Renaissance

Architecture
 Theories and concepts of the
Renaissance

 Examples of buildings from Early

Renaissance, High Renaissance
and Mannerism
The Divine World of
Renaissance
1420 - 1620

Renaissance means ‘re-birth’, term used to

describe the renewed flourishing of a style, fashion
or philosophical perspective.

The movement began in Florence, as an expression

of Humanism. (non-religious philosophy based on
liberal human values, literary culture)
Experiments in
Florence

• Florence was the indisputable forerunner in developments leading

up to the Renaissance. Big bankers, like the Medici family, ran the
town.
• They demanded buildings to symbolise their power – looking
back to the period when Italy was great – the Roman era, for a
model.
• The study of the classical world was given practical application
in the new Italian power centres, classical culture was re-
born (Renaissance).
 Experiments in
Florence

• Architects employed the basic language of classical

architecture creatively.
• Building technology had developed in the Gothic
period now merged with classical principles to
produce a new architecture – delicate and ordered.
• They had the ability and skill to rectify the
imperfection. ‘Perfect the imperfection of Nature’
through skill or technology or science. Believing that
man had the ‘power’ to achieve that.
The Divine World of
Renaissance
1420 - 1620
There are 4 periods of Renaissance:

• Early Renaissance
• High Renaissance
• Mannerism
• Late Renaissance
Invention
• The 1st moveable-type
printing press was invented
by Johannes Gutenberg in
1440.
• Until its invention, books
were so expensive that only
the wealthiest people had
any at all.
Johannes Gutenberg
Paintings
Linear perspective was a system set up to
create the illusion of three-dimensional space
in a two dimensional format. With the
advancement of perspective views, paintings
symbolises man’s point of view.
Holy Trinity
by Masaccio
 Artists painted portraits, landscapes or
scenes from everyday life; instead of
focusing on scenes from the Bible and the lives
of saints.
The School of Athens - Raphael
Florence & the Early
Renaissance
1420 - 1500
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446)
A Goldsmith, sculptor, clockmaker, architect and mathematician

• Invented the mathematical perspective − conveying 2D

into 3D − recording into paintings. Everything in the universe
and world can be calculated in mathematics.
• Composed new spaces where the outside and inside were
integrated and unified in harmony and proportion.
Florence Cathedral (dome by Brunelleschi)
Formerly known as Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

The octagonal tambour was vaulted with a double-shell. The

inner stronger shell supports the lighter outer shell. Both
consist of a combination of rows of stone laid in herringbone
pattern and open ribs.
Florence Cathedral (dome by Brunelleschi)
"Florentines say they don't get
home-sick. They get dome-sick.
To be a real Florentine, you
must be born under the shadow
of the dome."
Bill Moyers
Florence Cathedral (dome by Brunelleschi)
The most fascinating
about this structure is that
it is self-supporting. The
structure is created which
did not require centring (a
system which supports a
dome during construction)
 Pazzi
Chapel

One enters through a tall arch in the loggia, no longer a nave and
aisles but a square covered by a dome, this time using pendentives.
However, it seemed more complete from every direction.
Corinthian Column

Coffers - A highly ornamented

ceiling using repetitive geometrical
shapes.
• One of the first centrally planned constructions of the Renaissance.
• The inner chamber was originally planned as a burial chapel for the
family of the benefactor Andres de’ Pazzi.
Pantheon -Oculus

Pilaster

Pendentive
 Founding Hospital
(Ospedale degli Innocenti)

• A building with round arches supported by Corinthian

columns.
• Simple and serene.

• Since the orders evolved from primitive building and their

details were taken from plants forms, when used well they
established both human scale and evocations of nature.
• One of his first building
• Clear articulation and proportioned forms
Leone Battista Alberti (1404 - 72)
An author, artist, architect, poet, philosopher

• He developed theories of proportion (symmetrical) which

equated beauty with geometry. He related human body to the
square and the circle – ‘perfect’ forms in the image of God and
Nature.
• Alberti argued that buildings too, should be composed according to
the same divine laws of harmony. Basic forms were to be double
squares and double cubes – enhanced by ornament.
Leone Battista Alberti (1404 - 72)

