MODULE I

ANTIQUITY

There is little information or evidence about major architectural theory in antiquity,

until the 1st century BCE, with the work of Vitruvius. This does not mean, however, that such
works did not exist. Many works never survived antiquity.

MARCUS VITRUVIUS POLLIO (Born in 83-73 BC):

 Vitruvius was a Great Roman writer, architect, and engineer active in the 1st century
BCE. He was also a military engineer, fought wars for Emperor Augustus.
 He was the most prominent architectural theorist in the Roman Empire.
 Wrote De Architectura (The Ten Books of Architecture), a treatise written
in Latin and Greek on architecture, dedicated to the emperor Augustus. Probably
written between 27 and 23 BCE, Sole surviving treatise on ancient architectural
theory & practice.
 De Architectura, the treatise is divided into ten volumes or "books"; it covers almost
every aspect of Roman architecture, from town planning, materials, decorations,
temples, water supplies, etc. It rigorously defines the classical orders of architecture.
 Vitruvius proposes the three fundamental criteria that Architecture must
obey: firmitas, utilitas and venustas. It was translated in English as firmness,
commodity and delight (meaning structural adequacy, functional adequacy, and
beauty) in the 17th century by Sir Henry Wotton.
 Vitruvius state 6 principles of architecture -
1. Order – Proportion
2. Arrangement – Proper location of components
3. Eurhythmy – Pleasing sizes of components
4. Symmetry – Arrangement of parts with respect to a selected standard.
5. Propriety – Use of approved Principles
6. Economy – Proper management of site & materials.
 Vitruvius was a theorist rather than a practitioner, designed only one building –
Basilica at Fano.
 Vitruvius made a statement ‘Architect must be sound in theory as well as practice’.
 Vitruvius was the earliest to classify 3 classical orders into Doric, Ionic & Corinthian
order.
 Titles of the 10 volumes of De Architectura:
1. Vol. I Architecture in general.
2. Vol. II Building material.
3. Vol. III Construction of temples.
4. Vol. IV The orders of architecture.
5. Vol. V Public buildings.
6. Vol. VI Private Buildings in Town & Country.
7. Vol. VII Ornamentation of buildings.
8. Vol. VIII Water aqueducts.
9. Vol. IX Construction of water clocks.
10. Vol. X Buildings of various machines.
 The rediscovery of Vitruvius' work had a profound influence on architects of the
Renaissance.
 Renaissance architects, such as Niccoli, Brunelleschi and Leon Battista Alberti, found
in "De Architectura" their rationale for raising their branch of knowledge to a
scientific discipline.
 Vitruvius lives during Roman period, but people came to know who Vitruvius was
only during Renaissance period because of invention of Printing.
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 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI (1404 – 72):

 He was a humanist, a brilliant theorist, a classical scholar, historian, scientist,
mathematician & as a writer left an important body of treatises, essays, plays, poems
& letters before he turned to architecture.
 Alberti born in Genoa in 1404 in a noble Florentine family & was educated at the
university of Padua.
 Alberti is called the father of modern architectural theory.
 He studied the ruins of ancient Rome, the influence of which may be seen in his
buildings.
 Alberti’s talents were two fold.
- First of all he had the Latin to read Vitruvius’s surviving classical treatise on
architecture &
- Secondly he had the scholastic training to formulate rules in his own treatise.
 The printed editions of Alberti & Vitruvius & the illustrated works of Serlio, Vignola
& Palladio made it possible for the transmission of architectural theory & visual
models all over Europe & to build in the new style without visiting Italy.
 Among his Latin writings were 3 treatises which formed the theoretical foundations of
early Renaissance art.
- De Pictura
- De Starua
- De Re Aedificatoria
 Alberti was chiefly responsible for the formulation of early Renaissance architectural
theory. In his “Ten books on Architecture” he covered a very wide range of subjects,
from history, siting, design, construction, town planning & engineering to sociology,
the philosophy of beauty, perception & perfection.
 Alberti responsible for making architecture an intellectual & professional discipline.
 He was the first to understand the Vitruvian orders, adding to them the Composite
order (Italic) from his own observations. Aiberti introduced a new element to
distinguish the three floors by the three orders Doric, Ionic & Corinthian from bottom
to top.
 Integration of classical features with an old structure organized according to
harmonious proportions can be seen in his buildings.
Ex: The façade, Palazzo Rucellai, 1455-70, Florentine (Figure)

