_____________________
_____________________
|
Mary Cassatt
At the Opera
1880
Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston
This painting illustrates the theatres main social
function in the cities of America and Europe - to see and be seen.
|
CHANGES IN THEATRE DESIGN
In the 19th century, theatre design elaborated on the conventions
that had been established during the Baroque era. New features to
the basic-layout included a horseshoe plan and a different
arrangement of the stage, stalls, and galleries. The theatre was
more than a performance space for opera, plays, and other forms of
dramatic representation. It was also a focal point for fashionable
society and reflected the most current styles and tastes. Through
their varying dramatic interpretations, theatre productions mirrored
cultural trends and captured social moods and changes. The advent of
German romantic opera, following in the wake of a theme chiefly
found in the first half of the century, reveals the term "romantic"
to be descriptive of the quest for an all encompassing cultural
vision. The famous Festspielhaus (1876), founded by the composer
Richard Wagner ( 1813-83) in Bavreuth, Germany, introduced a series
of innovations on both a narrative and a decorative level — two
aspects that were inherently interlinked. Galleries and balconies
were eliminated in favour of large, fan-shaped stalls, once it was
realized that the audience was most comfortable when it had a
lateral view of the stage. The orchestra was hidden between the
stalls and the stage, and the part of the theatre occupied by the
audience was left in darkness for the duration of the performance.
With the invention of electric lighting, actors and singers could
now be illuminated in a manner that gave a sense of depth, created
shadows, and highlighted the backdrop. In the 19th and 20th
centuries, theatres were built throughout America and Australia
based on the European models. The dramatic trend of Realism once
more brought about a revision in the way performances were
presented. The attention paid to the accuracy of even- detail,
historical reconstruction, costume, sets, backdrops, and lighting
meant that in the future no single aspect of theatrical production
would be judged to be peripheral again.
|
Cross section of the Opera de Paris (1860-74).
Renaissance features
enhance the Neo-Baroque flavour of this
building by Charles Gamier
(1825-98).
The vast, magnificent interior and the use of opulent
materials reflect the officially
sanctioned style of Napoleon Ill's
Second Republic.
|
|
_____________________
_____________________
|
Central Synagogue, Manhattan, New York, 1872.
American
cities are studded with buildings that appear almost foreign
to their modern urban surroundings, having survived constant changes and
additions. Synagogues are among the best-preserved and interesting
monuments from the 19th century; they exhibit a variety of styles from
Moorish to Neo-Romanesque.
|
Architecture in America
During the 18th century, the French colonization of the Mississippi
and the Great Lakes had a particular architectural impact on these
regions. The buildings, often pavilion-style structures, typically
featured a wide balcony surmounted by a sloping, hipped roof. In New
Orleans, an entire quarter was built on this model. The French
colonial style, as displayed in residential and communal buildings,
differed from other forms of architecture exported from Europe in
that it took into account the environmental and climatic factors of
North America, especially the oppressive humidity of the Mississippi
basin. Examples include the building system known as briquette entre poteaux.
This method entailed the use of wood, walls made of stone
and stucco, and very large windows, which transformed the
living area into a veranda during the day. The German
colonial style, which dates from the landing of William Penn
in 1680 and continued into the next century, was quite
different. The use of stone in the many villages in
Pennsylvania and western Maryland drew on European medieval
architecture, while in some regions of New Jersey and in New
York there are fine examples of buildings based on
traditional Dutch styles. These incorporated construction
elements such as multiple-hipped roofs of varying inclination, dormer
windows, and stable-type doors. Though the various strands of
colonial styles differed noticeably, certain factors bound them all
together: these included the variable climactic conditions, the
availability of local materials, and the skill of the local
craftsmen. On these factors rested the durability of their
architecture.
|
|
|
_____________________
_____________________
|
THE AMERICAN WRITING DESK
In his novel America, Franz Kafka (1883-1924) gave a detailed
description of the "American desk", a piece of furniture with a
special mechanism for regulating the arrangement of compartments,
which was very popular in America. The hero, Karl, finds one in his
room while he is staying with his uncle in New York: "In his room
stood an American writing desk of superior construction, such as his
father had coveted for years and tried to pick up cheaply at ail
kinds of auction sales without ever succeeding, his resources being
much too small. This desk, of course, was beyond all comparison with
the so-called American writing desk that turned up at auction sales
in Europe. For example, it had a hundred compartments of different
sizes, in which the President of the Union himself could have found
a fitting place for each of his state documents; there was also a
regulator at one side, and by turning the handle you could produce
the most complicated combination and permutations of the
compartments to please yourself and suit your requirements. Thin
panels sank slowly and formed the bottom of a new series or the top
of existing drawers promoted from below; even after one turn of the
handle the disposition of the whole was quite changed and the
transformation took place slowly or at a delirious speed."
