Neo-classicism & Eclecticism - Architecture as status symbol

Architecture before the industrial revolution was essentially architecture of the establishment, be it the king & lords or the religious institutions. These patrons of architecture had huge resources at their disposal, and the agenda for architecture was to create monuments befitting the status of the establishment.

So it follows that a major part of architecture of this period is either the palaces or places of worship. Agriculture was the mainstay of the economy but the farmers were at the lowest level of the social pyramid and had no means to make any spectacular construction. It was the elite section of the society that collected taxes on agriculture, the landlords and the king, the so called idle rich, that had superfluous wealth which they used to build monuments.

Religion encompasses all the sections of the society, and it would seem that the religious structures would reflect the aspirations of the masses, but this was not the case for religious architecture. It was actually built with the support of the ruling elite as it was in their own interests to do so. When the Roman Emperor Constantine realized that majority of people under his rule had turned Christians, he embraced Christianity himself in order to prevent possible revolts against his rule. In fact it was Emperor Constantine who built Hagia Sophia, the biggest byzantine church, using all the resources he had as an Emperor. Rulers everywhere in the world were willing to support religious activities, including financial support to the religious establishment & building of religious structures. In turn the religious institutions granted sanctity to the ruler, by performing the coronation ceremony of every new king (symbolizing divine sanction) and thereby making his rule seem legitimate in the eyes of the people.

In the Egyptian culture, where the king was also the head of the religion, the tombs of the Egyptian Kings were symbols of power of both the state & the religion. It was not a question of how large a structure one would need as a memorial, it was basically an issue of how great & imposing monument could be built to commemorate the might of these institutions. The pyramids defy all norms in terms of functional suitability or the ratio of carpet area to built-up area. Greek & Roman temples fared better in this aspect, but that was not relevant anyway. What mattered was the visual quality of the structure, and hence the importance in the classical architecture on use of noble materials, scale and form, balance, rhythm and proportions, and ornamentation.

The later periods saw the bifurcation of the state & the religion, but both the institutions continued to build in the same fashion. Architecture, it is said, is the ultimate status symbol of a civilization. A permanent reminder of the might of the establishment, it is a tool to showcase the best a society can offer in terms of material wealth, its technological advancement and cultural finesse.

What the industrial revolution fundamentally changed was the very nature of power in the society. It was during this period that for the first time in human history that the divine right of the kings to rule was questioned, and United States America became the first republican state of modern history, a state managed by people themselves democratically. The French Revolution also tried to end the institution of monarchy and was nearly successful, though it gave rise to a new emperor in Napoleon. Many other states in Europe, though monarchial in their constitution, had slowly moved towards the democratic rule. In England the House of Commons became more important and though the British monarchy continued, the de-facto rule of the state was in the hands of the elected representatives of the people.

Naturally, the agenda for the state changed to the welfare of the people, and though the construction of new palaces did not end immediately with the industrial era, these had to be built with personal resources as the state support for construction of these kind of structures was not forthcoming anymore. 

The state support and funding was now directed towards institutions for the general public – education, health, and utilities like public transportation. As industries were now becoming the major source of employment for the people, development of infrastructure for the industries and trades became a priority for the state.

Hence architecture now had to cater to the new kinds of buildings that this changed focus of state required – public institutional buildings like government offices, hospitals, schools & colleges, Town halls, libraries, museums, railway stations and so on. The industries were another group of patrons for architecture, and they required trading halls, markets, industrial sheds & so on.

None of these building types had any historical parallels, and no standards for design. The issue before the architects was either to provide a new theory of architectural design for these new structures or to follow the classical renaissance architecture, modifying it to some extent to accommodate the new function of the building.

The first option was not only difficult as a new theory of design would need originality of thought, but its fate also would be uncertain because there was no guarantee that it would be accepted by the client & the society. The second option – following the classical building style - was easier and preferred by both the architects and their patrons alike, and was followed to a large extent for almost all the public buildings of the period.

It would seem strange that the symbols of the bygone powers would be embraced by the new democratically elected leaders of the state, but these leaders were also in search of new status symbols through architecture and thought it befitting to borrow from the classical traditions.

This apparently strange phenomena is not without its precedents. The St. Peters, the most important symbolic building for Christianity has borrowed its architecture from the idol-worshiping cultures of the Greek & Romans, and the grand obelisk in the center of its large piazza is borrowed from the Egyptian culture. It was simply a quest for providing the most impressive form in architecture, based on its visual quality, the origin of the form or its earlier religious, social & cultural association was irrelevant.

Thus the state sponsored architecture saw a revival of classical tradition all over the new democratic republic of the United State of America. The White House and the House of Representatives are both based on renaissance architecture, the Washington memorial is a replica of the Egyptian obelisk, and the façade of the Lincoln Memorial is a copy of Parthenon without the pediment. A powerful image for the democratic rule was sought using the classical renaissance architecture for the new national capital,  as it was associated with power and the cultural supremacy of the earlier feudal societies.