The building confirms to the 3 zones & heavy cornice. The first domestic
building articulated with classical orders- Doric for the ground floor & two varieties
of Corinthian for the upper storeys. The use of the orders is purely ornamental. The
Pallazzos were usually astylar (no orders) but he made use of the orders in the
facades.
 Alberti’s ingenuity in pairing a new façade with an older structure illustrates the
practical side of his nature.
 Ex: The façade of Sta. Maria Novella, Florence, 1456 – 70 (Figure).

o The façade provides a new solution to the problem of broad lower storey & a
narrower top storey by joining them with large curved scrolls or volutes.
o On the façade he used his favourite ancient image the pedimented temple front
(pilasters, entablature, trabeation & triangular pediment).
o Alberti’s churches in Mantua are reinterpretations of ecclesiastical architecture in
antique terms.
Ex: The facade, S. Andrea Mantua, Begun, 1472.

Alberti’s own buildings were chiefly churches. Alberti had recourse not to
temples but to triumphal arches for his new churches. On the facade he combined two
of his favorite ancient images-
 The pedimented temple front (pilasters, entablature, trabeation & triangular
pediment).
 The triadic triumphal arch (arched central section & lower portals on either
side).

 Facades of Alberti, like painting become an exercise in 2-Dimensional surface

decoration.
 Alberti was very much influenced by the Romans. So he believed that ornament as a
separate form from structure. Structure could be hidden in favour of appearance.
 Alberti said delight or beauty (concinnitas) is made up of numero (numbers), finitio
(proportion) & collocation (location). Beauty was a harmony & concord of all of the
parts so that nothing could be added or subtracted except for the worse.
 Alberti’s was simply theoretical knowledge. His theories found their way into the
works of others & were if paramount influence in the development of Renaissance
architecture, city planning & future treatises on architecture.
 Palladio’s was not simply theoretical knowledge, he had been an active professional
since his early years as a stonemason & what he learned from study he put it into
practice.

