ROCOCO

ARCHITECTURE
ARC 1424 – History of Architecture 3
• Period also referred to as “Late
Baroque”
• It is an 18th century style which
developed as Baroque artists gave
up their symmetry and became
increasingly ornate, florid, and
playful.
• Derived from the French word,
‘rocaille’ which refers to rocks, shells,
and the shell-shaped ornaments used
on fountains.
• During the 1700s, it is a highly
ornamental style of art, furniture, and
interior design that became popular in
France
• Called Rococo, the lavish style
combined the delicacy of French
‘rocaille’ with Italian ’barocco’, or
Baroque, details.
• Most often found in Germany,
Austria, Eastern Europe, and
Russia.
• While there are many similarities
between the Baroque and the
Rococo styles, Rococo buildings
tend to be softer and more graceful.
Colors are pale and curving shapes
dominate.
Map of Europe
Characteristics of
Rococo Architecture:
• Elaborate curves and scrolls
• Ornaments shaped like shells and
plants
• Intricate patterns
• Delicate details
• Complex, asymmetrical shapes
• Light, pastel colors
ROCOCO IN FRANCE
• Rococo developed first in the
decorative arts and interior design.
• Louis XIV’s succession brought a
change in the court artists and general
artistic fashion. By the end of the
king's long reign, rich Baroque designs
were giving way to lighter elements
with more curves and natural patterns.
These elements are obvious in the
architectural designs of Nicolas
Pineau.
Louis XIV

Louis XIV known as the

Sun King, was King of
France and of Navarre. His
reign, from 1643 to his
death in 1715, began at the
age of four and lasted
seventy-two years, three
months, and eighteen days,
and is the longest
documented reign of any
European monarch.
During the Régence, court life moved
away from Versailles and this artistic
change became well established, first
in the royal palace and then throughout
French high society. The delicacy and
playfulness of Rococo designs is often
seen as perfectly in tune with the
excesses of Louis XV's reign.
Louis XV

ruled as King of
France and
of Navarre from 1
September 1715
until his death.
Nicolas Pineau
• French wood-carver and interior
designer, a leader in the decorating
in the light, assymetric, light ,
lavishly decorated Rococo style.
• It was Pineau who was primarily
responsible for the creation and the
adoption of the genre pittoresque in
French interiors.
Francois Mansart
• a French architect credited
for the introduction of
classicism into Baroque
architecture of France.
• The Encyclopædia
Britannica cites him as the
most accomplished of 17th-
century French architects
whose works "are renowned
for their high degree of
refinement, subtlety, and
elegance".
Mansard Roof
Mansart, as he is generally known,
made extensive use of a four-sided,
double-slope gambrel roof punctuated
with windows on the steeper lower
slope, creating additional habitable
space in the garrets that ultimately
became named after him -
the mansard roof.
Chateau de Maisons
Chateau de Maisons
• Best preserved work of Mansart.
• Uniquely retains the original interior
decoration, including a magnificent
staircase. The structure is strictly
symmetrical, with much attention
given to relief. It is thought to have
heralded and inspired the 18th-
century Neoclassicism.
Chateau de Balleroy

• The only surviving example of

Mansart’s early work.
• One of the earliest examples of
town planning in France.
Chateau de Balleroy
Germain Boffrand
• was one of the most gifted
French architects of his
generation. A pupil of Jules
Hardouin-Mansart
• was one of the main creators
of the precursor to Rococo
called the style Régence, and
in his interiors, of the Rococo
itself. In his exteriors he held
to a monumental Late
Baroque classicism with
some innovations in spatial
planning that were
exceptional in France
Major Commissions
Hôtel Le Brun, for
Charles II Le Brun,
the nephew and heir
of the premier peintre
du roi Charles Le
Brun and a relative of
Boffrand's. One of
the first hôtels
particuliers noted
and commended by
contemporary critics.
Standing but gutted.
Hôtel Petit-
Luxembourg,
Renovation for Anne
Henriette of Bavaria.
Much of Boffrand's
decoration survives,
including the
staircase with its
coved cornices filled
with scrolls and
foliage and rounded
corners.
Palais Bourbon
• Enlargement of
Palais Bourbon
• Noted for the
addition of a large
staircase by
Boffrand.
INTERIOR DECORATION:
• Rooms were designed as total works
of art with elegant and ornate
furniture, small sculptures,
ornamental mirrors, and tapestry
complementing architecture, reliefs,
and wall paintings.
 .

