The Beaux-Arts style of architecture is one of the most extravagant in American history.

It was
popular from 1880-1930. This lesson will focus on the definition, characteristics, and style of the
Beaux-Arts period.

What Is Beaux-Arts Architecture?

Beaux-Arts architecture is classical in nature with Greco-Roman styling. The Beaux
Arts Movement (beaux arts means 'fine arts' in French) was popular in the United
States from about 1880-1930 and reflected the wealth that accumulated during the
Industrial Revolution. Beaux-Art architecture harkens back to classic Greek and
Roman forms. This style of architecture originated from Ecole des Beaux-
Arts(School of the Fine Arts) in France where many architects studied. The first
Americans to study there were Richard Morris Hunt and Henry Hobson Richardson.
They brought the style to the United States and inspired a number of other students
to study abroad. Beaux-Arts architecture is synonymous with America's Renaissance
movement.

The Beaux-Arts Style

Beaux-Arts architecture is massive and heavy, lending itself to the construction of
monumental public buildings like train stations, schools, and government buildings.
The style was seldom used in private homes but can be seen in the grand homes of
the elite in Newport, Rhode Island.

Characteristics of Beaux-Arts Architecture

Beaux-Arts buildings are massive, usually constructed with stone, with a
symmetrical façade or front, and flat or low-pitched roofs. The façade of Beaux-Arts
buildings typically features adornment reminiscent of Greek and Roman Architecture
such as balustrades, or vertical posts, on balconies (a porch that protrudes from a
building), held up by large decorative pillars called columns, arched windows and
grand arched entryways topped with triangular gables called pediments. Building
details and decorations are elaborate and include 3-dimensional carved panels
called bas-reliefand rounded convex surfaces called cartouches. These are
typically surrounded by garlands or vines, decorative swags(garlands raised up in
the middle) and medallions or medal-like ornamentation.
Interiors typically have grand stairways and polished marble floors. Arched doorways
lead to large rooms and decorations inside the buildings are as ornate as those on
the exterior. Government buildings built in the Beaux-Arts style typically have high,
vaulted ceilings and central domes

Beaux Arts Classicism / American Renaissance

boh ZAR, - ZART
1890-1920
 Neoclassicism - Terminology

Neoclassicism/Neoclassical Literally: "New Classicism."

(Neo-Classical) European and American architecture style inspired by
Classical Greek - and especially Roman - ruins.

Georgian Four King Georges in England. George III ruled England

when Neoclassicism was popular.

Georgian Neoclassical Neoclassicism named after George III in England.

Encompasses both Palladian and Adamesque Neoclassical
styles.

Palladian Neoclassical Earlier version of European Neoclassicism based on the

books of Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio who
studied Roman ruins in Italy.

Adam style/Adamesque Later version of European Neoclassicism based on Robert's

Adam's studies of excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Colonial Styles of architecture during America's colonial period, i.e.,

before the Revolutionary War. The most prominent style
was Georgian because most the colonies were English
owned.

Federal The American term for Adamesque after the Revolutionary

War. "Federal" is a a patriotic term.

Roman Classicism/ / Neoclassical version inspired by Renaissance-inspired

Jeffersonian Classicism / Palladian Neoclassical style. Thomas Jefferson owned three
Classic(al) Revival copies of Palladio's books and used Palladian ideals in
designing Monticello, etc.

This vision of Neoclassicism competed with the simpler

Federal style.
 Beaux-Arts Classicism A very rich, lavish and heavily ornamented classical style
taught at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in the 19th century.
Influenced the last phase of Neoclassicism in the United
States

Beaux-Arts Architecture

A very rich, lavish and heavily ornamented classical style taught

at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in the 19th century

The term "Beaux Arts" is the approximate English equivalent of

"Fine Arts."

The style was popularized during the 1893 Columbian Exposition in

Chicago in 1893. One outgrowth of the Expo was the reform
movement advocated byDaniel Burnham, the City Beautiful
Movement.

Very influential in the US in that many of the leading late 19th

century architects had been trained at Ecole des Beaux Arts, e.g.,
Richard Morris Hunt (the first American to study there) , H. H.
Richardson (the second American to study there, but who chose to
develop his own style, "Richardsonian Romanesque") and Charles
McKim,

More than any other style (except perhaps the Chateauesque), the
Beaux Arts expressed the taste and values of America's industrial
barons at the turn of the century. In those pre-income tax days, great
fortunes were proudly displayed in increasingly ornate and expensive
houses.