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ANDREA PALLADIO
 The most celebrated architect of the Renaissance period.
 He was born in 1508 in Padua, near Venice & began his career as a stone mason.
 His frequent visits to Rome, where he studied & sketched ancient architecture,
Palladio transformed from stone mason to architect & antiquarian.
 He worked in the cities of the Veneto & in Venice. The greatest influence of the
Pantheon revivals of antiquity in countless creations by Palladio & his followers.
 Palladio was a most famous architect of Renaissance period. He became so famous
that, a new style was named after him called Palladianism or Palladian style.
 He designed basically 3 different types of buildings.
- Villas – rich people houses in the country side.
- Pallazzos – rich people houses in the cities.
- Church buildings
 Classicist: Palladio employed the classical motifs such as Monumental orders &
columned pediment porticoes & structures with more freedom with great strictness
with regard to proportion. That is the reason he is called as classicist.
 Based principally on proportions, monumental orders, symmetry & the image of
temple front, Palladio’s classicism was embodied most vividly in the villas he built in
the countryside around Vicenza & later on to the church buildings.
 Relief treatment of façade that suggests depth: The architecture of Palladio is always
3-dimensional rather than 2-dimensional like Alberti. The free standing colonnades,
pediment porticoes of the facade suggest depth.
 Horizontal lines accentuated: During Renaissance period, man was the measure, so
that all dimensions were related to the human scale. Horizontal lines in a facade of a
building depict the use of human scale.
 Mannerism: Palladio was a great mannerist. That means he never blindly copied the
ideas from the classical architecture. Success of the Palladio was obtained primarily
by the ideas from the past & integrates them very successfully to the situation at that
point of time.
 Free standing colonnades, straight or curved used to unite the central with the flanking
elements of a building. The pediment, the colonnade below becomes the central
element in all of his works.
Ex: Villa Rotunda & The white house.
 Palladian Motif: He was commissioned to reconstruct a loggia around an old structure
Ex: The Pallazo della Ragione (Basilica), Vicenza, 1546
Palladio designed facade treatment of each bay. A central circular arch is supported by
short orders. The tall orders are adjacent to the short orders. Circular openings are
seen the spandrel of the arches. This is called as “Palladian Motif”.
 Adopted the monumental orders, columned porticoes to domestic buildings.
 Palladio’s Villas are stripped, spare, pure, delicate & serious minded. The most
famous of Palladio’s villas & certainly the most “perfect” in its symmetry.
Ex: Villa Rotunda, Vicenza, Veneto, 1550.
The dominant elements of Palladio’s massing is a grand, cubic central block, into it is
set a cylindrical core, appearing on the exterior as a Pantheon-like steeped
hemispherical dome & from each side, an identical Roman temple front motif
(hexastyle ionic porch) set above a noble flight of steps opens out to the landscape.
 Conjured up the modern church out of the Roman temple.
The temple front image with its evocations of the antique served Palladio well & he
cleverly articulated a façade in the language of Classicism. Later he expanded it from
country houses to colossal proportions to face Monumental Churches.
Ex: San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.
 A huge pedimented, tetra style temple front placed before the tall nave, its dimensions
matched to those of the nave: then set before the lower & narrower side aisles, a
section of pediment on doubled terminal pilasters, stretched on either side to the width
of the church, its cornices abutting the columnar order in the forward plane.
 Use of statues on the skyline serves to break the definition of the roof line.
Ex; Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza, 1550
 All his Villas are symmetrically planned with rigorous geometry. A recurring feature
is the arcade of columns set right forward from the main wall of the house, whether as
a portico or loggia, which serves to relate the building to its immediate surroundings.
 Palladio had a tremendous influence in UK & Britain as well as the USA. His
architecture is so famous that, it was called Palladian Architecture.
 Books written by Palladio: Palladio wrote & illustrated his own architectural treatise,
Quattro Libri dell’ architectura, 1570 – in the treatise he set down the plans &
elevations of his own buildings, along with theories of architecture derived from his
study of antiquity.
 He studies the antiquities of Rome & wrote the following books-
- ‘The antiquities of Rome’ &
- ‘Four books of architecture’
 In 1554 he published a guide book, Le antichita di Roma & Descrizione delle.. Chiese
di Roma & in 1556 an important edition of Vitruvius illustrated by Palladio.
 The competition for the façade had been announced by pope Clement XII. He drew
from the finest achievements of the 16th & 17th centuries, synthesizing Maderno’s St.
Peter’s façade, Michelangelo’s palaces on the Campidoglio & Palladio’s churches into
a severe, highly disciplined façade of colossal scale that was meant to symbolize the
international authority & power of the church.
 Palladio’s clear harmonious proportions masterly deployed of select, almost
standardized antique forms & commitment to systematic formulations of rules made
his buildings a model for classicizing architects all over Europe.

