2011 AR 303

History of

Architecture - II
Lecture - 4

Baroque Architecture

Nipun George

SCMS School of Architecture, Karukutty, Kochi.

Module -1

600 AD - 1800 AD
ROMANESQUE
GOTHIC
RENAISSANCE
BAROQUE

Baroque (1600AD - 1700AD)

- Baroque Period - Philosophy & Works of Sir Christopher Wren.

BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
1600 - 1700 AD

Origin of Baroque Architecture

~1600 AD -

- Baroque -meaning illformed - reference to the

strange curving, bulbous shapes.
- emerged in Rome essentially as a
counterstatement to the Reformation - the
architects who contributed most - Giovanni
Lorenzo Bernini (15981680) and Francesco
Castelli Borromini
- new saints were canonized - a signal for new
churches and chapels to be built in honor.

- Latin cross preferred in Counter-Reformation it allowed for a clear separation between clergy
and devotees - distinctions between Catholic
and Protestant.
- Transepts were minimized - use of rectangles
and ovals.
- Preferred curves and ovals to straight lines,
deploying niches, walls, pilasters, and attached
columns in a seamless way that made
architecture seem pliant.
- intensified visual dynamics by using painting
as well as sculptures.

- Baroque churches had plain glass devoid of

tracery.
- windows were often unseen designed to create
diffuse light.
- Emphasis on orders reduced.
- Painters created elaborate ceiling frescoes
portraying visions of the Church Triumphant.
- Italians preferred rose & pink marble, highlited
by shades of grey - other European countries
preferred white marbles.

Sir Christopher Wren

(1632 1723)

- Highly reputed architect of England.

- obtained commissions for civic and
ecclesiastical building
- dominated the architecture in the 2nd half of
the 17thC.
- the rebuilding of London after the fire of 1666
and the layouts at Hampton Court.
- He was responsible for 53 churches and a new
S. Paul's Cathedral.

- Variation of style, solved problems of site &

space, brought in novel ideas.
- S. Paul's is one of a limited number of 17th
century buildings in England to have
Baroque characteristics - especially the western
front.
- a classical church built on Latin cross plan
with dome and drum over the crossing.
- It is surrounded by three galleries on different
levels.

- To disguise the low side aisles, Wren created a

blind second story that also conceals the
buttresses holding up the vaults.
- Dome rests on a ring of columns with eight
cleverly disguised buttresses.
- Interior has a giant pilaster order for the nave
and a lower order for the secondary spaces
- St. Pauls drum is both lofty and airy.

- The outer dome, flattened on top, consists

of a wooden frame supported by an invisible
conical masonry structure. Below that there is a
catenoid inner dome.
- The facades resemble those of a palace than a
church, the paired pilasters and aediculae.
- the ring of columns at the base of the dome,
are not structural.
- The pairing of the Corinthian columns on
the facade is taken from the Louvre.

- Hampton Court in Tudor Style - Wren was

asked to enlarge palace - added new suites of
fine rooms in buildings of brick and stone harmonise well with the Tudor brickwork.
- Carried out works in 2 great universities Oxford & Cambridge.

Wren's Cambridge Library

ROCOCCO
ARCHITECTURE
18th Century AD

NEOCLASSICAL
ARCHITECTURE
Mid 18th Century AD

ART1890-1910
NOUVEAU

BEAUX
ARTS
1880-1920

NEO
GOTHIC
Late 19th Century AD

ART
DECO
1920 -

MODERNISM
1920 -