A Rococo interior in Gatchina.

CHARACTERISTICS (interior):
• Control, sportive, fantastic, and
sculptured forms are expressed with
abstract ornament using flaming,
leafy or shell-like textures in
asymmetrical sweeps and flourishes
and broken curves
• Walls, ceiling, Furniture, and works
of metal and porcelain present a
unified ensemble.
• Intimate Rococo interiors
suppress architectonic divisions of
architrave, frieze and cornice for the
picturesque, the curious, and the
whimsical, expressed in plastic
materials like carved wood and
above all stucco (as in the work of
the Wessobrunner school).
• The Rococo palette is softer and
paler than the rich primary colors
and dark tonalities favored in
Baroque tastes.
Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles is a

royal château in Versailles, the Île-
de-France region of France.
In French, it is known as
the Château de Versailles.
Palace of Versailles
When the château was built, Versailles
was a country village; today, however,
it is a suburb of Paris. The court of
Versailles was the center of political
power in France from 1682, when
Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the
royal family was forced to return to the
capital after the beginning of the
French Revolution. Versailles is
therefore famous not only as a
building, but as a symbol of the system
of absolute monarchy of the Ancient
Régime.
The 1730s represented the height of
Rococo development in France. The
style had spread beyond architecture
and furniture to painting and sculpture,
exemplified by the works of Antoine
Watteau and François Boucher.
ROCOCO IN PORTUGAL
• Rococo entered Portugal through the
north, while Lisbon, due to the court
pomp, remained in the Baroque.
• It’s an architecture that follows the
international taste in decoration, and,
as a result of the contrast between
dark granite and white walls, has a
clearly Portuguese profile
• Decoration is naturalist, based mainly
in shells and leaves but also with
architectural elements and sculpture.
Queluz National Palace
Queluz National Palace
• Portuguese 18th-century palace
located at Queluz, a freguesia of the
modern-day Sintra Municipality, in
the Lisbon District.
• One of the last great Rococo
buildings to be designed in Europe.
• Work on the palace began in 1747
under the architect Mateus Vicente
de Oliveira.
Estrela Basilica
• A basilica in Lisbon
Portugal, built by
order of Queen
Mary I of Portugal
• The last major
Rococo building in
the city
• Interior in Baroque
ROCOCO IN GERMANY
The Rococo style spread with French
artists and engraved publications. It
was readily received in the Catholic
parts of Germany, Bohemia,
and Austria, where it was merged with
the lively German Baroque traditions.
• German Rococo was applied with
enthusiasm to churches and
palaces, particularly in the south,
• Frederician Rococo developed in
the Kingdom of Prussia. Architects
often draped their interiors in clouds
of fluffy white stucco.
Frederician Rococo

Is a form of Rococo,
which developed in
Prussia during the
reign of Frederick
the Great and
combined influences
from both France and
the Netherlands.
Sanssouci
• Former summer palace of Frederick
the Great
• It is often counted among the
German rivals of Versailles
Potsdam City Palace
The second official
residence (the winter
residence) of
the margraves and
electors of
Brandenburg,
later kings in
Prussia, kings of
Prussia and German
emperors.
Charlottenburg Palace
The largest palace in Berlin and the only
royal residency in the city dating back to
the time of the Hohenzollern family
Wies Church
• An oval Rococo
church, designed in
the late 1740’s
by Dominikus
Zimmermann
• Interior was
decorated with
frescoes and with
stuccowork in the
tradition of the
Wessobruner school.
Wessobrunner School
• Is the name for a group of Baroque
stucco-workers that, beginning at the
end of the 17th century, developed in
the Benedictine Wessobrunn
Abbey in Bavaria, Germany.
• The Wessobrunner stucco-workers
exerted a decisive influence on, and at
times even dominated, the art of
stucco in south Germany in the 18th
century.
ROCOCO IN POLAND