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 19TH CENTURY THEORY

JOHN RUSKIN (1819 –1900):

 He was the leading art critic, philosopher art patron, draughtsman, scientist,
environmentalist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth,
literature, education, botany and political economy.
 His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He penned essays and
treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale.
He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and
architectural structures and ornamentation.
 He rebelled against formal, classical art and architecture. Instead, he favoured in
modernity by being of the asymmetrical, rough architecture of medieval Europe.
 Helped establish gothic revival- a style for religious as well as secular
purpose. His passionate writings not only heralded Gothic Revival styles in Britain
and America, but also paved the way for the Arts & Crafts Movement in Britain and
United States.
 ‘Anti functionalist’ essence of Architecture consisted not the necessary aspects of a
building, but those features that were unnecessary. Decoration was what distinguished
architecture from mere construction.
 Moralist. “Goodness of spirit & greatness of architecture go together”. “Good
architecture could result only from the efforts of good men working in the context of a
healthy society” (such as the middle ages).
 Anti modern & anti industrial. Raged factory system, worship of money, machine
production – iron. Like William Morris Arts & Crafts philosophers, John Ruskin
opposed Industrialization & rejected the use of machine made materials.
 The proper definition of architecture as distinguished from a piece of sculpture is
merely the art of designing for a particular place & placing it there on the best
principles of building.
 He Loved nature - Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is
exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good
weather.
“… for whatever is in architecture fair or beautiful is imitated from natural forms”
“… It does not need much to humiliate a mountain, a hut will sometimes do it”.
 In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of
Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing.
 In 1849, Ruskin traveled to Venice, Italy and studied Venetian Gothic architecture and
its influence by the Byzantine. In 1851 Ruskin's observations were published in the
three-volume series, The Stones of Venice.
 Ruskin's developing interest in architecture, and particularly in the Gothic revival, led
to the first work to bear his name, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849).
The seven moral categories that Ruskin considered to inseparable from all
architecture: sacrifice, truth, power, beauty, life, memory and obedience. All would
provide recurring themes in his work.
 Ruskin's belief in preservation of ancient buildings had a significant influence on later
thinking about the distinction between conservation and restoration. Ruskin was a
strong proponent of conservation & preservation.
 Theorists and practitioners in a broad range of disciplines acknowledged their debt to
Ruskin. Architects including Le Corbusier, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd
Wright and Walter Gropius incorporated Ruskin's ideas in their work.
 In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society.
Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in
environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
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WILLIAM MORRIS (1834 –1896):

• William Morris was a British textile designer, craftsman, poet, novelist, translator,
artist, critic, manufacturer and socialist.
• One of the forefathers of Modern Architecture.
• Morris designs for furniture, fabrics, stained glass, wallpaper, murals, sculpture,
embroidery, metal work, and other decorative arts generated the Arts and Crafts
movement in England and revolutionized Victorian taste.
• In 1861 he founded the firm of ‘Marshall, Faulkner and Company’ to carry out in
furniture, decoration and the applied arts with an intention of providing a high quality
craftsmanship.
• In 1875 Morris reorganized the firm and became sole owner. He himself designed
furniture (the Morris chair has become a classic), wallpaper, and textiles.
• Anti- industrialist- “Production by machinery is all evil” . He hated the mass
production.
• Contradiction in theory- Anti historicist on one hand & anti modern on the other hand.
• Reform public taste by manufacturing house hold articles in an artistic & inexpensive
manner so that ordinary people to enjoy the high quality hand made products.
• But his articles were so expensive they handed up in rich people’s hand.
• Architectural implications were indeed very profound.
• Ex: Red House.
Red house (use of red bricks) - his own house built under the influence of Arts
& Crafts Movement designed by Philip Webb. Exposed brick work, wall paper, joints
& fasteners shows high quality workmanship.

• Imperfection & marks left by the individual workman are desirable over perfection of
joinery & finish.
• Ideal building as one with exposed monolithic construction with a uniform level of
craftsmanship.
• He founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877 and the
Kelmscott press in 1890.
• A notable advance on his theory was made by the Bauhaus, the famed school of
architecture and applied art in Germany, where Walter Gropius and his colleagues
applied Morris's principles to the machine and scientific technology.
• William Morris’s ideas influenced the furniture design of F. L. Wright.