|
_____________________
_____________________
|
|
Latin American Architecture
The early 19th century saw the independence of the Spanish and
Portuguese colonies in Latin America - Mexico in 1821, Brazil in
1822, and Peru in 1823. This brought about new political orders and
debates about national identity but had no immediate impact on
architectural production. As the century progressed, however, the
introduction of the Neoclassical style through the academies began
to replace overtly Iberian influences and transform the physical
appearance of the Latin American colonial cities. Changes in
thinking brought about by the Enlightenment, the growing cultural
influence of France, and the desire to break away from retrospective
Hispanic culture all had an effect taking various forms in different
areas of the subcontinent. The architecture was often the work of
immigrant European architects. The English architect John Johnson
worked on the country house of Sao Cristavao as early as 1812.
Frenchmen A.J.V. Grandjean de Montigny (1776-1850) and C. F. Brunet-Debaines
(1799-1855) built in Brazil and Chile respectively. In Argentina,
there was a strong German influence, evident in the work of Ernesto
Bunge. Theatres were important architectural projects, ranging from
the sober Teatro Santa Isabel, Recife (1840-46) to the
plaster-gilded Teatro Amazonas, Manaos. Europeans continued to
undertake important projects into the 20th century, as seen in the
work of the Italian Adamo Boari (1863-1928) in Mexico. However, the
predominance of Neoclassical styles and foreign architects was soon
challenged in the form of a more self-conscious neocolonialism,
initiated by Jose Mariano Carniero da Cuna and Ricardo Severo in
Brazil. Rooted in nationalist ideologies, its intention was to
challenge the dominance of European culture. By the end of the 19th
century, new materials began to have an impact. In the south, iron
market structures were built by Miguel Aldunate. including the
Santiago Market (1868-72) and the Meat Market in Buenos Aires
(1889). In Mexico City, the particular trade relations with Europe
maintained by Latin America are evident in the anonymously designed
iron structure of the Del Chopo Museum. Materials local to
individual Latin American countries began to take on significance,
as illustrated by the use of traditional tiles by Alejandro
Manriques in the Bavarian Beer Factory, Bogota (1888).
|
| |
Presidential Palace, Buenos Aires, 1894.
Like many
contemporary palaces in Latin America, this imposing monument is
reminiscent
of the European Renaissance style of architecture.
|
| |
_____________________
_____________________
|
|
American Classicism
One of the most influential figures in American architecture was the
third president Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). Scholarly in his
approach. Jefferson sought to develop an architecture that expressed
the republican ideals of the new nation. By adopting a Palladian
style for the designs of his own house Monticello (1769-70), near
Charlottesville, Virginia, he rejected the English colonial style of
the Virginia tidewater. After the War of Independence (1775-83), he
found in Roman architecture the style and principles that he had
been seeking. He discovered ancient Roman architecture in France,
where he was a foreign minister between 1784 and 1789, in both the
ruins of Provence and through his links with the Neoclassicist
academic circles. His design for the State Capitol in Richmond,
Virginia (1785) was one of the first instances of the front of a
classical temple being applied to monumental buildings, and it
provided a vocabulary for an architecture of democracy worldwide.
The beginning of the 19th century saw the ascendancy of two parallel
architectural trends: the so-called Adam,
or Federal, style and the Greek Revival style. The former derives
its name from the period between 1789 and about 1830 when the United
States Federal government was formed. Though it was rooted mostly in
British Neoclassicism, a French influence can be discerned, which
reflected the pro-French sentiment following the Revolution. It
attracted architects such as Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844). Samuel
Mclntire (1757-1811), and William Thornton (1759-1828). The Greek
Revival style reached the peak of its popularity in about 1820
following important archaeological discoveries in Europe (the
excavations of the Parthenon in Athens began in 1804) and the
fashion for all aspects of ancient Greek art and architecture.