The Washington example was the model not only for other state capitols and government buildings in the United States of America, it became the architectural style for the new rich class of industrialists all over Europe & America, who were also obsessed with the idea of creating symbols of their newly acquired power through architecture. So the same architectural style was followed for the buildings of everyday use like banks & financial institutions, public libraries, museums and even theatres: what mattered was the visual quality of architecture, not the actual function of the building.

So large-scale was this phenomenon, that eventually historians gave it a title – neo-classicism. The buildings further got divided in two sub-categories – historicism & eclecticism. The difference is in these two styles was based on the extent to which the classical tradition was followed. Historicism would mean that the new construction would be based on some specific classical example (like Parthenon) and from the outside would look like a Greek temple or a Cathedral, but would be housing a bank headquarters inside.

Naturally, there arose a lot of issues with this kind of compromise. One often quoted example is that of a bank building, designed on the basis of Parthenon, where the architect refused to make any subdivisions in the ground floor, thereby cancelling out the demand for a partitioned cabin for the bank manager, stating that such partition would spoil the classical beauty of its architecture. The Owner of the Bank sided with the architect and the manager had to be content with a cabin in the basement.

Fortunately, the examples chosen were mainly cathedrals, which had good height, spacious outlay, and lot of light befitting its original purpose of religious assembly, and this was actually quite appropriate for majority of the public buildings of the period. The most popular among the classical examples was the Parthenon, with its huge colonnade and triangular pediment, which served as the entrance lobby for the new age public buildings. The main floor was raised high to create a huge flight of steps, and the subfloor was used to house most of the services required by the new function of the building like toilets & locker rooms and so on.

For a majority of public buildings, with large floor area and a few floors (typically two to three floors), the palaces were also a good model. The renaissance palace with organization of services on the ground floor, large reception halls on first floor and private rooms & bedrooms on the third floor, worked very well for such structures. Even here, the Parthenon frontage was used extensively for the entrance porch.

The capping feature of many of these buildings was the high dome of St. Peters with its lantern lighting, and has been used right from the House of Congress in Washington DC to many of the state capital buildings. The materials of construction and the technology however, was modern and this created certain issues for design. For example, when the roof was flat reinforced concrete slab, the pediment was out of question. The original Greek version was designed for a sloping timber roof, resulting in the front gable end. So we have here variations on theme, like elimination of the pediment in the Lincoln memorial at Washington, or creating a pediment for the front porch only, while the remaining portion of the building rose high with a flat roof and cornice.

The problem arose when the buildings had to be built for more than two or three stories. Here the classical precedent was of no use directly. Most of the classical structures were only Ground Floor structures, though this is not directly apparent due to their great heights (St. Peters, for example, is 452’ high, though it has only one functional floor), and such a pattern was impossible to follow in a skyscraper. The main problem was the height to width ratio of the building, which would never match the historical examples.

While the proposal submitted by Adolf Loos in the Chicago Tribune competition, where the skyscraper takes the form one single classical column may seem like parody of the attempt to build a sky-scraper in the classical tradition, a practical solution to this problem was found – by using specific elements from the classical building, and selectively applying them to the building elevation, while the overall form of the building had no relation to the classical tradition.

This compromise of combining the classical elements with the modern forms had two advantages. It enabled the designing of the building for its function without bothering about the classical precedent, while the visual effect was classical as most of the elements in its elevation were borrowed from the classical traditions. It satisfied the seemingly contradictory requirements of a modern building with functional design but a classical appearance, but needed a good designer to compose all the varied classical elements in the elevation in a harmonious manner like the winning entry by Raymond Hood for the Chicago tribune building.

Called ‘eclecticism’, this style of design was followed by many others as a valid architectural design solution, and became immensely popular. The lower floors of a large skyscraper thus would have the Greek Temple Frontage, all with the large Doric/Ionic/Corinthian column arcades, creating a public entry with a large flight of steps leading directly to the first floor, while the upper levels of the building would have renaissance palace windows with repetition of the pediments. Multiple combinations of colonnades and windows appeared, including the topping of domes & so on.

It must be clarified here that the architects of all these buildings were equally concerned about the functional issues of design. Most of these buildings were designed with due consideration to the function and organization of the building, the structural system and services. The fact that the building should function well for its current function was not lost on the Owners and the architects alike. The classical model was followed only for its visual appeal.

The problem was that this solution came with a cost of duplicity. Concrete & steel was used to create an appearance of stone, and the size of columns & many other parts of the elevation (the column base, pediments & so on) was too huge and not really appropriate as both these materials had much larger structural capability which not used. Most of the structural organization, at least in the elevation of the building, was false. But by far the most relevant issue for the architects was – how can a feudal or religious building become a model for an office building or hospital which had no thematic connection with these feudal structures with a different societal structure, different materials and building technology and a much different lifestyle of the users?

A solution to this pertinent question was sought to be answered by many theoreticians of the era, whose theories we shall discuss in the next chapter.