Part 4 - Neoclassical to Victorian

The style in the period 1750–1850 is known now as Neoclassicism, in order to distinguish it from the classical architecture of ancient Greece or Rome, or of the Renaissance. In the second half of the 18th century architects began to look closely at growing architectural evidence for how Romans decorated and furnished their houses. The new style that emerged as a result of this exploration that later came to be known as Neoclassicism was called the “true style” in its time. The absolute right of the orders in Renaissance architecture, and the over-elaborate fakery of the Baroque and Rococo styles began to fall out of favour with architects and artists, who sought a more “honest” and “true” style. They found this in the geometrically correct forms and ordered symmetry of Ancient Greek and Roman styles, and once again a new generation of architects turned their attention to the past. Coinciding with the age of reason and the Enlightenment, the revision of the Classics was re-examined through the excavation of archaeological sites, and also through the influence of Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. Whereas in the Renaissance the fanciful idea of the absolute truth of the orders fuelled many architectural ideas at that time, in the Neoclassical period this philosophy was ignored in favour of the geometric and proportional qualities of ancient architecture. The discovery, exploration, and archaeological investigation of classical sites in Italy, Greece, and Asia were crucial to the emergence of Neoclassicism.

The renewed interest in the Classics saw many artists and scholars travel to Italy, especially to the excavation sites at Pompeii, Paestrum, and Herculaneum, which yielded fresh knowledge of those ancient civilizations. Consequently, a stream of archaeological publications detailing architectural details and construction methods became widely available, enabling the recreation of such styles to be executed from the recorded data and drawings. The use of antique forms in a new context is a recurring characteristic of Neoclassical architecture.

The installation of a Greek Doric garden temple in the grounds of Hagley Park, Worcestershire, by James Stuart, and the return of Robert Adam to England from Italy are widely regarded as key events that sparked this new style direction. A growing appreciation for the validity and plurality of many historical styles led to the aspirations of a modern style that, in future, would be viewed as being truly unique to that period of time. Ironically, nowadays the style of that period is more recognized as being a variety of styles and variations rather than one stand alone style movement, as had always been the case in the past.

In France a reaction against the Rococo style began in the 1740s. Along with the return to nature and reason, the twisting curvilinear forms of the Rococo were seen to work against nature. The same desire for truth to nature accounted for the growing preference in France for the informal landscape gardens of the English.

Neoclassical architecture ranges from the rectilinear Georgian style to the more graceful, curvilinear mode devised by the Scottish designer Robert Adam and adopted in America in the Federal style. Symmetry, arched Palladian windows, a fanlight over the centered front door dentil moulding on plasterwork moulding with egg and dart, swags and garlands; and decorative columns or pilasters are the basic elements of Neoclassical style. Circular windows, oval rooms, and decorative arches also characterize the Adam and Federal styles. From the 1760’s Robert Adam’s imaginative use of clearer lighter colours influenced his contemporaries and successors so much that late 18th century colours were linked with his name. This was also a period when architects were becoming much more closely involved in the details of interior decoration. Adam, Sir William Chambers and their contemporaries were able to design co-ordinated rooms, where joinery, plasterwork, furniture and fabrics formed a refined and harmonious whole.

Another centre of activity was the French Academy, where winners of the academy’s coveted Prix de Rome went to study the monuments first-hand and to be exposed to the artistic life of the Italian capital. The projects produced by French Prix de Rome winners are characterized by their grandeur of scale; strict geometric organization; simplicity of geometric forms; Greek or Roman detail; dramatic use of columns, particularly to articulate interior spaces and create urban landscapes; and a preference for blank walls and the contrast of formal volumes and textures. The same qualities describe Neoclassical architecture as it was to emerge throughout Europe and in America. The style was recreated faithfully from the country of origin to the colonies abroad in order to stamp the home countries’ identity on the new land. This expression of the style for the sake of itself, and which could be recreated identically anywhere in the world without any dependence on regional traditions led to the Neoclassical style becoming the first truly international style.

