An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a

building or other structure notable or historically identifiable.[1] It is a sub-

class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate
closely to a wider contemporary artistic style. A style may include such elements
as form, method of construction, building materials, and regional character. Most
architecture can be classified within a chronology of styles which changes over
time reflecting changing fashions, beliefs and religions, or the emergence of new
ideas, technology, or materials which make new styles possible.

Styles therefore emerge from the history of a society. They are documented in the
subject of architectural history. At any time several styles may be fashionable,
and when a style changes it usually does so gradually, as architects learn and
adapt to new ideas. The new style is sometimes only a rebellion against an existing
style, such as post-modernism (meaning "after modernism"), which in 21st century
has found its own language and split into a number of styles which have acquired
other names.

Architectural Styles often spread to other places, so that the style at its source
continues to develop in new ways while other countries follow with their own twist.
For instance, Renaissance ideas emerged in Italy around 1425 and spread to all of
Europe over the next 200 years, with the French, German, English, and Spanish
Renaissances showing recognisably the same style, but with unique characteristics.
An architectural style may also spread through colonialism, either by foreign
colonies learning from their home country, or by settlers moving to a new land. One
example is the Spanish missions in California, brought by Spanish priests in the
late 18th century and built in a unique style.

After an architectural style has gone out of fashion, revivals and re-
interpretations may occur. For instance, classicism has been revived many times and
found new life as neoclassicism. Each time it is revived, it is different. The
Spanish mission style was revived 100 years later as the Mission Revival, and that
soon evolved into the Spanish Colonial Revival.

Vernacular architecture is listed separately. As vernacular architecture is better

understood as suggestive of culture, writ broadly (as well as a theory and a
process rather than a thing-in-itself), it technically can encompass every
architectural style--or none at all. In and of itself, vernacular architecture is
not a style.[2]

Contents
1 History of the concept of architectural style
2 Mannerism
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
History of the concept of architectural style
Main article: Style (visual arts)
Constructing schemes of the period styles of historic art and architecture was a
major concern of 19th century scholars in the new and initially mostly German-
speaking field of art history. Important writers on the broad theory of style
including Carl Friedrich von Rumohr, Gottfried Semper, and Alois Riegl in his
Stilfragen of 1893, with Heinrich Wölfflin and Paul Frankl continued the debate
into the 20th century.[3] Paul Jacobsthal and Josef Strzygowski are among the art
historians who followed Riegl in proposing grand schemes tracing the transmission
of elements of styles across great ranges in time and space. This type of art
history is also known as formalism, or the study of forms or shapes in art.

Semper, Wölfflin, and Frankl, and later Ackerman, had backgrounds in the history of
architecture, and like many other terms for period styles, "Romanesque" and
"Gothic" were initially coined to describe architectural styles, where major
changes between styles can be clearer and more easy to define, not least because
style in architecture is easier to replicate by following a set of rules than style
in figurative art such as painting. Terms originated to describe architectural
periods were often subsequently applied to other areas of the visual arts, and then
more widely still to music, literature and the general culture.[4] In architecture
stylistic change often follows, and is made possible by, the discovery of new
techniques or materials, from the Gothic rib vault to modern metal and reinforced
concrete construction. A major area of debate in both art history and archaeology
has been the extent to which stylistic change in other fields like painting or
pottery is also a response to new technical possibilities, or has its own impetus
to develop (the kunstwollen of Riegl), or changes in response to social and
economic factors affecting patronage and the conditions of the artist, as current
thinking tends to emphasize, using less rigid versions of Marxist art history.[5]

Although style was well-established as a central component of art historical

analysis, seeing it as the over-riding factor in art history had fallen out of
fashion by World War II, as other ways of looking at art were developing,[6] and a
reaction against the emphasis on style developing; for Svetlana Alpers, "the normal
invocation of style in art history is a depressing affair indeed".[7] According to
James Elkins "In the later 20th century criticisms of style were aimed at further
reducing the Hegelian elements of the concept while retaining it in a form that
could be more easily controlled".[8]

