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0:04
I'm Calder Loth, architectural historian, and I'm pleased to welcome you to part three of our four-part educational series on classical architecture.
0:27
[
0:57
Music] This third session is devoted to architectural motifs and details. Like the chords and phrases in musical composition, these are the embellishments that give a building individuality and expression. The subject is an extensive one. We'll cover a selection of items both prevalent and particularly interesting. Nearly all the motifs and details that we will look at can be traced to specific ancient sources, which will be explained.
1:29
I will also show their uses in more recent works. These motifs and details continue to be design resources for today, and should be regarded as the tools of the trade for any architect working in the classical tradition.
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We'll start this session with a pop quiz.
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What does the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg have in common with the United States Capitol? Well, they're both great classical palaces, one for an autocrat, a czar, the other, a palace of the people, but they share a specific motif.
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To find out, we need to go to a wing of the Winter Palace. The section originally called the New Hermitage Museum.
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It was designed by Leo van Klenze to house Nicholas the First's art collection, and it opened in 1851.
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The New Hermitage has an unusual porch. It incorporates huge granite sculptures of strong men holding up the roof. These figures are called Atlantes.
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Atlantes is the plural of Atlas. In mythology, Atlas was a Titan who got in a fight with Zeus. He lost the fight, and was condemned by Zeus to hold up the cosmos forever.
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We see a representation of Atlas holding up the cosmos in an art deco sculpture in Rockefeller Center. Though interesting, Atlantes are very rare in America, and they aren't the answer to the quiz. For the quiz, we need to focus on the entablature that the Atlantes are supporting.
3:12
We see a plain architrave, and we see a frieze with wreaths in it. But look at the taenia,
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the band between the frieze and the architrave. Note that under the taenia is a continuous row of what appear to be dentals, but they also could be read as flattened guttae. Well, let's now go to the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
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What do we see? Very similar details in the entablature, a frieze with wreathes in it, and a taenia with what appear to be either dentals or guttae underneath it.
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If we look closely, we can see that they actually are guttae,
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so that's the answer to the quiz. Both buildings share similar versions of this unusual entablature. So what's going on? What's behind this architectural coincidence? To find out, we need to return to Stuart and Revett's Antiquities of Athens.
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We see this view of the Acropolis that we saw in the previous session,
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and we see, built into the side of the Acropolis, the façade of a small monument that we identified as the Choragic Monument of Thrasyllus in the previous session. Unfortunately, the monument was completely destroyed in a later war. Only a small cave exists where the monument originally stood. However, enough of the monument was intact in the 18th century for Stuart and Revett to make a restoration drawing of it. We also saw this image in the previous session,
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showing its central pier and parapet with steps in its middle,
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but let's look closely at its entablature. We see a plain architrave, and we see a frieze with wreathes in it,
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and we see a taenia with a row of cylindrical guttae under it.
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So what should we call this unusual detail? Well, a taenia with continuous guttae.
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This entablature is unique to the Choragic Monument of Thrasyllus, and it has inspired many adaptations, including those we see on the New Hermitage and in the United States Capitol.
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Well, let's look at some other applications of this Thrasyllus entablature to see how it adds individuality to a building.
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In this example, we have the taenia with continuous guttae with overlapping wreathes in the frieze. If this looks familiar, it is, of course, the Lincoln Memorial.
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The historic arsenal in New Orleans is modeled after the Thrasyllus Monument with its continuous guttae,
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but with a pair of piers instead of the one central pier of the original. In Potsdam, Germany, the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel used a version of the Thrasyllus entablature in the Charlottenhof Palace, but with widely-spaced wreathes and guttae.
6:30
The entablature of a former bank building in Charleston, South Carolina, more faithfully follows the Thrasyllus model. Its architect, Carl Reichardt, was a pupil of Schinkel and added high style Greek Revival designs to Charleston. Trinity College in Dublin has a building also inspired by the Thrasyllus Monument, but with much smaller wreathes and fatter, more tapered guttae.
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The taenia with continuous guttae was favored for Greek Revival entrance porches on both sides of the Atlantic. We see it used with a plain frieze on porches in both Richmond and London.
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This new infill town house on Richmond's Monument Avenue uses dentals rather than guttae attached to the taenia, and also incorporates the Thrasyllus Monument's parapet and its center steps.
