BRITISH MUSEUM

• The british
museum is is • The original museum had 4 principal
located in the wings arranged around an open, 2
bloomsbury acre (0.8-hectare), quadrangle-shaped
area of london. courtyard.
It was designed • No sooner had the british museum
by Sir Robert been completed in 1857 than a
Smirk. growing demand for storage space
• The dictated that a new copper-domed
construction reading room be built in the middle of
started in year the courtyard.
1823 • The east and west residences (to the
• Smirke designed the building in the Greek Revival style, which emulated classical greek architecture. left and right of the entrance) have a
• This style had become increasingly popular since the 1750s when Greece and its ancient sites were ‘rediscovered’ by more modest exterior.
western europeans. • They housed the Museum’s
employees, who originally lived on
EXTERIOR site.
• Greek features on the building include the columns and pediment at the south entrance. • In 1846 Robert Smirke was replaced
Dentilated cornice as the Museum's architect by his
Sculptiures in
pediment brother Sydney Smirke, whose major
Blind frieze addition was the Round Reading
Slender ionic Room 1854–1857; at 140 feet (43 m)
Tripartite architrave in diameter with a large dome on top
columns with
a base of it.
• The King’s Library was the first wing of
the Smirke design to be built and was
ENTABLATURE SOUTH ENTRANCE completed in 1827.
• Weston hall, White wing, duveen
• The greek revival façade facing Great Russell street has 44 columns in the ionic order which are 45 ft (14 m) high, gallery are some of the spaces
closely based on those of the temple of Athena Polias at Priene in Asia Minor. constructed earlier.
• The pediment over the main entrance is decorated by sculptures by Sir Richard Westmacott depicting the progress of • Other important architectural
civilisation, consisting of 15 allegorical figures, installed in 1852. developments include the round
• The building is topped with a flat roof, the pediment therefore being false, in the sense that its function is decorative reading room with its domed ceiling
rather than structural, its pinnacle creating a vertical axis that bisects the main entrance way. and the Norman Foster designed
• The projecting wings, like the skene or scenic backdrop in an ancient Greek theatre, add a dramatic sweep to the great court which opened in 2000.
façade, channelling the eye of the viewer to the main entrance.

MATERIALS USED (EXTERIOR)AND CONSTRUCTION METHOD

• The museum is faced with Portland stone, but the perimeter walls and other parts of the building were built using
Haytor Granite from Dartmoor in South Devon. Interior of
• The building was constructed using up-to-the-minute 1820s technology. Built on a concrete floor, the frame of the rooms inspired
building was made from Cast iron and filled in with London Stock brick. from greek era

INTERIORS
• In the design of the interior,which was overseen by Smirke’s brother, Sydney from 1845 onwards, British materials
were used throughout, the floor of the entrance hall—the Weston Hall—being paved with York stone, the staircase
balustrade and ornamental vases carved from Huddlestone stone and the sides of the Grand Staircase lined with red
Aberdeen granite. Reading room
• The vivid colours of the stones themselves created a luminous interior that was further adorned with colorful designs added by
based on those found on classical buildings, which by the 19TH century were known to be polychromatic. sydney smirk

MOHINI AGARWAL

NEO CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

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B.arch 3 Year Date
A.C.A, Agra 2/03/17
 HOLKHAM HALL,NORFLOK
• Holkham Hall is an 18th-century country
house located adjacent to the village of
Holkham, Norfolk, England.
• The house was constructed in the Palladian
style for Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester
by the architect William Kent ,aided by the
architect and aristocrat Lord Burlington.
• It consists of a main house surrounded by 4
wings, a design inspired by the Renaissance
architect Andrea Palladio, whom Kent greatly
admired.
EXTERIORS
• The severely Palladian south facade with its
Ionic portico is devoid of arms or motif.
• Not even a blind window is allowed to break
the void between the windows and roof-line,
while the lower windows are mere piercings
in the stark brickwork
• A slight projection, containing a Venetian
window surmounted by a single storey square
tower and capped roof.
• The principal, or South façade, is 344 feet
(104.9 m) in length (from each of the flanking
wings to the other), its 6-columned portico at
the piano nobile level.
• The few windows on the piano nobile, although symmetrically placed and balanced, appear lost in a sea of
brickwork; albeit these yellow bricks were cast as exact replicas of ancient Roman bricks expressly for Holkham.
Above the windows of the piano nobile, where on a true Palladian structure the windows of a mezzanine would
be, there is nothing. the reason for this is the double height of the state rooms on the piano nobile
• Each wing's external appearance is identical: three bays, each separated from the other by a narrow recess in the
elevation. Each bay is surmounted by an unadorned pediment. The composition of stone, recesses, varying
pediments and chimneys of the 4 blocks is almost reminiscent of the English Baroque style.
• Holkham Hall is built of Holkham gault brick of exceptional quality with slate roofs.
• A rusticated ground floor, a single main floor above the rustic, and four low wings or pavilions, one on each
corner, the garden front to the south having the addition of a central hexastyle Corinthian portico above the
ground floor.
• Rooms that were adequately lit by one window, had only one, as a second might have improved the external
appearance but could have made a room cold or draughty.
NEO CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE
• The great central block is flanked by 4 smaller
rectangular blocks/ wings at each corners and
is linked to the main house not by long
colonnades( as in Palladian architecture) but
by short two-storey wings of only one bay
• The flanking wings contain service and
secondary room
• The family wing to the south-west, guest wing
to the north-west, chapel wing to the south-
east,and kitchen wing to the north-east
• It has a large central block of 2 floors only,
containing on the piano nobile level a series of
symmetrically balanced state rooms situated
around 2 courtyards.
• No hint of these courtyards is given
externally,They are intended for lighting rather
than recreation or architectural value.
INTERIORS
• The principal entrance is through the Marble Hall.
• Although it’s called the Marble Hall, it is actually
constructed of pink Derbyshire alabaster.
• It has high coffered gilded ceiling and Ionic Roman
colonnades.
• The interior of the hall is opulently, but by the
standards of the day, simply decorated and furnished.
• Marble Hall,is modelled by Kent on a Roman basilica
• . The room is over 50 feet (15 m) high and is
dominated by the broad white marble flight of steps
leading to the surrounding gallery, or peristyle. The
fluted columns are thought to be replicas of those in
MARBLE HALL the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, also in Rome.
• Around the hall are statues in niches; these are
predominantly plaster copies of classical deities.
• Ornament is used with such restraint that it was
possible to decorate both private and state rooms in
the same style, without oppressing the former.
• This leads to the piano nobile, or the first floor, and
state rooms.
• The most impressive of these rooms is the Saloon,
which has walls lined with red velvet.
• Each of the major state rooms is symmetrical in its
layout and design; in some rooms, false doors are
necessary to fully achieve this balanced effect.
SALOON ROOM
MOHINI AGARWAL
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B.arch 3 Year Date
A.C.A, Agra 02/03/17