In Poland, the Rococo arrived partly on

the heels of the strongly anti-
reformation Baroque, and partly through
the influence of French aristocrats. The
Polish tended to love all things French
in the 18th century. The result is an
architectural era that left an incredible
impact on Polish cities.
Czapski Palace
The Czapski Palace was an aristocratic
residence originally constructed in the
17th century. Like many of Poland's
greatest Rococo buildings, it was
originally built and even rebuilt in
variations of the Baroque style, which
was sweeping into Poland with a strong
pro-Catholicism, anti-reformation wave.
Czapski Palace
Bruhl Palace
Built in the 17th century and remodeled
with Rococo designs in the 18th century,
this aristocratic residence was once
considered amongst the finest Rococo
structures in Poland. Like many others,
however, it was destroyed by Nazis in
the 1940s, asserting their control over
Polish identity.
Bruhl Palace
ROCOCO IN ITALY
Around the same time as Rococo was
beginning in France, in the early 18th
century, Italians began to become more
interested in the work of Francesco
Borromini, the baroque architect.
Several designers during this period,
such as Filippo Juvarra, were influenced
by this style, but sought to make it more
elegant, lighter and less oppressive
than High Baroque. Italian Rococo was
further developed with the design of the
Spanish Steps, the facade of Santi
Maria della Quercia and Santi Caterina.
Stupinigi Palace's Great Hall
The best example of Italian Rococo. Built
from 1729 to 1733, architect Filippo
Juvara used painted entablatures and
coffers to create a sense of play. It is
highly ornate, and mostly white with gilded
decoration and inset paintings. Massive
paintings depict scenes of hunting and
feasting. Elegant clocks and statues were
also designed for the hunting palace.
These statues were to honor the power
and influence of the Savoy family.
Stupinigi Palace's Great Hall
Pianetti Palace
An Italian Rococo masterpiece finished
around 1781. The palace now houses the
Municipal Art Gallery. Its upper floor walls
showcase stucco reliefs of poets,
musicians and scientists. On the lower
level, the gallery features stucco and
Rococo paintings.
The Galleria degli Stucchi is around 230
feet in length and is terminated by an
octagonal room that enhances the
perspective. The sculptural elements are
balanced perfectly with the pictorial ones.
It is also symmetrical in two ways, which
is unusual for Rococo, but was common
of Baroque.
Pianetti Palace
KEY POINTS
• Rococo architecture was a lighter,
more graceful, yet also more
elaborate version of Baroque
architecture, which was ornate and
austere.
• Rococo emphasized the
asymmetry of forms, while Baroque
was the opposite.
• The Baroque was more serious,
placing an emphasis on religion,
and was often characterized by
Christian themes; Rococo was
more secular and light-hearted.
• Rococo architecture brought
significant changes to the building
of edifices, placing an emphasis on
privacy rather than the grand public
majesty of Baroque architecture.
SOURCES / REFERENCES:
• A Visual Dictionary of Architecture by Francis D.K. Ching
• History of Architecture by Sir Banister Fletcher
• The Complete Handbook of Architecture by Patrick Nuttgens with Richard
Weston (c.2006)
• https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/rococo/
• https://study.com/academy/lesson/rococo-architecture-in-italy.html
• https://study.com/academy/lesson/rococo-architecture-of-poland.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rococo
• Various internet sites for the pictures and articles