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The house is a demonstration that ancient Greek motifs can give individual distinction and visual interest to contemporary works. These motifs are useful design resources for today.
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Now, the taenia with continuous guttae has been worked into the entrance of this Greenwich Village townhouse in New York,
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but let's focus our attention on the motif just above it.
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We have the profile of a ramped parapet, with what's described as horns or ears projecting at either end.
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The motif was a popular one for Greek Revival architects and designers. Asher Benjamin showed how it could embellish a doorway or a mantle. The Philadelphia architect Owen Biddle incorporated it in a window design published in his pattern book, The Young Carpenter's Assistant.
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Mid-19th century cabinet makers made use of the motif in furniture designs. We see it topping a wardrobe and a mirror frame.
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So what's behind this particular motif? Where does it come from?
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Well, we wonder whether these architects and designers were aware that the motif is a symbol of death. The form was a standard treatment for the lids of Greek and Roman cinerary boxes. That is, boxes for cremated remains,
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as well as for sarcophagus lids.
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The architect Robert Mills apparently was aware of its funereal symbolism. He used the motif for the column capitals in Monumental Church, a church built to memorialize 72 people who perished in a theater fire on the site. Their ashes are interred in the crypt. This is a subtle and imaginative use of ancient symbols. Knowing its meaning now, it seems odd to find the motif on a mantle in a mid-19th century school for deaf and blind children. Nevertheless,
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it is a visually effective design and makes for a good conversation piece, so why not use it on a new mantle? This one was installed in a private home just recently.
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We'll turn now to our next motif, the Diocletian window.
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We find it high up in the pediment of Boston's Faneuil Hall. Let's look closer. We see in the center of the pediment, a lunette, or half round, circular window with two thick vertical mullions.
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Why do we call this a Diocletian window?
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Before I explain, it might be interesting to point out how Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the building's upper level, gave visual prominence to the window by looping a broad architrave over it. A bit of architectural dexterity. Well, so why Diocletian? The name derives from the sprawling bath complex developed in the late Roman empire by the emperor Diocletian. We saw the Baths' Composite capitals in the first session.
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The Baths of Diocletian exterior is dominated by huge half round windows, each having two massive vertical mullions. They are our Diocletian windows. The Baths gave the name to the form.
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The building was originally faced with marble veneer and ornamentation. All but a few fragments have been pilfered over the years, leaving the brick core exposed. Even so, the Diocletian window has become a favorite motif from the Renaissance to the present.
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Andrea Palladio installed a large Diocletian window on the rear elevation of his Villa Malcontenta. He pumped up its prominence by projecting it into the pediment. A bit of Mannerism on his part. Robert Mills inserted a Diocletian window in the side elevation of the county records building in downtown Charleston. The building is commonly known as the Fireproof Building, since it was one of the country's earliest fire-resistant structures.
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We see the Diocletian window in Washington's Museum of Natural History on the Mall, as it might've looked on an ancient Roman building, executed in stone in monumental scale and set above a Corinthian colonnade.
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The 1924 Memorial Gymnasium at the University of Virginia was directly inspired by the Baths of Diocletian. Each of its huge windows is topped by a peaked brick gable, as on the Baths. Architect Allan Greenberg made a modern use of the Diocletian window in the façade of his 1997 Brooks Brothers store on Rodeo Drive in California's Beverly Hills.
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But Greenberg also worked into this design another ancient motif or form.
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If we look analytically at the composition, we see the Diocletian window as part of a large arched central bay, flanked by narrow bays framed by columns. These are the essential ingredients of an ancient triumphal arch.
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Rome's Arch of Constantine is the exemplar of the form.
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The triumphal arch became a favorite motif for formal classical façades from
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the Renaissance on. Leon Battista Alberti was the first Renaissance architect to adapt the form for a major work. We see it boldly defining the façade of Sant'Andrea in Mantua.
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Here, Alberti topped the composition with a pediment rather than a tall parapet or attic.
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Most tourists in Rome are too busy throwing coins over their shoulders to notice that the Trevi Fountain's palatial backdrop is a striking version of the triumphal arch. The central feature designed by Nicola Salvi was added to the existing Palazzo Poli in 1762.
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The image of permanence and security conveyed by the triumphal arch made the form ideal for the façades of early 20th century banks. Though compact, the façade of the 1903 Valley National Bank in Staunton, Virginia effectively signals that your money is safe here. The arch is clearly defined in the center bay. The engaged columns set on tall pedestals echo the Arch of Constantine.
