Palladio's Influence in America

Architectural History, 2015

The enduring concept of the orders was fundamental to the perpetuation of the classical tradition, and it is central to much architectural theory. One of the most resoundingly influential of its elucidations was published in 1570 by Andrea Palladio (1508–80) in the opening book of his architectural treatise, the Quattro libri dell'architettura (Four Books of Architecture). There, as in other theoretical works from around this period and later, the five orders — Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite — are presented as a hierarchy of purportedly ideal exemplars; and, in this particular case, their universal ‘principles’ (precetti) are conveyed through two sets of illustrations, one depicting colonnades (Fig. 1) and the other arcades (Fig. 2), together with many further plates showing various individual details. In each of the main illustrations, the specimen is given its own designated proportions of column-diameter to column-height, ranging from 1:7 for Tuscan to 1:10 fo...

5th International Scientific Research Congress (IBAD - 2020) , 2020

Trade has been one of the main factors affecting political relations and cultural exchange between countries in every period of history, especially in the periods when communication technologies have not developed as much as today. Cultural exchange, which has influenced many areas from art to technology, has also affected architecture. Within the scope of this study, aims to examine the reflections of political relations, that are developed for the protection of commercial interests, on cultural exchange in the context of architectural structures of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice, which are generally divided into two parts as east-west in histography although sharing the same Mediterranean geography, are discussed. However, the study is limited to the 16th century, during the relations between these two important political powers lived their most influential periods, and the reflections are examined through the structures of the important architects of that period, Mimar Sinan and Andrea Palladio. In the first part of the study, the relationship between Venetian bailo Marc 'Antonio Barbaro and Grand Vizier Sokullu Mehmed Pasha, which is believed to form an invisible bridge between the two architects, is examined based on the literature on the subject. In the other phase of the study, a timeline has been created shows the chronological order of the architects’ prominent works and was divided into two according to the years he was in Constantinople to see whether Barbaro affected these works. The structures designed by these architects were compared in terms of plan typology, structural solutions, and facade characteristics according to the distinction before and after Barbaro. At the end of the study was concluded that the compared works of these two important architects, who had not seen each other's buildings personally, were separated from the previous ones in line with distinct features and these features were some aspects that resemble the style of the other architect. As a result, this supports the argument that Barbaro, who has taken on a political role to balance the two political forces, also has an important place in intercultural exchange.

Czasopismo Techniczne. Architektura, 2016

The academic journey to Italy in 2014 had the merits of the author being able to get to know in person the Italian monuments of Antiquity, Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and to gather original documentation for academic and teaching purposes. There were many themes in the journey that were worth mentioning in the article, but the chosen ones concern the specificity of the architecture of Italian Renaissance period, especially the works of two outstanding representatives: Filippo Brunelleschi and Andrea Palladio. Because of the author's individual research preferences (history of architecture and architectural research) the choice of works is subjective, but aims at full depiction of the variety of presented themes and the possibility of utilizing them in the didactic process.

In his last published article (“A Black Box”), Reyner Banham argued that architecture owed fifteenth-century Tuscany a debt for fostering a concept, disegno, against which it was long measured as a body of knowledge. Architects from Tuscany and elsewhere regarded Rome as a live lesson in their art. Italy’s cities have long been held as important for the evolution of architectural ideas elsewhere, its architects and architecture crucial points of reference for the disciplinary knowledge of modern architecture. Italian footprints can be found across histories of twentieth-century architectural culture, just as many parts of the world have found it important to “return” to Italy for instruction. The longue durée of Beaux-arts academicism’s veneration of Rome, the Venice School’s critical histories, and modernist and postmodern interest in Baroque space, Renaissance proportion, Mannerist ambiguity and postmodern referentiality are only a few examples of many recurrent sites, architects, authors, and frameworks observed or read into Italian architecture, cities and critical discourse that occupy prominent positions in the twentieth century’s historiography of architecture. The conflicted message of Le Corbusier’s “The Lesson of Rome” (in Vers une architecture) encapsulates Italy’s (and history’s) complex place in modern architectural culture as both problematic foil and powerful inspiration: to understand twentieth-century architecture, one must know Italy. And yet, to study Italy’s pervasive impact on contemporary architecture inevitably invokes a contentious privilege. In the age of “global” architectural history and the corrective moves needed to read architecture into those situations (geographical, economic, racial, or cultural) where it had been overlooked, Italy’s long-term prominence in the historiography of architecture and the artistic imagination demands reflection. How to embrace the complexity of the Italian peninsula’s history while acknowledging the clear lessons its architecture offered architects elsewhere? To account both for the specificity of cultural and political contexts and the abstractions derived from them? Does the study of Italian architecture—in curricula, and through institutions—reinforce an idea of architecture and the historical authority of its values that cannot be sustained either in professional education or historical research? Does pursuit by twenty-first century scholars of a deeper, broader Italy enrich the historical and critical references of contemporary architecture, or foster a rift between scholarship and its uptake? Is there any way left to study the history of Italian architecture beyond Italy that promotes a more open disciplinary map?

