Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism

Name: Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism
Author: Rudolf Wittkower
ISBN: 0393005992

by Rudolf Wittkower

Well, that’s one of those books; it’s a personal choice. I remember reading it when I was very young, when I was a teenager and it’s a companion to the Palladio in a way. It takes some of the most well-known buildings one sees in Italy, in Venice or Rome, and it explains the architectural theory behind them. It’s not a social history, but an artistic history and it’s very readable. When I read it, in a manner it changed my life. I began to understand more about these great, seemingly remote renaissance masterpieces and it gave me insight and helped me put things together in terms of the meaning of buildings. “Architecture as a profession has now reduced tremendously but architects are still credited more than other professions in the making of things.” The whole debate about aspects of Palladio, for example. Palladio sets out these proportions which he says are the ideal proportions and they’re really derived from nature – 2:1 proportion, 2:3 proportion and so on – the implication being that if you create a building with those proportion systems in place, related to doors, windows and so on, you create a beauty that is divine, the nature of the universe. Wittkower takes this idea and observes that one’s perception of proportion depends on where one stands in space and it’s just a very interesting analysis of the great Renaissance buildings. Well, if you go to Italy… How lovely! Lucca’s wonderful because you have that memory of the amphitheatre in the urban space. That oval space which was the amphitheatre. How wonderful. Well, Palladio worked in northern Italy so there are two or three churches in Venice and the villas around Vicenza – the Villa Capra or Villa Rotunda which is very symmetrical with a dome and porticos. And in Vicenza itself there are about eight palazzi. He’s building these between the 1550s and 1580s, and the book was published in 1570. Then, of course, Palladio was a great inspiration in England in the early 17th century. So, Inigo Jones was the court architect working for James I and Charles I. He went on a little grand tour in about 1610 to Vicenza with Lord Arundel, saw Palladio’s buildings first-hand, got hold of a copy of the book, brought it back and designed for the Stuart court, the Queen’s house in Greenwich in 1620, the Banqueting House in Whitehall . These became pivotal buildings in Britain. The Civil War put an end to all that but then in the early 18th century it was all revived. There was a great quest then for a national style distinct from French baroque and hence the whole Palladian movement kicking off here – Wren, Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor. You then get all the English country houses. Colen Campbell was a leading architect – Houghton Hall in Norfolk . In England you might look at Horse Guards Parade by William Kent. So, those are examples of buildings by Palladio and Palladian buildings in England. No, it wasn’t. The dominant style was Baroque then, but baroque is a weird word and I don’t know what it really means. It all goes back to the counter reformation – the Catholic response that was to say: ‘Beauty is not satanic like the Puritans were saying; it’s an expression of God, so incense and paintings and music are wonderful things.’ Architecturally it was all flamboyant, a style we now call Baroque, inventive and wilful, not obeying any laws of the kind Palladio was trying to promote. That became an international style and people like Wren are really building in that international style. St Paul’s is very recognisably in Baroque classical style. That’s what the Palladians challenged, the style tainted by Roman Catholicism. It became a big issue, architectural taste in the early 18th century. He talks about Alberti, a fascinating Renaissance architect and theorist who wrote a big book in the 15th century before Palladio, which also talks about divine architecture. He was mostly based around Florence and built major pallazzi there in the mid-1500s. There’s a whole chapter on Palladio and this was when I first began to understand him. I took this book to Venice in the mid-1960s and there’s a whole section analysing what harmonic proportion means. All it means, in a simple sense, was that you have a set of proportions that are more than pleasing shapes. They are rooted in nature and are divine. Look at the natural world, animal skeletons, gems, flower, you see they are all in proportion. If you walk down a Mayfair street and observe the simple exteriors, you will notice the ground floor windows are one and a half times as high as they are wide. The first floor windows are twice as high as they are wide. The second floor windows are like the ground floor and then you’ll have a square window. The brickwork will be as wide as the windows and the entrance hall will be cubical, maybe. Well, if you go to Bath or Bloomsbury, you do feel a sense of some strange beauty in the buildings, which is often quite surprising because they are simple, workaday, often quite neglected. Therefore I would suggest, yes, there must be something in it. It’s always fun in Venice! I was looking at architecture, of course. Why else?