The circle as the most perfect form

• Symbolised perfect harmony and balance to an even
greater extent than the square and the Greek cross – the
other forms which featured regularly in the plans of this
period.
• Alberti’s belief that only circle could express the essence
of God and his creation.
• Studies of proportion showed that human body which was
created ‘in God’s image’ fitted exactly into this from.
Santa Maria Novella (1456 – 70)
A church which is strictly
proportion, one of the most
memorable of all elevations.
Sant’ Andrea, Mantua (1472 – 94)
Created most of the façade out of a Triumphal Arch. It
emerges the ancient Roman motif, which was to appear in a
hundred guises on Renaissance building – low arch, high
arch; pilaster, window; turret, and dome.
Palazzo Rucellai, Florence (1446 –
51)

• Horizontal emphasis in this building is also accompanied by a

vertical accent; pilasters with capitals from ancient classical
orders were revived here again for the first time.
• They used different orders for different floors − Doric, Ionic and
Corinthian, just as the Roman’s Colosseum.
Corinthian Order

Ionic Order

Round Arches

Doric Order
High & Late Renaissance
(Mannerism)
1500 - 1600
Donato Bramante (1444 – 1514)
Bramante was a painter, influenced of Alberti in his work
in Milan.
Tempietto, San Pietro
Montorio, Rome 1502

It is a little temple, building which

most closely following Alberti’s
prescription of pure classicism.
 Tempietto, San Pietro
Montorio, Rome 1502

• Building consciously modelled on

the ancient Roman temple.

• Free-standing within its

courtyard, with steps rising to
circular plinth, its form is a drum
encircled by a Doric colonnade,
trimmed with a low balustrade
through which the drum reaches
up and crowned with a dome −
possibly architecture’s finest
gem.

• It was more of an exterior design.

St. Peter’s of Rome
(1585 – 90)
 St. Peter’s of Rome
(1585 – 90)
• The building symbolises all the
spiritual romp and worldly power
of Renaissance Rome.

• The reconstruction of the church was

mainly based on the ideas of
Michelangelo.

• Based on Bramante’s plans and

existing structures, Michelangelo
succeeded in keeping the main idea
– central plan of a Greek cross
with central dome, but tightened
up the plan and gave it a clear
uniform shape.
The dome: 42m in diameter, and the height of 132m.
It exudes complete harmony, regardless of the perspective
or distance from which it is observed.
His dome succeeds in dominating the entire city of Rome.
High Renaissance artists carefully observed how the ancients
borrowed motifs from nature and the set out to develop a system
of mathematically defined proportion and compositional
beauty emanating from a harmony of parts.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)

A natural scientist, sculptor, architect, painter and theoretician,

accomplished in all scientific and literary disciplines, the ideal of
the intellectual Renaissance artist in an extraordinary fashion.
He was a skeptic, fascinated by science and natural objects.
Human Figure in a circle
and square
Illustrating Vitruvius on Proportion,
1485-90
 Michelangelo Buonarroti
(1475 – 1564)

• With a sculptor’s eye for the 3 dimensional, he bypassed the

contemporary preoccupation with proportion to open up
new concept of scale and space. [two areas in which the
Baroque was later to experiment]
Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne,
Rome
Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne,
Rome

Has a curved revolutionary façade.

Staircase to the Laurentian Library,
San Lorenzo, Florence, 1524

The anteroom, with its triple staircase and pillars

halfway up the wall supporting nothing, but
indicating the upper storey, is quite original.
Andrea Palladio (1508 – 80)
A precise & exact classicist
Palladio combined elements of both the early
Renaissance stress on balance and geometrical
symmetry with the language of mannerist
architecture.
Villa Capra (La Rotonda)
La Rotonda refers to the central circular hall with its dome

• It is a symmetrical building. He created an ideal place for a

secular purpose, closely following Alberti’s rules and spirit.
• His building has the hallmark of elegance: the same ability that a
diamond has – to be cool and simultaneously, to sparkle.
 Villa Capra (Rotonda) (1565)

• An exemplary centrally - planned

building, having a circular domed
room in the middle and identical
sides with extended temple
facades.
• Symbolises complete harmony
between man and the cosmos.
• Ideally suited to the Humanists
as a refined setting for the
exchange of their ideas.
Pantheon
-a portico (roof supported by
columns)

• Each portico has steps leading up and the four porticos has
pediments graced by statues of classical deities.
• The pediments were each supported by six Ionic columns
 The End
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