Bulfinch's design for the third house of Harrison Gray Otis in
Boston (1806) exemplifies the Federal style house in its harmonies,
composition, and layout, wherein a series of rooms of various shapes
- circular, oval, and polygonal - enclose rectangular areas of
different sizes. The first building in the US inspired by Greek
architecture was the Bank of Pennsylvania built in 1801. Its
architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820), was the main exponent
of the Greek Revival. Two of his pupils, Robert Mills (1785-1855)
and William Strickland (1788-1854). designed many public and private
buildings, which were also based on the orders and canons of Greek
art and architecture. These include the Second Bank of the United
States in Philadelphia (1824) and the Treasury Building in
Washington, D.C. (1842). According to practical, functional needs,
these types of building did not necessarily adhere rigorously to the
strict rules of symmetry and proportion laid down by the classical
orders. However, they were frequently impressive in size and style.
A very different historicist impulse emerged in about 1825 in the
guise of the Gothic Revival. It was initially inspired by late
18th-century English Gothic architecture. In the late 19th century,
interest in it was reawakened by the writings of the English art
critic and social reformer John Ruskin (1819-1900), particularly
Stones of Venice (1851-53). The work of Alexander Jackson Davis and
Richard Upjohn bears this influence. Examples of early English and
French architecture were adopted as models, as were Italian
Renaissance villas and palazzi at a later period. This resulted in
the radical eclecticism of the late 19th century. Perhaps its
greatest exponent was Richard Morris Hunt (1827-95), whose
"Breakers" mansion, built for the Vanderbilt family in Newport
(1892-95), was an extravagant Italian Renaissance palace. His other
mansions, built for the wealthy of Rhode Island and New York,
illustrate his ability to master a whole range of historical styles.
|
| |
Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, Charlottesville,
Virginia, 1772-79.
|
| |
Colonial house, Paddlngton, Sydney.
The style of this building, with Its
distinct Neoclassical features reveals a great
attention to exterior decoration. A range of ornate elements and details
embellish its facade.
|
| |
_____________________
_____________________
|
|
|
THE STATUE OF LIBERTY
The construction of a statue of liberty in New York was originally
the idea of a French historian, Edouard de Laboulaye, who had a keen
interest in American politics and institutions. He proposed that
money should be raised by public subscription so that France could
send a monument to America to commemorate the close links between
the two countries during and after the American Revolution.
Consequently, a Franco-American committee was set up to raise the
money and to oversee the construction work. The French sculptor
Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904) designed the colossal statue,
which was to stand at the entrance to New York harbour. He decided
to place the statue
on the 12-acre Bedloe Island, where the enormous female figure,
right hand raised and bearing a torch, would serve as a lighthouse.
He enlisted the help of the engineer Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923), who
created a steel framework on which the copper figure was modelled.
The statue was transported across the Atlantic in 214 cases and
reached New York in June 1886. Meanwhile, Richard Morris Hunt
(1827-95) made the pedestal on which the statue was to stand. The
completed monument was officially inaugurated on 28 October 1886 by
President Grover Cleveland. It has since come to symbolize not only
the US itself, but also democratic freedom throughout the world.
|
| |
Statue of Liberty, print, 1884 Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
|
| |
_____________________
_____________________
|
|
Washington and New York
In 1785, legislation was passed that brought about Land Ordinance.
The regulation of the sale of land suitable for both agriculture and
construction had become more and more essential with the growth of
large cities. This survey was based on a system of coordinates, in
which the land was divided into sections according to longitude and
latitude. As a result, the development of all large cities in the US
and even the boundaries between the different states was determined
by the grid plan.
The plan for the city of Washington, D.C. was drawn up by Pierre
L'Enfant in 1791, and that for New York was completed in 1811. Such
blueprints had to take into account the rapid increase in the number
of buildings within their respective metropolitan areas and the need
to establish an urban road network that would provide adequate
communications between public buildings and service areas.
L'Enfant's designs for Washington stipulated a series of radial
thoroughfares that were to be superimposed on the existing
rectangular grid. New avenues and streets were designed to cross the
city, linking opposite parts of the metropolis by way of wide
thoroughfares. The plan for New York, drawn up by a special
committee, was broadly based on the traditional grid system, with
the avenues and streets being numbered over an area of approximately
100 square kilometres (60 square miles). This took into account the
potential development of the city over the ensuing decades. The
question of urban expansion was closely analysed so that eventual
growth could be carefully controlled in accordance with the original
plan.
|
| |
William Thornton and Charles Bulfinch.
The Capitol in
Washington. D.C., 1827.
The Neoclassical style adopted in the Federal
capital was used
for government buildings in many state capitals.
|
| |
_____________________
_____________________
|
|
Brooklyn Bridge during its construction. Photograph by John Augustus and
Washington Roebling.