2012

This thesis focuses on the three churches designed by the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio in Venice: San Francesco della Vigna, San Giorgio Maggiore, and Il Redentore. Separate chapters devoted to each of these buildings explore multiple issues, among them Palladio’s awareness of the city, its civic rituals, and architectural traditions; his sources of inspiration in the buildings of classical antiquity, especially ancient Roman baths and temple façades; his relationship to the architecture of the recent past, especially in Venice but also on the terraferma; and his ability to adapt his style to suit the requirements of private, public, and monastic patrons. The thesis also examines Palladio’s innovative approaches to some of the most pressing issues of Renaissance church design, most notably the question of centralized vs. longitudinal planning, and the problem of what sort of façade should be placed before a typical church, with its high central nave flanked by lower aisles ...

For many architects, who attribute to memory a fundamental role in their creative process, Rome and its multiple spatiality have been and continue to be extraordinary sources of inspiration. Its ruins, expression of the fragment and unfinished condition, have been used as a bare architecture, pluging in a new building, or as a layer on which build up the following one. Their building systems and urban role have attracted architects from different eras. Its Renaissance buildings show how architects have been able to adapt the principles of symmetry to the irregularity of the sites, generating exciting new solutions. Thereafter, the baroque architects change the relationships between architecture and urban space and create innovative devices for shape the light. This great repertory of space, intervention strategies, architectural themes that Rome offers, is used by many modern and contemporary architectes that, starting from their experience of those places, have studied them and reuse, reinterpreting them in their projects. Among them, the intervention aims to deal with two Italian architects: Alessandro Anselmi (1934-2013) and Francesco Venezia (1944). Both have selected from this extensive repertory buildings and places, that, captivated by their memory, could emerge later, providing strategies and meanings to their projects.

Architectural Design, 2009

Exhibition and catalogue review of 'Palladian Design: The Good, the Bad and the Unexpected' at The Architecture Gallery, RIBA, London (until 9 January 2016)

The first foreign academy in Rome was funded by the French in 1666 and permitted architects to come and study antique and Renaissance architecture. That time many artists and architects from other countries went independently, one of the most famous being J.W. Goethe, and at the same time architecture was represented by the German Weinbrenner. Other countries institutionalised gradually their academies, but even from Romania some architects such as Virginia Haret or Horia Maicu (Harry Goldstein) went independently to Rome. To the travels to Italy in the 20th century recently another institution dedicated to the Rome -home country exchange, the Max Planck Institute, dedicated a conference. When going back, the architects took with them influence of Italian architecture, more sensed in the 20th century when the international style was on its way. Life in the Academies is special, connected into associations, and different from some European tradition of university colleges, which exist at Italian traditional universities, and a life experience. In this contribution walk-scapes will be described starting from the well-known map of Nolli and the importance of drawing different kind of maps, such as those of image of the city or psycho-geography. Recent projects of Rome Academies fellows were dedicated to draw new kind of maps, building on tradition even from before Renaissance (Mappa mundi). Their digital transposition will be presented. For this, we adapt a concept developed to present now and then in maps, which we successfully tested for Lisbon, Bucharest and Köln.