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GOTTFRIED SEMPER (1803-1879):
 A leading German architect and writer on art who was among the principal
practitioners of the Neo-Renaissance style in Germany and Austria.
 Began work in Dresden in Germany, later worked in Zurich, Switzerland, Vienna &
Austria.
 The Four Elements of Architecture is a book by Semper Published in 1851.
The four elementary motives underlying architectural creation:
o the hearth, which represents the central social element,
o the platform (wall), which serves to elevate the hearth,
o the roof & its structure, which protects the hearth from the rain, and
o the enclosure (non-structural of textiles etc.), which keeps out the rain and cold.
 Origin of architectural ornament is in the technical arts of textiles, ceramics & metal
work.
Semper believed that long before Man made a building he evolved patterns (in
weaving, ceramics & metal works). So, ornament was actually more basic and
symbolic than structure.
 Architecture was always structure plus cladding- construction by its very layered &
not monolithic.
 Semper was a leading exponent of Renaissance revival.
The use of double columns of the east front of the Louvre, a Roman triumphal
arch, and various Renaissance Revival motifs are quoted in his buildings to harmonize
with context.
 Greek architecture – decorative parts closely connected to the construction.
 In his influential writings, principally “Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts”
(1860–63) he discusses extensively the use of materials within arts, crafts &
architecture.
 Leading architectural theorist of the 19th century on polychromy & polychromy in
antiquity.
 Believed paint was used on classical buildings as a protective material (Greek,
Etruscan, Egyptian). Colour had symbolic associations. Colour is an expression of
artistic freedom.
 In his famous work of the Semperopera in Dresden, Germany, his style of Eclecticism
can be seen in his use of Renaissance, Baroque, and Greek features.
 In regard to Semper’s view on built and restored architecture, he was not against the
restoring of buildings as he approved of his son updating the Semperopera after it
burned in 1869.

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ANTOINE CHRYSOSTOME QUATREMERE DE QUINCY (1755 –1849):

 Leading theorist of French Neo-classical art & architecture.

 Believed the beginning of laws, principles, theory, and practice of architecture went
back to the Greeks. (Typical for a neo-classicist).
 Quatremere believed that architecture was imitative of nature in two ways:
1. In the details of nature – like the certain characteristics of an individual.
2. In nature as a collective whole – like referring to a specific species.
 Nature offers three kinds of materials:
1. Earth – when made into bricks, ranks among stone.
2. Stone – projections and cornices received their form from imitating wood.
3. Wood – offers a vast array of analogies, inductions and free assimilations.
 Three original architectural types (Shelter):
1. Hut:
• Post and lintel construction
• Transposed into stone & became a model for Greek architecture.
2. Cave:
• Heavy dark interiors marked religious architecture of the Egyptians.
3. Tent:
• Light and mobile structure shows traces in wooden structures of the Chinese.
 Each of the three types originated as shelter for a kind of people in a particular place,
all bound by the laws of necessity, through use, climate, or country.
Cave Hunters Egyptians
Tent Shepherds Chinese
Hut Farmers Greeks

 “The idea of theory differs from practice in as much as it refers to the mental or
intellectual activity that reasons or combines rather than the bodily or manual activity
that fashions or executes”.
Theory – mental or intellectual activity
Practice – bodily or manual activity

 Language & architecture as reflections of social development of civilization, Egyptian

buildings – language & architecture brought together.
 Architecture as a form of language, linked language & architecture, their origins, their
evolution & use.
 He was among the first to point out the use of polychromy in Greek sculpture and
architecture.
 Architecture imitates types, models or character presented by nature to art.
TYPE –is an object with respect to which each artist can conceive works of art that
may have no resemblance to each other.
MODEL – is an object that should be repeated as is
CHARACTER – implies something more expressive than type.
 Treatises wrote by him-
Encyclopedic methodique – in 3 volumes
Dictionnaire historique de l'Architecture
De l'Architecture Égyptienne

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