Chapter 5.

Nationalism and Stylistic Debates in Architecture

Idea moderna de la arquitectura como portadora del sello del carcter nacional forjada luego de la revolucin
francesa.
poca de cambios polticos -> arquitectura como construccin de identidad.
Architectural character 18th C = modes of expression within a universal vocabulary
19th C = national styles
Johann Fischer von Erlach, A Plan of Civil and Historical Architecture (1721) included non-western architectural styles.
The stage was set for not only a battle of styles and a tug of war between universal and relativist aesthetic models,
with political and aesthetic convictions.

Pluralism and revivalism

Both form symbols and build national identity.

Pluralism
Advocated the simultaneous use of the expanded range of styles antiquarian study had made accessible. Quest for
variety and the evocation of different times and places in picturesque gardens.
Association of styles with programs to activate prevailing cultural associations: Egyptian prisons (Pharaohs= death),
Gothic churches (Middle Ages= Christianity), Italian renaissance banks (Medici= modern commerce).
Greek= new ideals of liberty -> links with antiquarianism = progressive
John Foulston, townscape at Devonport. Radical stylistic contrasts -> legible landscape

Revivalism
A single historical model was appropriate for modern architecture: Classical, Medieval or Renaissance with
explanations drawn from national history.
Great enterprise for historians: to define a single historical period as capable of providing a model of national traditions,
institutions and values.
Issues of style became matters of state.

Gothic Revival (Neo-Gothic)

Revival of medieval forms
Most sustained of revivalist positions
Started in mid 18th C houses of wealthy and politically influential antiquarians in England.
Horace Walpole (writer son of Prime Minister), Strawberry Hill, 1750. House and museum of medieval artefacts.
Admitted that Gothics modern uses were limited to the charming irregularity of domestic architecture. Grecian forms
alone were suitable for public buildings. Association of Gothic with pinnacles and ornaments, mystery, darkness,
asymmetry in plan and massing to create a palpable sense of passage of time, building which itself narrates a story
(afterwards expanded by the aesthetics of the picturesque movement). Obsession with history.

The invention of German architecture

German Romantic writers and architects: the first promoters of Gothic as a powerful expression of national genius and
character, national identity in divided German territories.
Goethe, On German Architecture, 1772: attack on hegemony of French aesthetics, Laugiers rationalism,
Enlightenments project of love and reason. Gothic appeal to sensibility rather than rules, individual genius rather than
abstract systems.
Intellectual independence of Germany as a cultural nation
Iconic symbol of German Gothic: cathedral of Cologne
Preoccupation of antiquarian research: efforts by intellectuals, architects and political figures in England, France and
Germany to claim Gothic as their own,
Goerg Forster, Views Along the Lower Rhine, 1791. Helped establish the jagged profiles of the castles and cathedrals
of the Rhine valley as German cultural icons (area disputed with France).
The Napoleonic Wars and the patriotic Gothic Revival in Germany
Initial greeting of French Revolution as new age in human history, ideals of rights and liberty as solvents for the
entrenched privileges and traditions of Germanys micro-principalities and rigid class structures.
Napoleonic Wars -> violent reaction in Germany.
Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Project for a Cathedral to the Wars of Liberation, 1814. Building as representation of nation
and instrument for national reconstruction and renewal. Made of exposed brick (long hidden under stucco) carried by
the entire population to the site.
Revivalist position would merge with theories equating national and biological evolution as a new conception of
style and the role of the artist in preparing the future.

Greek and Gothic in Bavarian nationalism

Rivalry between Bavaria and Prussia in German unification played out in rival projects for a national monument.
Competition for German Walhalla:
Prussia = Schinkel: presented a Gothic project for Berlin
Bavaria = Carl Haller von Hallerstein of Nuremberg: presented an ancient Greek-style design stripped of later Roman
and Renaissance accretions, representing modern myths of national purity and grandeur.
Leo Von Klenze, Glyptothek, 1816, entrance to Munich, neo-antique forum with art gallery of ancient and modern
Classical sculpture. Greek revival, new urbanism of Munich. Public initiation to art considered key to foster a cultivated
citizenry.
Greek revival in new buildings in Athens after independence from Ottoman rule mid 18th C: a product of German,
Danish and French architects.