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Perhaps America's most ambitious rendition of the triumphal arch is the enormous entrance added to New York's Museum of Natural History. Designed by John Russell Pope, the addition is a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt. This scheme here has the essential ingredients of its ancient prototype: huge arched entrance,
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flanking columns topped by sculpted figures, and a prominent classical attic.
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Sometimes the arch is merely suggested in a façade.
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The triumphal arch is subtly referenced in the center section of the 1909 Wisser Hall, the former library of Virginia's Fort Monroe military base.
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We have a Diocletian window defining the arch, and flanking more narrow bays framed by pilasters instead of columns, but we see the triumphal arch embedded in the design.
15:51
We'll now jump to another familiar classical form: balusters. A handsome balustraded balcony graces the Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. And we can almost picture Caesar Augustus appearing here to receive the accolades of an adoring crowd. Well, not quite. The Romans didn't have balusters. They are a Renaissance invention. The ancient Romans had quite different railings. As seen in this conjectural image of an ancient Roman bath, Roman railings consisted of crisscross patterns,
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and could be made of wood, metal, or stone. We also see the pattern being used to fill the large central window. We call this pattern Roman lattice.
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Another term for Roman lattice is transenna.
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Transenna is the Latin word for a net for catching birds, which the pattern resembles. A fragment of authentic ancient Roman transenna in marble is displayed in Rome's church of Santa Maria in Trastevere.
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Roman lattice fills window openings in the early Christian Church of San Giorgio in Velabro in Rome.
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Now the openings could be closed in with either mica, or primitive glass, or thin translucent sheets of alabaster, or left open for ventilation.
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A fine example of a marble Roman lattice railing lines the gallery in Columbia University's Low Library, a work by McKim, Mead & White.
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Also notice here the wreaths from the Choragic Monument of Thrasyllus,
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and the gilded capitals employing the Ionic of the Erechtheion.
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It's okay to mix motifs from ancient sources, if done in an informed and compatible manner. A tour de force use of Roman lattice is this marble curving staircase railing. It graces the late 19th century National Library of Greece in Athens. Athens has numerous fine late Greek Revival works such as this.
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Roman lattice in metal, preferably bronze, is the archeologically correct way to fill a Diocletian window, as seen on the Metropolitan Museum,
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and a new Roman lattice railing in bronze has been added for security to the museum's porch decks.
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The builder of this early 20th century house got carried away with Roman lattice, and we even find it on carriage house doors. Now the carpenter didn't just make up this design. It's a traditional pattern with ancient precedent.
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And finally, Roman lattice provides an excellent decorative treatment for a new parking garage, the design of which was inspired by Roman baths. This demonstrates that the classical vocabulary can make even a parking garage into an urban architectural amenity,
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not just a functional necessity.
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Let's look again at balusters. Where do they come from?
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One of the earliest appearances of balusters is the railing on Donato Bramante's tiny shrine chapel located within a courtyard on Rome's Janiculum Hill. The chapel, dating from 1502, is known as the Tempietto, and it's built on the traditional site of St. Peter's crucifixion.
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The balustrade encircles the drum of the dome.
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If we look closely, we can see that the balusters have two bulbous parts, one atop the other in vertical symmetry.
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These are called double balusters. It's thought that the form is derived from ancient Roman
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candlesticks, as depicted in Antoine Desgodetz's illustration of the frieze on Rome's Temple of Fortuna Virilis.
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Double balusters proved to be very popular. In this country, we frequently see them on early 20th century buildings and structures.
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Typical are the railings on Washington's Memorial Bridge, by McKim, Mead & White.
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Or on an early 20th century mansion in Washington, D.C., now the Mexican Embassy.
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We sometimes find them used on stair railings in early colonial houses. This example dates from 1720. Well, we certainly can't say that the builder here was aware of the Tempietto or Roman candlesticks, but they are the ancestors of the form used here.
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Even on my own front porch of my own house, there is a version of double balusters with some extra turnings. The form is very common.
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Most of us are probably more familiar with what's defined as single balusters.
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A single baluster is a baluster with just one swollen section, or belly. An early example of the single baluster is found in the railing of this 17th century bridge in Vicenza, Italy.
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This form is also based on Roman candlesticks, as depicted in this Piranesi engraving of ancient artifacts.
