Architectural Styles
Art Deco
• (1925-1940)
• Identifying Features:
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–
–
–
–
Smooth wall surface, often stucco
Smooth-faced stone and metal
Polychrome, often with vivid colors
Forms simplified and streamlined
Geometric designs including
zigzags, chevrons
– Towers and other vertical
projections, presenting a vertical
emphasis
• Machined and often
metallic construction
materials for
decorative features.
• These were the
buildings of the future:
sleek, geometric,
dramatic. embraced
the machine age.
Greek
• Original Structures:
– The first Greek structures were built very
primitive and basic
– The houses were mainly built with a
• circular shape
• oval shape
• apsidal shape
• rectangular shape
– mostly square, but some were oblong
– had the entrance at one of the short end
– used mud bricks and stones in the mud with
reeds or brush to help build the house
– most of the houses had one room, there were
very rarely two
• The Original Structure (cont)..
– The next group of settlers were the Minoan architects
– Their towns were mostly residential with little or no
temples and public places.
– their houses were private and had many rooms
• To separate rooms, they would use only pillars
• The stairways were a very prominent feature for these
massive homes.
• The Three Orders: (known for column style)
– Doric
• Starts with some wood shafts, which was replaced by stone.
– top of the shaft, were circular pads with a square block of wood
over it.
– The vertical columns were used to support the beams called
architraves.
• To form the ceiling, other beams were laid across the building
with their ends on these architraves.
• On the end of these beams, they could be channeled to make
a triglyph.
• On the top of a triglyph there would be
another beam which would be placed for
the overhanging rafters.
– These type of beams were referred as to
a mutules.
– Doric (cont)
• The finishing touches for the
roof had to have a flat gables
called pediments.
• The gutter ran along the top of
the pediments and ended at a
lion's mouth. This acted like a
drain.
• The materials that were used
for the roofs were thatch and
the terra-cotta and marble.
Entablature
Column
Temple
Column’s dimensions
were 4-5 meters high
• The Three Orders (cont.)
– Ionic
• Columns were more slender
• Their dimensions were eight to nine meters high
• The columns had a molded base placed under
them and then sculpted figures on the lower part of
the shaft were added.
• At the top of the shafts, were rectangular blocks of
stone, which were carved in the shape of hair or
other wave and line shapes.
Entablature
Column
Capital
• Three Orders (cont)
– Corinthian (not widely used due to its detail. Too fancy, to much)
Entablature
Greek
• Greek Revival:
– IDENTIFYING FEATURES:
• Gable or hipped, low-pitch roof
• Dentil cornice emphasized with wide band of trim -- cornice
represents classical entablature (includes cornice, frieze,
architrave)
• Porches: square or rounded columns (usually Doric)
• First style to use gable-front floor plan (gable end facing the
street, representing Greek temple)
• Temple-front entryway with entry door surrounded by
rectangular transom and sidelights (never rounded like
federal).
Greek Revival
– Dominant style in America, 1820-1850
• Also called "national style" due to popularity
• first American architectural style to reach West
Coast
• The Greek Revival movement becomes
widely accepted throughout the early U.S. as
a symbol of the new democracy.
Renaissance
• Italian:
– Architects based their theories and practices
on Classical Roman examples.
– Study the ancient buildings and ruins,
especially the Colosseum and Pantheon
– Classical orders and architectural elements:
• Columns
• Pilasters
• Pediments
• Entablatures
• Arches
• Domes
– Renaissance architecture is characterized by:
• Harmonious form
• Mathematical proportion
• A unit of measurement based on the human scale.
• French:
• The characteristics of the style:
The Louvre
– ashlar masonry accentuated with rusticated
quoins
– architrave framed windows
– doors supporting entablatures or pediments,
– a belt or string course that may divide the
ground or first floor from the upper floors
– small square windows that indicate the top
story.