Edinburgh, called the “Athens of the North,” experienced a particularly tenacious Greek Revival. Among its monuments are the Royal High School by Thomas Hamilton and the Royal Institution by William Henry Playfair. David Hamilton built the Royal Exchange, Glasgow (1829–30), in a style showing the Greek influence, and the revival in that city remained strong well into the 19th century, culminating in the work of Alexander Thomson, whose Caledonia Road Free Church is among the finest monuments of Neoclassical architecture in Scotland.

In England the Palladianism of architects such as Lord Burlington, Colen Campbell, and their followers, beginning in the 1720s, had already marked a turning away from the Baroque style of Wren’s successors Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor as well as the adoption of a simpler and more restrained style. There was a strong rejection of Italian Baroque by many English architects, considering the harsh, elaborate Baroque to be disagreeable to English sensibilities.

In Spain the leading Neoclassical architect was Juan de Villanueva, who studied in Rome and returned to Spain in 1705 with a style similar to that evolved by the leading contemporary French and English architects. His major building was the Prado Museum in Madrid (1785–87).

In Portugal the destruction of Lisbon by earthquake in 1755 necessitated rebuilding, most of which was carried out by military engineers. The Ajuda Palace by the Italian Manuel Fabri is Neoclassical; and in Oporto, the Hospital of Santo Antonio with a vast Doric portico was designed by the English architect John Carr.

Although Italy was the centre from which Neoclassicism emanated, Italian architects were followers rather than initiators of international Neoclassicism. One of the most important formative influences on the movement was Piranesi, whose etchings of Roman ruins transformed those antique fragments into sublime romantic compositions. Piranesi was in the forefront of Roman activity, and through his acquaintance with the foreign architects and patrons who visited the Italian capital he helped to crystallize the growing taste for Neoclassicism. In the church of Santa Maria del Priorato, Piranesi incorporated classical references that were to greatly influence the succeeding generation of architects. Palladianism was a significant element in much Italian Neoclassical architecture.

Neoclassical architecture thrived in the United States throughout the 19th century, and examples of it exist in nearly every major city. The analogy with imperial Rome and later (after the War of Greek Independence, 1821–32, in particular) with the grandeur and political ideals of Periclean Athens strengthened the case for the adoption of Roman and Greek architectural models in the United States. In 1785 Thomas Jefferson planned the Virginia State Capitol with the Frenchman Charles-Louis Clérisseau, taking as his model the ancient Roman Maison-Carrée at Nîmes. It was to be the first public building in the modern world directly based on an antique temple. Jefferson’s own house, Monticello, in Virginia, featured a central-domed space and was indebted to ancient Roman villas as well as to Palladianism and to modern French and English domestic design.

In Boston, the Massachusetts State House, designed 1787–88 and built 1795–98 by Charles Bulfinch, was derived from English Neoclassical models.

Robert Adam, the son of a leading Scottish Baroque architect, William Adam, arrived in London after spending four years studying Roman ruins in Italy, where he developed a friendship with Piranesi and the French draughtsman Charles-Louis Clérisseau. Essential to the Adam style, that mode of decoration and planning that was to effect a revolution in English taste, was the notion of freedom. Absorbing a variety of influences ranging from the Palladianism of the Burlington–Campbell school and the decorative elements and spirit of France to the archaeology of Italy, Greece, and Asia, Adam re-created and recombined the elements of architecture in a way that was new and exiting. His work consisted mainly of the remodelling of existing houses, the most important of which were Osterley Park, Middlesex (1761–80); Syon House, Middlesex (1762–69); and Kenwood House, Hampstead, London (1767–69).