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Now, the word baluster comes from balaustium, which is the ancient word for the bud of the pomegranate tree. Note the baluster shape of the bud.
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Balustrades using single balusters are everywhere. A fine one is on the Frick Collection Museum on New York's Fifth Avenue.
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Note that the proper way to start off A balustrade is with a half baluster applied to a pier or a block. Starting the run without a half baluster can give the balustrade a weak appearance.
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Palladio used both single and double balusters on the Palazzo del Capitaniato.
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This gives the façade a subtle hierarchy. The single baluster is visually heavier, so it goes below the double baluster.
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We have more attenuated balusters on this 20th century wall on a college campus.
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And the designer of this house is hedging his bets. He couldn't decide whether to go ancient or Renaissance, so he does both. Elongated single balusters for the lower railing, and Roman lattice for above.
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Versions of single balusters are common in American houses, especially in stair railings. Typical is this design from an 18th century English pattern book by William Pain, a book widely used by American builders in the late 18th century. We call these vase and column balusters. We have a small vase or baluster topped by a slender column. A good example of vase and column balusters is seen in a wing of Philadelphia's Independence Hall.
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Let's now return briefly to the Tempietto.
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The Tempietto is significant, not just for its balustrade, but for its general form. The form consists of its lower section surrounded by a colonnade. Above the colonnade, the balustrade surrounds the tall base, or drum, of the dome. The dome is top was an ornamental cupola.
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The form was Bramante's innovation. It has no ancient precedent.
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Palladio thought so highly of Bramante's Tempietto that he included it among his restoration drawings of ancient Roman temples in book four of his four books on architecture. He stated the following: quote, "Since Bramante was the first to make known that good and beautiful architecture, which had been hidden from the time of the ancients until now, I thought it reasonable that his work should be included among the ancients." Unquote. Quite an honor.
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The Tempietto became the model for scores of famous monumental domes around the world. Examples have ranged from St. Paul's Cathedral in London, to St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia. Others include the Panthéon in Paris and some 15 state capitols, California being typical.
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But not forgetting our own U.S. Capitol dome, our national symbol.
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We now shift to a very ubiquitous architectural motif, one that most have never heard its name, but it's all around us. It's called the aedicule.
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In ancient Roman houses, it was customary to have a small shrine built into the wall of a main room. The shrine housed the image of the guardian household god called the Lares, represented either by a painting or a small sculpted figure. As you can see in this picture, a typical shrine had a frame consisting of a pediment supported either on small columns or pilasters.
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This frame is called an aedicule.
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The Latin word for a building is aedis. The diminutive form of aedis is aedicule, or little building. The shrine frame resembled a little building, an aedicule.
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The example shown here is a typical simple aedicule, but they could be quite grand, especially when used in temples. Some of the finest and best-preserved ancient aedicules are found in the Pantheon, which has eight aedicules spaced around the interior. Here, the aedicules are crafted in the finest marbles.
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Now originally, they would have housed statues of Roman deities, such as Mars or Jupiter. Since the Pantheon is now a church, each aedicule has a statue of a Christian saint.
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Although originally a pagan form, the aedicule was adopted by Christians for altarpieces. The tradition became particularly strong with Roman Catholics, from the Renaissance to the present.
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An impressive example is the 19th century Church of the Madeleine in Paris. Above the altar is a richly-detailed aedicule, worthy of a Roman temple, but it frames a statue of the Virgin with the infant Christ.
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Renaissance architects also applied the aedicule form to windows and doors.
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Rome's famous Palazzo Farnese has fully-developed aedicules for its second level windows, and a variation of the form for upper level windows. These third level aedicule windows, as well as the huge cornice, were designed by Michelangelo. During the 18th century, the aedicule form became a particularly favorite form for doorways. The Doric aedicule doorway shown here is from a 1758 English pattern book, The British Architect by Abraham Swan.
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This was the first pattern book to be republished in America, and was widely used by colonial builders.
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The aedicule doorway was a vehicle for providing a celebratory transition from the exterior to the interior of a house, and for impressing, if not celebrating, one's visitors. One of our most beautiful 18th century aedicule doorways is on the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, Maryland, designed and built by William Buckland. Buckland owned a copy of Swan's book and adapted the doorway from Swan's designs seen on the left. However, he enriched his composition with carved floral swags in the
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spandrels of the arch.