– imported from Italy during the early 16th
century and developed in the light of local
architectural traditions
• English:
– In England the Renaissance was potent force in
England during the 16th century
– During this period two distinctive styles emerged:
• Elizabethan style:
– blended Medieval and
Renaissance styles
– characteristic of large noble
houses
– transition from Medieval to
Renaissance
– Predominant during Queen
Elizabeth's reign from
1558-1603
• Jacobean style:
– blended medieval and
renaissance styles
– characteristic of formal
structures
– transition from Elizabethan
to Pure Renaissance
– Predominant after Queen
Elizabeth's reign
– Tends to be more unified
and consistent
Modern
• Emerged in the decade after World War I, the
mid-nineteenth century to the 1970s
• Also known as International style, Neue
Sachlichkeit, and functionalism
• An emphasis on shape, form, light, and
transparency
– ideological faith in utopian rationalism and
functionalism, as the core elements of this
movement.
– From the outcome of the humanist belief in individual
reason:
• foundations of the movement lie in earlier Renaissance and
Enlightenment thought.
• The modernist objective to understand and master nature
Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright
Modern cont..
• Intellectual basis that shaped
the aesthetic program of high
modernist architecture:
http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/
ha/html/modern.html
– Beauty lies in the ability of the
rational mind to extract formal
rules from the surrounding
world, making transparent the
universal mechanics of the
perfect machine.
– The emphasis on geometry and
form follows, with surface
decoration and style at best
irrelevant, at worst deceitful.
• functionality becomes the clearest
expression of rationalism.
Modern
• The style features:
– smooth stucco wall surfaces
– rounded corners
– a flat roof with coping
– an asymmetrical facade
– corner, glass block
– and round windows
– horizontal grooves or lines to emphasize
– a streamline quality.
Medieval
• Spanned from 1066-1603
• Romanesque Period:
– Norman era
– Copied the pattern and proportion of the architecture
of the Roman Empire
– Chief characteristics:
•
•
•
•
barrel vaults
round arches
thick piers
few windows
– Extremely uncomfortable
• dark, dank and cold
Tudor: English Country
• Imitate English architecture from the early 16th century.
• Some Tudor houses mimic humble Medieval cottages -They may even include a false thatched roof.
• Other Tudor homes borrow ideas from late Medieval
palaces.
• They may have overlapping gables, parapets, and
beautifully patterned brick or stonework.
•
• These historic details combine with Victorian or
Craftsman flourishes.
• Gothic:
– Began in 12th century France
• "The French Style“
• Renaissance critics appalled at the abandonment
of classical line and proportion called it "Gothic“
– In reference to the imagined lack of culture of the
barbarian tribes
– Light, spacious, and graceful
– Advances in architectural technique learned
from
• Arab world during the Crusades
– Led to innovations such as:
»
»
»
»
The pointed arch
Ribbed vault
The buttress
Heavy Romanesque piers were replaced by slender
clusters of columns
» Window sizes grew
» Height of vaults and spires grew
Gothic
cont..
• Free standing sculpture instead of
being incorporated in columns
• Windows filled with color
• Churches have elaborate decoration,
especially the "tracery", or stonework
supporting the stained glass windows.
– 1200 to 1300 - Early English Gothic Style
(also called Lancet)
– 1300 to 1400 - Decorated Gothic Style
– 1400 to 1500 - Perpendicular Gothic Style
Some Other Styles:
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Prehistoric
Ancient
Bamanesque
Baroque
Rococo
Georgian
• American Colonial
• Neoclassical/Idea
list
• Victorian
• Art + Craft
Movement
• Art Nouveau
Apsidal
• A semicircular of
polygonal termination
or recess in a
building, usually
vaulted and used at
the end of a choir in a
church
Bibliography:
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http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~twp/architecture/
http://library.advanced.org/10098/greek.htm
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/arch/greek_arch.html
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~twp/architecture/artdeco/
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0833538.html
http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/ha/html/modern.html
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/575c2/d1d79/?frdir=yes
http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/ha/html/modern.html
http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/HD/itar/hd_itar.htm
http://www.essential-architecture.com/STYLE/STY-R02.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org/C005594/renaissance.htm
http://www.castles.me.uk/medieval-castle-architecture.htm
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Medieval_art_and_architecture.htm
http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/659490.html
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