Recommended by

Dan Cruickshank

"Well, that’s one of those books; it’s a personal choice. I remember reading it when I was very young, when I was a teenager and it’s a companion to the Palladio in a way. It takes some of the most well-known buildings one sees in Italy, in Venice or Rome, and it explains the architectural theory behind them. It’s not a social history, but an artistic history and it’s very readable. When I read it, in a manner it changed my life. I began to understand more about these great, seemingly remote renaissance masterpieces and it gave me insight and helped me put things together in terms of the meaning of buildings. “Architecture as a profession has now reduced tremendously but architects are still credited more than other professions in the making of things.” The whole debate about aspects of Palladio, for example. Palladio sets out these proportions which he says are the ideal proportions and they’re really derived from nature – 2:1 proportion, 2:3 proportion and so on – the implication being that if you create a building with those proportion systems in place, related to doors, windows and so on, you create a beauty that is divine, the nature of the universe. Wittkower takes this idea and observes that one’s perception of proportion depends on where one stands in space and it’s just a very interesting analysis of the great Renaissance buildings. Well, if you go to Italy… How lovely! Lucca’s wonderful because you have that memory of the amphitheatre in the urban space. That oval space which was the amphitheatre. How wonderful. Well, Palladio worked in northern Italy so there are two or three churches in Venice and the villas around Vicenza – the Villa Capra or Villa Rotunda which is very symmetrical with a dome and porticos. And in Vicenza itself there are about eight palazzi. He’s building these between the 1550s and 1580s, and the book was published in 1570. Then, of course, Palladio was a great inspiration in England in the early 17th century. So, Inigo Jones was the court architect working for James I and Charles I. He went on a little grand tour in about 1610 to Vicenza with Lord Arundel, saw Palladio’s buildings first-hand, got hold of a copy of the book, brought it back and designed for the Stuart court, the Queen’s house in Greenwich in 1620, the Banqueting House in Whitehall . These became pivotal buildings in Britain. The Civil War put an end to all that but then in the early 18th century it was all revived. There was a great quest then for a national style distinct from French baroque and hence the whole Palladian movement kicking off here – Wren, Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor. You then get all the English country houses. Colen Campbell was a leading architect – Houghton Hall in Norfolk . In England you might look at Horse Guards Parade by William Kent. So, those are examples of buildings by Palladio and Palladian buildings in England. No, it wasn’t. The dominant style was Baroque then, but baroque is a weird word and I don’t know what it really means. It all goes back to the counter reformation – the Catholic response that was to say: ‘Beauty is not satanic like the Puritans were saying; it’s an expression of God, so incense and paintings and music are wonderful things.’ Architecturally it was all flamboyant, a style we now call Baroque, inventive and wilful, not obeying any laws of the kind Palladio was trying to promote. That became an international style and people like Wren are really building in that international style. St Paul’s is very recognisably in Baroque classical style. That’s what the Palladians challenged, the style tainted by Roman Catholicism. It became a big issue, architectural taste in the early 18th century. He talks about Alberti, a fascinating Renaissance architect and theorist who wrote a big book in the 15th century before Palladio, which also talks about divine architecture. He was mostly based around Florence and built major pallazzi there in the mid-1500s. There’s a whole chapter on Palladio and this was when I first began to understand him. I took this book to Venice in the mid-1960s and there’s a whole section analysing what harmonic proportion means. All it means, in a simple sense, was that you have a set of proportions that are more than pleasing shapes. They are rooted in nature and are divine. Look at the natural world, animal skeletons, gems, flower, you see they are all in proportion. If you walk down a Mayfair street and observe the simple exteriors, you will notice the ground floor windows are one and a half times as high as they are wide. The first floor windows are twice as high as they are wide. The second floor windows are like the ground floor and then you’ll have a square window. The brickwork will be as wide as the windows and the entrance hall will be cubical, maybe. Well, if you go to Bath or Bloomsbury, you do feel a sense of some strange beauty in the buildings, which is often quite surprising because they are simple, workaday, often quite neglected. Therefore I would suggest, yes, there must be something in it. It’s always fun in Venice! I was looking at architecture, of course. Why else?"

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