The Bauhaus was arguably the single most influential modernist art school of the 20 th century. Its
approach to teaching, and to the relationship between art, society, and technology, had a major
impact both in Europe and in the United States long after its closure under Nazi pressure in 1933.
The Bauhaus was influenced by 19th and early-20th-century artistic schools such as the Arts and
Crafts movement, as well as Art Nouveau and its related styles, including
the Jugendstil and Vienna Secession. All of these movements sought to level the distinction
between the fine and applied arts, and to reunite creativity and manufacturing; their legacy was
reflected in the romantic medievalism of the Bauhaus ethos during its early years, when it
fashioned itself as a kind of craftsmen's guild. But by the mid-1920s this vision had given way to a
stress on uniting art and industrial design, and it was this which underpinned the Bauhaus's most
original and important achievements. The school is also renowned for its extraordinary faculty, who
subsequently led the development of modern art - and modern thought - throughout Europe and
the United States.

Key Ideas

The origins of the Bauhaus lie in the late 19thcentury, in anxieties about the soullessness of modern
manufacturing, and fears about art's loss of social relevance. The Bauhaus aimed reunite fine art
and functional design, creating practical objects with the soul of artworks.

Although the Bauhaus abandoned many aspects of traditional fine-arts education, it was deeply
concerned with intellectual and theoretical approaches to its subject. Various aspects of artistic
and design pedagogy were fused, and the hierarchy of the arts which had stood in place during
the Renaissance was levelled out: the practical crafts - architecture and interior design, textiles
and woodwork - were placed on a par with fine arts such as sculpture and painting.

Given the equal stress it placed on fine art and functional craft, it is no surprise that many of the
Bauhaus's most influential and lasting achievements were in fields other than painting and
sculpture. The furniture and utensil designs of Marcel Breuer, Marianne Brandt, and others paved
the way for the stylish minimalism of the 1950s-60s, while architects such as Walter
Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were acknowledged as the forerunners of the similarly
slick International Style that is so important in architecture to this day.

The stress on experiment and problem-solving which characterized the Bauhaus's approach to
teaching has proved to be enormously influential on contemporary art education. It has led to the
rethinking of the "fine arts" as the "visual arts", and to a reconceptualization of the artistic process
as more akin to a research science than to a humanities subject such as literature or history.
 How to Recognize the Influence of Bauhaus Style?











May 23, 2016

Silka P

Alias of Ksenija Pantelić

The Bauhaus school was the most influential art school of the 20th century, one
whose approach to teaching, and understanding art’s relationship to society and
technology, had a major impact both in Europe and the United States long after it
closed. The Bauhaus style of looking at art and seeking new developments is seen to
lay in the 19th century and in the anxieties about the soullessness of manufacturing
and its products, and in fears about arts’ loss of purpose in society. The Bauhaus, a
German word meaning ‘ house of building ‘, founded in 1919 in Weimer, Germany, by
the architect Walter Gropius, aimed to merge the two schools of Fine Arts
and Applied Arts in perfect harmony, and to reconcile the art and craft while
producing the new aesthetics that we now know as design. Even though the Bauhaus
abandoned much of the old academic tradition of fine art education, it emphasized
intellectual and theoretical pursuits, seeing the medieval crafts guild as an important
method of teaching as well. Viewing the school first and foremost as an artistic
community, it was bound by the idea of creating a total work of art, Gesamtkunstwerk,
blurring the hierarchy of Fine Arts and Arts and Crafts Movement.
Curiculum Wheel of the Bauhaus School. Image via cramertolboe.com

The Key Ideas behind the Bauhaus Style

Seeing the creativity and manufacturing as drifting apart, the Bauhaus aimed to unite
them once again and to re-burst the design for everyday life. Bringing together fine art
and craft in the shared goal of problem-solving for a modern industrial society, it
effectively leveled the old hierarchy of the arts, placing crafts on par with fine arts
such as sculpture and painting. Focusing the teaching of the different subjects as
interlocking with each other, the Bauhaus style, reflected the ideas of the influential
English designer, William Morris, who argued that art should meet the needs of
society and that there should be no distinction between form and function.
“ The ultimate aim of all artistic activity is building! … Architects,
sculptors, painters, we must all get back to craft! … The artist is a
heightened manifestation of the craftsman. … Let us form … a new
guild of craftsmen without the class divisions that set out to raise an
arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! … Let us together
create the new building of the future which will be all in one:
architecture and sculpture and painting.”Walter Gropius

The original and the influential curriculum was central to the school’s operation, and it
was described by Gropius in the manner of a wheel diagram. The outer rings described
the preliminary courses focused on the practical formal analysis, in particular on
the contrasting properties of forms, color, and materials. The middle rings
represent the research on the problems related to form, emphasizing the practical and
technical workshops. These programs offered the best-known element of the Bauhaus
style, and that is functionality through the simplified,geometrical forms, minimal
embellishment, that let the new designs be reproduced with ease. At the center of
the curriculum were classes that specialized in the practicality through technological
reproduction, with the aim on craft and workmanship that was lost in technological
manufacturing.