Museum of the City of New York. |
BROOKLYN BRIDGE
One of New York City's most prominent and famous landmarks, Brooklyn
Bridge was an archetype of modern American bridge construction. It
stands 40 metres (128 feet) high, has a span of 486 metres (1,595
feet), and links the southern part of Manhattan Island to the
borough (previously the city) of Brooklyn.
The firm of John Augustus Roebling (1806-69), a Germanborn American
engineer, drew up the plans for the bridge in 1867, and the work was
completed by his son, Washington Roebling, for its grand opening in
1883. The most striking innovation was the use of twisted metal
cables, a technique Roebling had employed in 1842 for an aqueduct
over the Allegheny river in Pittsburgh. Roebling, one of the
country's most important bridge builders, was also responsible for
the Niagara Railway Bridge (1851-55) and the great bridge over the
Ohio River at Wheeling, West Virginia (1856-57), which played an
important part in the subsequent development of the suspension
bridge.
|
Currier and Ives New York and Brooklyn, 1875,
Museum of
the City of New York.
This commemorative print was produced to celebrate
the opening of the new bridge.
|
|
| |
_____________________
_____________________
|
18th-century cabinet. Private
Collection, Philadelphia.
This
particular model was widely copied.
|
Chicago: Cradle of American Architecture
Founded in the early 19th century on the site of an American
military post on the shore of Lake Michigan, the city of Chicago
testifies, perhaps more than any other city on the continent, to the
rapid growth of the 19th-century American city. Chicago was
particularly notable for its use of wood in building. George
Washington Snow (1797-1878) had introduced a technique called the
"balloon frame", already in use on the East Coast, in which planks
of wood were joined with nails in standardized, commercially
available lengths of timber. The modular wooden framework was then
covered and erected singularly or joined with others. It was
flexible enough a method to provide a solution for a number of
construction problems. The first building in which the balloon-frame
principle was used was Chicago's St Mary's church, in which building
costs were cut by more than 40 per cent.
Unfortunately, because wood was so cheap and widely used in Chicago,
the Great Fire of 1871 destroyed almost one-third of the city's
buildings. The history of Chicago was dramatically affected by this
event. Work carried out during the following years involved many
architects and engineers, who were faced with several problems
specific to the city; they needed to reconstruct buildings quickly
and in harmony with the existing surroundings, while also
guaranteeing that the structures would be safe and reliable in the
future. The important consequence of these demands was the
development of the fireproof steel frame. Between 1870 and 1880,
William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907), who had been educated at the
Ecole des Arts et Manufactures in Paris, developed an unprecedented
style of construction that made the most profitable use of available
land in the city centre by building vertically rather than
horizontally. The result of his research was the prototype of the
modern skyscraper and indeed the modern office building. Jenney not
only explored the technical problems, one of which would be resolved
by adopting steel as a building material, but also considered the
unique visual perspective of the high-rise block. He paid attention,
for example, to the shapes and textures of the facades. In 1879. his
firm put up the first of the two Leiter Buildings (today on 208 West
Monroe Street), with a composite supporting framework of brick
pillars on the outside and steel columns on the inside. This system
of construction was further perfected in the Home Insurance Building
(1885). Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912), one of the finest
architects and engineers commissioned with American urban
rebuilding, worked initially with Jenney and then collaborated with
John Wellborn Root (1850-91). Their technique employed, at least
during its first phase, already well-established materials and
techniques, but they later went on to explore unprecedented ways of
designing and handling the large external areas of commercial
buildings. This form of architecture was applied to offices,
government and business buildings, and department stores. Chicago's
16-storey Monadnock Building (1889-92), designed by Burnham and
Root, is unusual in having no ornamental features and in its use of
bow windows at the top. William Holabird (1854-1923) and Martin
Roche (1855-1927), pupils of Jenney, used a different approach for
the lace of their Tacoma Building (1889) - as the edifice rises, the
decorative features of the string courses (horizontal, projecting
bands, often caned or decorated) gradually disappear, returning
again higher up before being rounded off at the top by a small
arcade of arches and columns. Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) and his
partner Dankmar Adler (1844-1900) were two of the leading architects
involved in the design of tall commercial buildings. Over 12 years,
they put up a number of buildings in which considerations of style
and technique were successfully combined and new forms of decoration
were used. Sullivan and Adler were influenced by the classicism of
H.H. Richardson (1838-86), and they adopted the version of the
Neo-Romanesque style that Richardson had applied to Chicago's
Marshall Field Wholesale Store (1885-87). For this building, he
envisaged a stone facade broken by round arches. For the Chicago
Auditorium (1887-89), a huge project comprising a modern theatre, a
large hotel, and 11 floors of offices, Sullivan used different
materials and original decorative touches in rustic stone for the
first three storeys and a smooth dressing of sandstone higher up.