The leading Neoclassical architect was Jacques-Germain Soufflot, who was in Italy in the 1750s and was the first French architect to study the Greek ruins at Paestum. Soufflot’s great building was the church of Sainte-Geneviève (now the Panthéon), Paris (1757–90), a domed cruciform edifice combining the new taste for antique grandeur and simplicity with a structural rationalism, a cross between a Roman temple and a Gothic cathedral. A Neoclassical building that contains little influence of the Baroque, Soufflot’s church nevertheless is not purely antique in character, as its dome is derived from Wren’s St. Paul’s and it has a Roman rather than a Greek temple front.

The boldest innovator in the world of French Neoclassical architecture was Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. He designed a number of buildings between 1765 and 1780 in which he attempted to reconcile the traditional elements of French classicism with the new spirit of the antique.

But it is for later projects, such as the royal saltworks at Arc-et-Senans (1775–79), with their simplified forms, and the highly original series of barrières (tollgates) for Paris (1784–89), that ensure to Ledoux his central role in the evolution of Neoclassical and of modern architecture. The Barrière de la Villette, consisting of a tall cylinder rising out of a low square block with porticoes of heavy, square Doric piers, exhibits all the essentials of the style: megalomania, geometry, simplicity, antique detail, formalism, and stylophily (use of many columns).

The revolutionary Neoclassicism of Ledoux resulted in few monuments. It was the Paris of Napoleon that saw the erection of the most conspicuous examples of the style, intended to symbolize in stone the grandeur of the Emperor. The two architects associated with this transformation of Paris were Charles Percier and Pierre-François Fontaine, who were responsible for the extensive planning scheme at the beginning of the 19th century that included the rue de Castiglione, the rue and Place des Pyramides, and the rue de Rivoli. The Arc du Carrousel was built to their designs in 1806–08 and the grander Arc de Triomphe by Chalgrin and Jean-Armand Raymond in 1806–35.

By far the most gifted architect working in the United States in these years was Benjamin Latrobe. Latrobe was born in England, where he was trained by the innovative architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell. He evidently became familiar with the radical work of Dance, Soane, and Ledoux and of engineers such as John Smeaton. In 1796 he went to the United States, where he worked as the first fully professional architect and eventually became known as the father of the American architectural profession.

Latrobe’s most poetic and inventive work is a series of interiors at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., which he executed in his capacity as surveyor of public works, a position to which Jefferson appointed him in 1803. The Supreme Court Chamber (1815–17), with its strange lobed vault resting on stunted Doric columns, suggests a search for a new architecture, as do the capitals of maize and tobacco leaves that he invented for use in other parts of the building. Jefferson at that time responded warmly to Latrobe’s attempt to symbolize in architecture the values of the newly founded republic.

Georgian is covered in an earlier post which I wrote about Irish Georgian Style

Between 1850 and 1870 the striving after archaeological correctness gave place to the more rational effort to adapt Gothic principles to modern requirements, instead of merely copying past styles. The Parliament Houses at Westminster by Sir Charles Barry, the New Museum at Oxford, and the Albert Memorial in London, by Sir Gilbert Scott, are examples of how this direction produced historically accurate, and beautiful buildings, but which were considered stylistically unsuited to their purpose. New styles that were deemed more functional and suited to purpose were used in favour of , and ultimately led to the demise of, the Gothic Revival around the end of the 19th century. The Queen Anne style of Norman Shaw was a departure from the earlier Victorian tendancy towards the resurrection of historical styles in that it drew inspiration from a past style and adapted its use for modern purposes.

Wealthy merchants, bankers, factory owners, and businessmen who gained substantially from industrialization and the growth of consumerism were eager to flaunt their success through their possessions and properties, and commissioned the building of grandiose, albeit smaller, replicas of aristocratic residences.

These were conceived and executed by more than willing architects and designers in many historical styles, from Classical to Baroque, with varying degrees of success and historical accuracy. For the aspiring social climber creating the right impression was paramount and what they owned and lived in informed of their education, wealth, and status in the very fashion conscious Victorian society.