British nationalism
1796-1815: permanent state of war with France. Overshadowed discordant cultural longings of Scots and Welsh.
Construction boom of national monuments and urban improvements after Waterloo 1815: Regent Street, Trafalgar
Square. Craft a more populist image of the monarchy.

The Scottish national monument

Cockerell, Scottish National Monument atop Calton Hill, Edimburgh, a facsimile of the Parthenon
George Kemp, Scott Monument, 1836, 61m Gothic spire with arched diagonal buttresses
Ideological associations of revival styles were continually shifting and realigning, along with growth of modern party
politics and international diplomacy.
Projects lost much of their original potency in their stylistic rhetoric before they were finished.

The English Greek Revival

Intent to surpass Napoleons legacy of Roman imperial grandeur. Revival of more pure Grecian models.
Sir Robert Smirke, British Museum (1823-1846), General Post Office (1824-1829).
William Wilkins: Gothic design - highly detailed, symmetrical, rich roof line of gables and pinnacles to underscore the
longevity and tradition of ancient colleges. Grecian Classicism: lofty stairs and stately porticoes for public buildings
(National Gallery complementing triumphant imagery of Trafalgar Square).

The Gothic Revival in Britain

Church design: associated with renewal of Anglican church. Gothic cheaper than Classical.
Pugin: prophet of a universal Gothic Revival.

Pugin and the Houses of Parliament

Emergence of Gothic Revival due to:
- 1835 decision by Parliamentary Committee to require Elizabethan or Gothic style for reconstruction of Palace of
Westminster after fire
- Pugins campaign for Gothic Revival as means to reform taste, restore social fabric and moral fibre of industrializing
England.
1832 Reform Bill: expanded parliamentary representation. Opening artistic decisions (competitions) to democratic
procedure. Different from revolution in 1830 France.
Pugin, Contrasts, 1836, satiric depiction of architectural splendour and social harmony of Medieval England vs
contemporary social ills in modern Greek Revival streetscapes. Linked decline of Gothic with rise of Protestantism,
revival of Classicism with erosion of ethical values, culminating in modern laissez-faire commercialism. First publication
to abandon the antiquarian project of providing designers with historical sources in favour of the polemical use of
historical argument to justify the revival of a past style for a modern national architecture.

The Houses of Parliament

Pugin satire of architectural competition. Reduction of architecture to trade on cheap principles.
St Giles, Cheadle, intense Gothic church by Pugin, from the architectural frame to the liturgical equipment.
Polychromatic decorative vocabulary.
Pugin designed details of Houses of Parliament (Charles Barry): furniture, woodwork, ceramic tiles, wallpapers, stained
glass.
Pugin increased conviction that Gothic was a paradigm, not an image to be reproduced. Of Parliament: All Grecian,
Tudor details on a classic body. Only at its purest, he now felt, had Gothic achieved subordination of ornament to
structure.
Pugins own house (1835). Placement of windows to suggest interior program = transparency as architectural honesty.
Exposed brick construction, no decorative stucco = truth to materials.
Houses of Parliament: Barry sought to accommodate the complexity of program within a simple form to send a unified
and powerful message. Pugin was concerned with dramatizing the different spaces and functions -> picturesque
utility + propriety, clear hierarchy of richness in materials, elaboration and ornamentation between a house and a
church.

France: architectural restoration and national style

Gothic only gained force in 1840s.
Ile-de-France cradle of Gothic and of French monarchy.
Architectural restoration: recording and classification of Medieval architecture to save them as national monuments.
Gothic cathedrals became national monuments of French history.
Revivalism versus pluralism in restoration:
Revivalism/ Viollet-le-Duc: To restore is to reestablish to a finished state which may never have existed. (Clearing
additions and finishing original designs)
Pluralism/ Felix Duban (royal chateau at Blois): kept each wing, reflecting its own historical moment (11th to 17th C).
Architecture in progress instead of a crystalline ideal.

Gothic and the rise of nationalism in Central Europe

Habsburg Empire = complex national identity.

John Ruskin: advocate of maintaining national differences in architecture.
Vienna = Classical, Bohemia = Gothic.
Imre Henszlmann: studied with Pugin and Viollet-le-Duc and brought Gothic revival to Hungary.
Gothic rise in Hungary due to anti-Austrian sentiment from defeat in the war of independence. Gothic was not
indigenous to Hungary.
Imre Steindl, Parliament House, Budapest. Gothic Revival symbol of Hungarian national freedom. Big dome.