The auditorium was a truly fine example of Sullivan's architectonic
artistic skills. His work here and in other cities (New York,
Buffalo, and St Louis) had a strong influence on later architects,
not least for his concern in the harmonization of structural and
decorative features in the overall design of a building. In 1893,
Chicago's World's Columbian Exhibition proved a setback for
architecture in the city. Sullivan's ideas for exhibition buildings
were rejected in favour of the more conventional grandiose Roman
Renaissance style. It was not until the emergence of the brilliant
young architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959) a generation later
that Chicago recovered.
|
| |
Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, Guaranty Building,
Buffalo City, New York, 1895.
|
_____________________
_____________________
|
|
Louis Comfort Tiffany, lamp "Aux Pavots",
with bronze
and glazed metal frame.
Produced post-1900 by Tiffany Studios in New
York.
Tiffany lamps are still produced today. |
TIFFANY GLASS
Glassmaker, jeweller, painter, designer, and decorator, Louis
Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) is associated with one of the most
original forms of craftsmanship of the late 19th century. Having
already undertaken such prestigious commissions as decorating the
Red and Blue rooms in the White House (1882-83). Tiffany began to
specialize in glassware. Through his experimentation with special
laboratory techniques using chemical baths and steam, he produced
glittering glass surfaces in iridescent colours, with opaque and
burnished nuances. The Tiffany Glass Company was founded in 1885 and
became renowned for the production of naturalistic objects in the
colourful and elegant Favrile (patented in 1894), the handmade glass
that was the designer's trademark.
The subtle effect of transparency
and the delicate play of colours could be reproduced on virtually
any decorative household object, including the classic
Tiffany lampshade. Imaginatively shaped vases,
bowls, and cups were decorated with flower motifs or abstract,
flowing lines, and the colour of the glass, whether clear, pearly,
opaque, or combined with metals, seemed to vary according to the
light. In the 1890s, Tiffany branched out into Europe, taking part
in the exhibitions of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris
and then in the Exposition Universelle of 1900.
|
|
|
Louis Comfort Tiffany. Peacock Mosaic, 1890-91.
The peacock, perhaps
because of its decorative potential, was a favourite motif of the Art
Nouveau.
This panel was made for the house of Henry Osborne Havemeyer in
New York.
|
|
_____________________
_____________________
|
Daniel Hudson Burnham and John Wellborn Root,
Reliance
Building, Chicago, 1890-95.
|
THE SKYSCRAPER
After the devastating fire of 1871 destroyed a vast area of Chicago,
the most urgent priority in rebuilding the city was to experiment
with materials other than wood - it was vital that they should offer
greater resistance to fire. William Le Baron Jenney used iron and
steel to construct load-bearing frameworks for his new buildings.
This innovation, which made it possible to build multistorey blocks,
could not have been considered without the introduction of the lift
in 1857. The first steam elevators, invented by Elisha Graves Otis,
were replaced in 1870 by C.W. Baldwin's hydraulically operated
system and then by an electrical system in 1887. These early blocks
still employed historical styles: Jenney built the two Leiter
Buildings (1879 and 1890) and the Home Insurance Building (1885) for
the Chicago Loop, using metal frames and glass surfaces alternated
with pilaster strips with classical capitals. The Tacoma Building
(1887-88) by Holabird and Roche and the Reliance Building (1890-95)
by Burnham and Root are similar examples.
Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) was the first truly modern architect. Lie
produced high-rise buildings with forms that directly expressed
their function. He devised a new plan for the skyscraper based on
three essential components: a spacious ground-floor entrance lobby,
a top floor that would act as a service area for the whole building,
and multiple storeys in between the two. This revolutionary concept
was realized in such projects as the Wainwright Building in St Louis
(1891), the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, which he built with Dankmar Adler (1895), and the Schlesinger & Mayer Building
(1899-1904) in Chicago. These were all remarkable constructions
considering the problems posed by the limited availabilitv of
materials.
|
|
William Holabird and Martin Roche, Taccma Building, Chicago, 1887-89.
|
|
|
|
|