The cluster of revolutionary changes - including the growth of population, improvements in transport, and the introduction of powered machinery into large-scale manufacturing - that became known as the Industrial Revolution had begun in 18th century Britain. However, it was the 19th century that saw the culmination of these revolutions, and witnessed the economic, social, political and cultural transformation of the country. The Industrial Revolution brought major changes; in occupations from farming to factory work, population migration from farms to towns and cities, economic redistribution of wealth to the burgeoning middle class; and all these new social changes were accompanied by new problems.

At this time, as the industrial revolution in Britain rose to a fevered pitch, population began to grow in tremendous numbers especially in the cities. The expansion of trade and manufacturing, agriculture and the textile industry fuelled exponential growth and made Great Britain the first truly industrialized nation. Several Reform Acts, aimed at guaranteeing certain basic rights for workers came along throughout the 1800’s. Included among these were the right to vote and limiting workdays as well as allowing workers to strike. The latter part of the century saw the introduction of compulsory schooling, championed by William Gladstone. India became a British Empire in 1876 under the conservative Benjamin Disraeli. A new war was started in every year of Victoria’s reign as Britain’s imperialist campaign roared across the globe.

Transport by rail benefited from the refinement of steam engineering producing more efficient locomotive engines. In 1830 there were just 157 miles of track; by 1901 there were 30,385 miles of track in Britain. The railway offered a fast, all-weather, bulk goods and passenger transport system - the first the world had seen. By stage coach in 1825 it took 30 hours to travel from London to Hull; by railway in 1845 it took 8 hours; by 1910 that same rail journey had been cut to 4 hours. From the 1850’s on, newspapers could be delivered to most towns while the news was still fresh.

The introduction of the standard penny post system in 1840, and coupled with the new railways - ensured a massive increase in the transmission of both written and printed text. In 1839 on average each person in the Britain received just 4 letters a year, until by the 1900’s that number reached as high as 60. Not only were books and newspapers distributed by post, but also a mass of printed advertising flowed through the postal system, among them mail order catalogues advertising the wares of stores and vendors of virtually everything and anything. The 19th century was the first great age of advertising and almost all of it was in printed form.

The population of the country had been growing since the mid-18th Century, and the 19th Century continued this trend. The Census of 1851 revealed that more people were living in towns and cities than in the countryside. As literacy and incomes tended to be higher in urban areas than rural ones, this rapidly growing population meant a hugely expanding market for books and newspapers. This meant that ideas could be disseminated quickly, informing the increasingly fashion conscious Victorian of the latest trends.

There was a dramatic increase in industrial production in the 19th century due to advances in mechanical production techniques across most materials. → The mass production of textiles, carpets, iron, glass, and timber led to cheaper products being available to more people than ever, and the new middle class that emerged from the profits of these enterprises fuelled a new mass consumerism.

Although agricultural production also increased rapidly in order to feed the expanding population, most smallholders were forced from their land to make way for large-scale intensive farming, and these new homeless relocated to the overcrowded cities to find work. The desperation now suffered by many was happily exploited by factory owners and the paltry wages paid allowed huge profits to be made while still driving down the price of goods to the consumer.

The notable increase in prosperity that accompanied the Industrial Revolution was largely based on the accumulative benefits of inexpensive imports from the colonies. This new found affluence and status for the middle-class, was naturally revealed in the types of homes they lived in and the style in which they decorated and ornamented them. Unsure how to begin this new style of living, they chose architecture and furnishings that had previously been only for the aristocracy and the upper class.

The Victorian era was more a mixture of styles than one stand-alone style movement, with each different variation being as much a vehicle for the expression of ideologies, as different directions in styles. While one section of society enthused over the weird and wonderful objects that were now affordable to many, others, such as the Arts and Crafts proponents, were abhorred by them.