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Shown here are two 20th century American Georgian Revival doorways reflecting the influence of Swan's designs.
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Both employ Scamozzi Ionic capitals in a pulvinated frieze. The doorway on the left is a definite reference to the Hammond-Harwood House doorway. The frieze on the right example is somewhat squeezed, in an attempt to reflect the provincial colonial character instead of a more academic English one.
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The aedicule doorway is still a standard treatment for traditional style homes.
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Pre-assembled doorways can be purchased from many woodworking companies,
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though they don't always follow the most exacting classical standards. With an awareness of the aedicule form, one can begin to notice it in some surprising places, even on an entrance to Alcatraz prison. We might wonder whether this doorway offered the inmates any comfort or reassurance. The aedicule motif was also worked into many chimneypiece designs, especially 18th century ones, as we see in this pattern book illustration. Here it is combined with a mantle and fireplace, or hearth.
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Now the Latin word for hearth is focus. The hearth was traditionally the focus, or heart, of the house.
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The hearth provided heat for warmth and cooking, and was a gathering place for the family and guests. And the aedicule, as we have noted, was the frame for an image of the household god. Therefore, we could say it was the soul of the house. So this chimneypiece design combines into one composition the heart and soul of the house. We see an actual chimneypiece of this type in this historic photo of a Charleston interior.
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Oftentimes we treat a chimneypiece as if it were an altar. Here it's been decorated with candelabra and fine vases. Instead of an image of a god above the mantle, we have a portrait of an ancestor, symbolically offering a blessing on the family and the home.
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And it may be safe to say that a room without a fireplace lacks focus, and has no heart and certainly no soul.
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I now want to take another look at the Palazzo Farnese façade.
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Note in the middle level that the aedicule windows have alternating triangular and segmental pediments. Why? Well, for no other reason than to avoid monotony.
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The alternating pediment shapes move the eye along and give rhythm and cadence to the façade. You will note that the third level does not do this. The pediments are all the same. I think Michelangelo was correct here. Two tiers of alternating pediments would have made the façade too visually busy. The third level acts as a counter to the second level.
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Alternating pediments are common practice for high style classical buildings.
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Palladio employed them on the upper level of his striking Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza James Gibbs, a leading Anglo Palladian architect, used them to add a tempo to his 1730 Senate House at Cambridge University. In this country, the colonial architect Peter Harrison applied them to the Brick Market in Newport, Rhode Island. Try picturing this building, having all the same pediments. It would not be as lively and interesting.
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Of course, our most famous example of alternating pediments is the White House, an outstanding example of Anglo Palladianism.
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But we see it can even work on small scale with only three bays in this design by the architect Inigo Jones.
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But we shouldn't be misled into thinking that alternating pediments was something concocted in the Renaissance. The practice can be traced to ancient sources. We see it used in the ruin of the Temple of Augustus in Pompeii dating from the 1st century AD. This is just the temple's brick core. Its architectural embellishments were destroyed during the eruption of Vesuvius.
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A more intact ancient version of alternating pediments is seen in the so-called Temple of Diana in Nîmes, France, probably built in the 2nd century AD as a library.
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Again, using alternating triangular and segmental pediments was a means for avoiding visual monotony.
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Look what happens when the pediments are all the same on the otherwise handsome Leuchtenberg Palace in Munich.
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Such repetition is not as effective.
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I want now to look again at modillions, and then focus on a specific type of modillion that sometimes can be useful.
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We remember scrolled modillions from the first session.
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Now, modillions don't have to be scrolled, as we see in this 18th century Williamsburg house. The modillions are plain with just flat soffits, but these are also based on a pattern book source.
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Note in the fine print it says, quote: "A third variety of the Tuscan capital and entablature from the ancients." Classical modillions symbolically reference ancient wooden construction. Modillions in masonry classical architecture are only decorative. They serve no structural function.
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The wooden ones on the Williamsburg house are just nailed on. So you might say we went from wood to stone and back to wood.
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I want now to draw your attention to a special type of modillion.
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For that, we have to go back to this colonial house, Gunston Hall, home of George Mason, author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the basis of our Bill of Rights. Gunston's parlor cornice has somewhat stumpy modillions.
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They are called block modillions.
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They are formed from a nearly square block cut in half with an S-curve called a cyma recta curve. A cyma recta profile has its S curve-start
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horizontally and end horizontally.