Mannerism
Main articles: Mannerism, Renaissance architecture § Mannerism, and Mannerist
architecture and sculpture in Poland

The rhyolitic tuff portal of the "church house" at Colditz Castle, Saxony, designed
by Andreas Walther II (1584), is an example of the exuberance of Antwerp Mannerism
While many architectural styles explore harmonious ideals, Mannerism wants to take
style a step further and explores the aesthetics of hyperbole and exaggeration.[9]
Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial
(as opposed to naturalistic) qualities.[10] Mannerism favours compositional tension
and instability rather than balance and clarity.[11] The definition of Mannerism,
and the phases within it, continues to be the subject of debate among art
historians.

Town Hall of Zamość by Bernardo Morando

An example of Mannerist architecture is the Villa Farnese at Caprarola[12] in the
rugged country side outside of Rome. The proliferation of engravers during the 16th
century spread Mannerist styles more quickly than any previous styles. A centre of
Mannerist design was Antwerp during its 16th-century boom. Through Antwerp,
Renaissance and Mannerist styles were widely introduced in England, Germany, and
northern and eastern Europe in general. Dense with ornament of "Roman" detailing,
the display doorway at Colditz Castle exemplifies this northern style,
characteristically applied as an isolated "set piece" against unpretentious
vernacular walling. During the Mannerist Renaissance period, architects
experimented with using architectural forms to emphasize solid and spatial
relationships.

The Renaissance ideal of harmony gave way to freer and more imaginative rhythms.
The best known architect associated with the Mannerist style was Michelangelo
(1475–1564), who is credited with inventing the giant order, a large pilaster that
stretches from the bottom to the top of a façade.[13] He used this in his design
for the Campidoglio in Rome.
Prior to the 20th century, the term Mannerism had negative connotations, but it is
now used to describe the historical period in more general non-judgmental terms.
[14]

See also
icon Architecture portal
Historicism (architecture)
History of architecture
List of architectural styles
Revivalism (architecture)
Notes
"Architectural Styles". Encyclopedia.com. Encyclopedia of the New American Nation.
2006. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
J. Philip Gruen, “Vernacular Architecture,” in Encyclopedia of Local History, 3d
edition, ed. Amy H. Wilson (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017): 697-98.
Elkins, s. 2, 3
Gombrich, 129; Elsner, 104
Gombrich, 131-136; Elkins, s. 2
Kubler in Lang, 163
Alpers in Lang, 137
Elkins, s. 2 (quoted); see also Gombrich, 135-136
Gombrich, E H. The Story of Art London:Phaidon Press Ltd, ISBN 0-7148-3247-2
"Mannerism: Bronzino (1503–1572) and his Contemporaries". Metropolitan Museum of
Art. Retrieved 2013-05-19.
Art and Illusion, E. H. Gombrich, ISBN 9780691070001
Coffin David, The Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome, Princeton University
Press, 1979: 281-5
[verification needed]Mark Jarzombek, "Pilaster Play" (PDF), Thresholds, 28 (Winter
2005): 34–41
Arnold Hauser. Mannerism: The Crisis of the Renaissance and the Origins of Modern
Art. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1965).
References
"Alpers in Lang": Alpers, Svetlana, "Style is What You Make It", in The Concept of
Style, ed. Berel Lang, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 137–162, google
books. ISBN 0801494397
Elkins, James, "Style" in Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University
Press, accessed March 6, 2013, subscriber link
Elsner, Jas, "Style" in Critical Terms for Art History, Nelson, Robert S. and
Shiff, Richard, 2nd Edn. 2010, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226571696,
9780226571690, google books
Gombrich, E. "Style" (1968), orig. International Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, ed. D. L. Sills, xv (New York, 1968), reprinted in Preziosi, D. (ed.) The
Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (see below), whose page numbers are used.
"Kubler in Lang": Kubler, George, Towards a Reductive Theory of Style, in Lang
Lang, Berel (ed.), The Concept of Style, 1987, Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
ISBN 0801494397, 9780801494390, google books; includes essays by Alpers and Kubler
Preziosi, D. (ed.) The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998, ISBN 9780714829913
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