Francis. I was afraid that the people who gathered there would be of the stamp as my captin. I asked a handsome boy the way to the Maria della Minerva, and he accompanied me up into the town, which is built on the side of a hill. At last we arrived in the Old Town and--lo and behold!--there it stood, the first complete classical monument I have seen. A modest temple, just right for such a small town, yet so perfect in design that it would be an ornament anywhere.

". . . One could never tire of looking at the facade and admiring the logical procedure of the architect. The order is Corinthian and the space between the columns about two modules. . . . I cannot describe the sensations which this work aroused in me, but I know they are going to bear fruit for ever."

--(Goethe, Italian Journey, trans. W. H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer, in J. W. von Goethe, Selected Works [New York, 2000], pp. 493--494).

Difference of visibility and legibility: the 6th c. BC temples at Paestum, in southern Italy, had never disappeared, yet few travelers were interested in them before the 18th century.

And a question of utility: different architects "used" the archaeological past differently. Rationalists like Schinkel used antiquity in defense of their severe, modular architecture, as in the Berlin Schauspielhaus and Altes Museum; Robert Adam took instead the decorative schemes of antiquity for his main emphasis at Osterley Park House. Horace Walpole used the rediscovery of antiquity as a defense of pluralism for his Gothic villa at Strawberry Hill.

RESERVE BOOKS FOR HAA1407:

Craske, Matthew: Art in Europe, 1700-1830 : a history of the visual arts in an era of unprecedented urban economic growth (New York: 1997).

Eisenman, Stephen, ed., Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History (London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002).

Eitner, Lorenz: Neoclassicism and Romanticism, 1750-1800 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1970).

Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Jason Geiger, eds., Art in Theory: 1648-1815 (Oxford, 2000).

Held, Julius S., and Donald Posner: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Art (New York, 1972).

Hitchcock, Henry Russell: Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Jones, Stephen, The Eighteenth Century (London and New York, 1985).

Levey, Michael: Rococo to revolution: major trends in eighteenth-century painting (New York: 1977).

Middleton, Robin and David Watkin: Neoclassical and 19th Century Architecture (New York, 1980), republished in paperback as Architecture of the Nineteenth Century (Milan, 2003).

Minor, Vernon Hyde: Baroque & Rococo: art & culture (New York: 1999).

Rosenblum, Robert: Transformations in late eighteenth century art (Princeton, N.J., 1967).

Rykwert, Joseph: The first moderns: the architects of the eighteenth century (Cambridge, Mass.: 1980).

Summerson, John: Architecture of the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1986)

Summerson, John: Architecture in Britain, 1530--1830

Zukowsky, John, ed., Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 1781-1841, The Drama of Architecture (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1994).