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Block modillions are also traced to ancient sources. A famous example of their use is on the secondary cornices of the Pantheon in Rome.
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Palladio recorded the Pantheon's block modillions in his Quattro Libri, or Four Books of Architecture, and thus popularized the form. Inigo Jones made early use of the block modillion in England, with the cornices on the Queen's Chapel in London, completed in 1625.
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In colonial Virginia, builders applied block modillions to the cornices of the Public Records Office in Williamsburg, built around 1748. Not to be outdone by the Virginians, Harvard Hall, the signature building of Harvard University,
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sports stone block modillions in its cornice.
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Finally, block modillions have been used effectively in more recent times, as we see on this Georgian Revival house.
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So remember the block modillion when you need something more understated than a standard modillion cornice.
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A variation of the block modillion is the cyma reversa block modillion.
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A cyma reversa curve is when the S-curve starts vertically and ends vertically. A famous ancient use of cyma reversa block modillions defines the uppermost cornice of Rome's Colosseum.
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The cyma reversa block modillion has a tough, more muscular character than the cyma recta block modillion, which may account for its use on a building such as the Colosseum.
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And perhaps that's why it appealed to George Washington, who had it applied to the cornices of Mount Vernon.
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The cyma reversa's toughness is strikingly evident in the cornices of the Reichstag, the German parliament house in Berlin. They lend the building a fortress-like character.
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Let's now take another look at the Roman Corinthian order, which we discussed in session one. More specifically, we will focus on the Corinthian cornice's scrolled modillion, here richly embellished with acanthus leaves and other ornaments.
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It was during the 18th century that the modillion's form and ornaments became widely adapted for stair brackets at the end of steps.
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These brackets were popularized through the numerous architectural pattern books such as William Pain's Carpenter's and Joiner's Repository, another of Pain's pattern books much used in America.
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A typical bracket with this form and detailing is found on the Drayton Hall stair. Frequently, the stair brackets had only the profile of the Corinthian modillion.
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These types of stair brackets, both ornamented and plain, remain very popular for traditional-style houses today. They are available in a variety of styles from building supply companies.
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Let's now see how the Corinthian modillion was adapted to shape another architectural motif.
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The Romans took the modillion form and turned it vertically to use as keystones for prominent arches.
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A famous example is the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, which we saw in session one in connection with the Composite order.
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Unfortunately, early Christian iconoclasts knocked the head off the deity fronting the Arch's keystone.
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A more recent use of the scroll keystone is seen on the Washington Arch in New York's Greenwich Village. Here, it is patriotically topped with an American eagle.
40:21
The vertical scroll motif was also used in ancient times as supports for doorways and window cornices. When used thusly, they're called consoles.
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This is Palladio's illustration of the consoles that he conjectured were on the doorway of Rome's Temple of Fortuna Virilis. What may be the earliest surviving example of a console is found on the north doorway of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis, dating from the 5th century BC. Now, this doorway was not recorded by Stewart and Revett, since the north portico was walled up in the 18th century, making the doorway inaccessible.
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Consoles became a popular motif during the Renaissance. Palladio incorporated consoles on each of the doorways of the Villa Rotonda, adding an acanthus leaf below the bottom scroll for accent.
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The word console derives from the Latin word consolor. It's where we get the term console. If you console someone, you give them emotional support. A console on a building provides architectural support.
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Consoles are everywhere.
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We see similar consoles on the Metropolitan Club in New York, by McKim, Mead & White.
41:51
I regularly pass consoles on a synagogue a few blocks from my home.
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Bold consoles support a richly decorated broken segmental pediment, complete with an armorial device, on this Georgian Revival townhouse. Although it looks decidedly English, this is on an American house.
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Our discussion of consoles leads us to another iteration of the form. For that, we need to refer once again to Giacomo Vignola and his treatise.
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Vignola was a contemporary of Palladio. As we have heard, Vignola's treatise on The Five Orders of Architecture became a primary textbook on how to compose the orders, from the day it was printed on into the 20th century.
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Although the book is primarily a primer on drawing the orders, in the back of the book Vignola presents a handful of details of his own design. Among them is this design for a cornice, or actually, an entablature.
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At its top is a standard Corinthian cornice with the usual scrolled modillions. Beneath each modillion, Vignola has inserted an elongated vertical scroll modillion, a form of console.