These critics of high Victorian style objected not only to the style and quality of machine-made furnishings but also to the manner in which they were used in the home. The typical middle-class drawing room was crammed full of furniture, fabrics were used in abundance and every available surface was overflowing with knick-knacks. Such displays were a means of showing off their new-found cultural interests, prosperity and status. They were also in accord with the fashionable notion that bareness in a room was in poor taste.The followers of the Aesthetic Movement had a completely different view. Their furniture was inspired by Elizabethan, Classical Greek and traditional Georgian forms. Fabrics were generally lighter and more subtly coloured.

The irony of the Victorian era is that in an age of rapid and significant advances in technology, interior designers consistently looked to the past for inspiration. The Georgian legacy of restrained, dignified decoration was still popular in the earlier years, although towards the middle of the century the heavier, more masculine style of, for example, Francois Premier and Renaissance revival was more in vogue. Finally, by the 1880’s the style had changed once more to a lighter, brighter and in some respects more feminine style of decoration.

Heavily patterned wallpapers and fabrics featured floral and geometric patterns, often abstract in that they were not accurately based on historical or regional motifs, with the exception of Greek key or egg and dart. These patterns were more likely to be loosely based on regional styles or historical periods to give a general impression, rather than any attempts at precise recreation. Damasks, large-scale floral prints, silk papers with an Oriental feel, embossed, and William Morris designs were the most desirable. He was best known for mixing strong, pure colours to harmonious effect and giving a flat pattern a narrative quality which was unsurpassed. Embossed papers were used on ceilings and friezes in order to counterbalance intricately patterned and coloured papers. In many cases the chairs were covered in fabric to match the wallpaper. Wallpapers, which were now available on rolls were chosen for their busy, expensive looking designs, such as those with gilt finish, that boasted of the wealth and status of the owners. Mass produced factory printed patterns replaced the traditional hand block method, making it cheaper to produce and hang, and as a result it was used on every available piece of wall in the upmarket Victorian house.

The start of the Victorian era saw a shift in colour palette from lighter, more vibrant colours at the beginning (especially with the Gothic Revival), through richer and darker colours in the middle years, to drab, muddy, gloomy versions towards the end. This latter period is often referred to as the “brown decades” because of the widespread use of deep browns, greens, dark mauves and olives. Stains made of shellacs and varnishes coloured with powder and spirit dyes were used to imitate the look of the more expensive dark woods, contributing to the general feeling of sombreness. Paint effects like marbling, graining, stippling, and many other methods of fakery were used on walls, woodwork, and furniture.

Window drapery was also a significant feature of the Victorian interior. The drapes were often of white muslin during the spring and summer and changed to sumptuous fabrics such as velvet, brocade and silk in winter, and folded and held back with ropes or scroll shaped fitments embellished with tassels, ribbons and festoons. Scrolled, scalloped or gilded valances adorned the tops and were commonly made of velvet or lace. Amongst all the sofas, chairs, footstools and tables, the largest item was the upholstered sofa, and they were typically in deep buttoned medallion and serpentine-backed Queen Anne, or Sheraton style. Nowhere else in the house did the fashion for uninhibited ornamentation and deep, rich fabrics and colour schemes find better expression than the drawing room and the room used for receiving and entertaining visitors. The intention was to create a room which was ostentatious enough to be noticed and comfortable for the guests to delight in the lavish indulgence of Victorian hospitality.

Next: Part 5 - The 20th Century

FROM: Hamlin, A.D.F. History of Architecture, 1908 ;   Pile, John. A History of Interior Design (2005) ;        Godley’s Lady Book, Vol 45 (July 1952): Philidelphia, Clifton Waller Barret Collection, University of Virginia:   Tallis’s History and Description of the Crystal Palace and the Exhibition of the World’s Industry in 1851, John Tallis & Co., 1852, from The Great Exhibition of 1851, Jeffrey A. Auerbach (1999):   ;   http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~city19c/vicity/crystal1.html ;http://royalandco.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/crystal_palace_-_queen_victoria_opens_the_great_exhibition.jpg