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.
Influence of Religion
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 owninterests 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 byzantinian 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
pyramidsdefy 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
ofnoble 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.
Industrial Economy
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.
Change of focus for
architecture
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
anothergroup of patrons for architecture, and they required trading halls, markets,
industrial sheds & godowns.
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.
Problem of precedent
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 centre 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.
Revival of the
classical tradition
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.
Neo-classicism
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.
Cathedral as
prototype
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 functionof
the buildinglike 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.
Problems with
high-rise buildings
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 thevisual
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.
Problem of relevance
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 inappropriate as both these
materials had much larger structural capability which not really 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.