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This increases the overall height of the entablature by deepening the frieze. On the same page, Vignola presents the rationale of the design by stating, quote: "I have used this cornice successfully in my work on the upper parts of façades. Although it is my invention, I do not find it inappropriate to place it at the end of this work for those who want to use it."
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What Vignola is saying is that this design is his own creation. It has no precedent in antiquity. He's also saying that it can be used effectively on very tall façades where a standard entablature would be too weak.
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So let's look at how Vignola applied this design to one of his own works.
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This is Vignola's Villa Farnese up in the mountains from Rome. A huge building with many levels. The top entablature has to carry the whole building. If Vignola had used a conventional Corinthian entablature at top, it could only properly address the order of the upper half of the building, and thus be too skimpy for the whole building.
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So Vignola crowns the Villa with his own design, a taller entablature adequately scaled for the whole building.
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Vignola's entablature soon caught hold throughout Italy. Many palazzos started supporting versions of his design, such as Rome's Palazzo Altieri. In this country, we call the form the bracketed cornice. Bracketed
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cornices became a defining feature of the American Italianate style of the mid and late 19th century.
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Bold wooden brackets define this Italianate house.
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Bracketed cornices became a defining feature of façades of numerous American Italianate commercial buildings. These buildings were made to resemble Italian Renaissance palaces, and often were crafted in cast iron.
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Brackets in a variety of forms and shapes also became a defining feature of the
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brownstones, the Italianate townhouses identified with New York City.
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In the early 20th century, The Italianate style morphed into the more scholarly American Renaissance mode. The design of this YWCA was also inspired by Renaissance palaces, complete with a more articulate Vignola entablature.
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The mid-19th century invention of the steam powered bandsaw made possible the production of wooden Italianate brackets in infinite variety. They were mass produced by woodworking companies throughout America. We have some very flamboyant wooden brackets here.
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In fact, one could purchase a fully-assembled bracketed cornice and fasten it to a building and make an instant palazzo. And
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even a humble worker's house could be spiced up with wooden Italianate embellishment and make a mini-palazzo. So
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again, we have a demonstration of a publication's power to influence architectural design. All of the examples shown here, and thousands of others, can ultimately trace their appearance to one illustration in a 16th century treatise. Vignola's invention.
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Even in the 21st century, a bracketed cornice could add vitality to a building. A confident use of brackets sets off this high-end Moscow apartment house. Now Dvoryanskoye Gnezdo is translated as 'nest of gentry folk'.
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We will finish this session with one more architectural feature: rustication.
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Renaissance buildings, such as Palladio's Palazzo Thiene, shown here, are often made to appear as if they are constructed of large blocks of stone,
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even though they might be just a veneer over a brick core. We call this treatment rustication--giving the building an air of rugged authority, if not intimidation.
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And where did this practice come from? Like most of the motifs and treatments we've looked at, rustication can be traced to ancient sources.
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We see rustication on the ground level arches of the ancient Temple of Claudius in Rome.
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The arches are consciously treated with rough face stone blocks to give them the appearance of extra strength. This is muscular architecture.
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Another ancient example is the Porta Maggiore, one of the gates in Rome's surrounding walls.
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Both its arches and its aedicules are rusticated to express the gate's toughness and structural might.
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The tall attic or upper portion of the gate served two levels of aqueducts carrying heavy volumes of water into the city, thus requiring the gate to be structurally extra strong and to look strong. As we might expect, Renaissance architects picked up on the use of rustication, making it very prevalent in the works of the period.
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So we encounter an arresting, if not curious, use of rustication in Giulio Romano's Palazzo del Te in Mantua. Instead of deep-cut V joints between the blocks, the blocks here are wide and flat, making the blocks appear to float in the walls. But Giulio Romano was a Mannerist architect. He wants to tease us. The drop triglyphs are done on purpose to tease. The pediment cornices not meeting at the apex are teases as well. And note the shoving of brick keystones in a pediment too small for it,
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suggesting that they are what's preventing the pediment cornices from being properly joined. Okay, back to the Palazzo Thiene. Palladio published four illustrations of its design, including this one showing the rustication patterns of the façade. Again, looking at how the Palazzo is built, we see that it closely follows the drawing. Its ground floor and ground floor windows are expressed in rustication at its toughest.
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Rustication became a popular treatment for walls and openings in the 18th century, especially in England, but it's sometimes difficult to determine exactly what it's made of. The rustication on the ground floor of this 18th century London house is actually stucco over brick.
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The grand English country house Holkham Hall, a fine example of Anglo Palladianism, has a proper rusticated ground floor. But if we look closely, we see the house is actually an entirely brick structure, with the ground floor bricks cleverly laid to resemble rustication, complete with deep V joints.
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The foremost 18th century example of rustication in America is of course Mount Vernon,
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but here the rustication is wooden boards cut to resemble blocks of stone. To make it look more like stone, fine sand was blown into the wet paint to give the surfaces of the blocks a stone-like texture. Well, I need to return one more time to the Palazzo Thiene, this time to look at it up close. We
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see just the top of the ground floor, which is composed of heavy rough faced blocks using the typical deep V joints. The upper floor is treated with smooth faced ashlar with thin joints. A signature feature of the Palazzo is the treatment of the window frames. They are basically an aedicule composition, but its columns are interrupted with large stone blocks, suggesting that they are left unfinished on purpose. And note in the lintel the thick assemblage of keystones pushing outward.
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This type of rusticated surround also acquired great popularity in 18th century England. The architect James Gibbs published numerous versions of rusticated surrounds, particularly for doorways as shown in his highly popular pattern book, A Book of Architecture of 1728. These rusticated openings became so closely associated with Gibbs that to this day they are still referred to in Britain as Gibbs doorways or windows.
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As we see in this print of one of Gibbs's most famous works, St. Martin in the Fields, a church located in the heart of London, that Gibbs rarely missed an opportunity to use rustication. We'll talk more about this church in the next session, but I want to look at the church's Gibbs doorway on the left.
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This is the classic type, with the blocks of rustication overlapping the architrave's surround. Another version of a Gibbs doorway is seen on this house in York, England.
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It closely follows one of Gibbs's designs. A
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splendid Gibbs doorway celebrates the entrances to St. Paul's Chapel in New York City, the oldest building in Manhattan.
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The cluster of keystones hangs over the door with authority.
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Robert Mills showed the doorways in his ink rendering of St. Paul's, which he made as a gift to Thomas Jefferson. The drawing is hanging in Monticello today.
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Virginia has fine Gibbs doorways in the 1757 Aquia Church, and rusticated quoins as well.
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It's difficult to say whether the church's builder was referring to Gibbs's book for the design rather than another pattern book of the period, since many of the authors of this period freely copied from Gibbs. More than likely, the builder was referring to William Salmon's pattern book, Palladio Londinensis,
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a much less expensive publication with a rusticated door scheme that's a very close match to the Aquia doorway.
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Rustication designs can be open to improvisation, and can sometimes get pretty aggressive.
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We see a macho example in Edinburgh, Scotland. This is a lesson on how to make a small door important.
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I will close with three examples of American Georgian Revival rustication.
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Architects in the first half of the 20th century were particularly informed in classical and traditional design, and produced innumerable finely crafted and finally detailed works, both domestic and institutional, across the country. The majority of these buildings reflected the Anglophile sentiments of many Americans at the time. They drew inspiration from both English and colonial American precedents. These work serve as fine models for Neo-Traditional designs today.
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The first example seen here is a rusticated entrance on the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,
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a work in the tradition of James Gibbs. The somewhat tough character of the doorway has a slight art deco quality--a suitable sturdy statement for an institutional structure. The second example is an entrance on an asymmetrical façade of a Georgian Revival house. Instead of a standard Gibbs treatment, the doorway employs rusticated pilasters,
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and note the rusticated brick quoins.
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The third example is a two story rusticated frontispiece with a Gibbs type surround for the second floor window.
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Gibbs style rustication is also employed for the entrance surround, but is subtly integrated with the adjacent blocks.
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All of this is to illustrate the variety of imaginative uses of this ancient masonry application. Rustication, as we have seen, can be executed in stone, brick, cast stone, stucco, and even wood. It's an important design resource that can add dignity and celebration to an entrance or to windows or a whole façade. So to close: in this session, we examined a variety of commonly-seen motifs and details that defined many works of classical design, both ancient and modern.
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I hope an awareness of these motifs and details will engender a more informed appreciation of the classical works you encounter, and serve as inspiration for enhancing new works in the classical tradition. Thank you for joining us in part three of this four part series. I'm Calder Loth, and I will see you for the next session, where we will cover several more motifs, along with some important design principles.
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