MANNERISM ARCHITECTURE ( 1600 AD)
LECTURE 12
Mannerist architecture often employs classical elements in a new and
unusual way that defies traditional formulas.
Mannerism comes from the Italian word maniera meaning
“mannered” or “Style”
ITAL
Y
TUR
CEN
16TH
IN
SM
NERI
MAN
AND
E
ANC
AISS
REN
LATE
THE
Events:
•Reorientation of trade routes from
the east (Italy in prime location) to
the west (discovery of America)
•Ever increasing threat of Turkish
invasion
•Machiavelli publishes The Prince
1532: advocates that each situation
determines whether one should be
good or bad-moral and economic
relativity
•Classical calm, harmonious images
no longer in fashion
•Artistic license practiced more freely
and openly (for a little while at
least)
Map of 16th century Italy
The Fontainebleau School
• French Mannerism flourished from
1531 to the early 17c.
• Characteristics:
– Extensive use of stucco in moldings & picture frames.
– Frescoes.
– An elaborate [often mysterious] system of allegories and mythical
iconography.
• Centered around the Royal Chateau of Fontainebleau.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Characteristics of Mannerist Architecture
• Stylishness in design could be applied to a building as well as to a
painting.
• Showed extensive knowledge of Roman architectural style.
• Complex, out of step style taking “liberties” with classical
architecture.
• Architecture, sculpture, and walled gardens were seen as a complex,
but not necessary unified whole.
MANNERIST TENDENCIES
EXAGGERATING ELEMENTS
DISTORTING ELEMENTS
BREAKING RULES OF ARRANGEMENT
JOKING
USING OBSCURE CLASSICAL
PRECEDENTS
OVER-REFINING
INVENTING FREE COMPOSITIONS
ABSTRACTING CLASSICAL FORMS
SUGGESTING PRIMITIVENESS
SUGGESTING INCOMPLETENESS
SUGGESTING IMPRISONMENT
SUGGESTING STRUCTURAL FAILURE
6
7
8
9
MANNERISM
MANNERISM WAS MARKED BY
WIDELY DIVERGING TENDENCIES IN
THE WORK OF
MICHELANGELO,
GIULIO ROMANO,
PERUZZI AND
ANDREA PALLADIO,
THAT LED TO THE BAROQUE STYLE
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Baldassare Peruzzi (1481–1536)
• an architect born in Siena, but working in Rome,
• His work bridges the High Renaissance and the Mannerist.
• His Villa Farnesina of 1509 is a very regular monumental cube of two
equal stories, the bays being strongly articulated by orders of pilasters.
• The building is unusual for its frescoed walls
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Baldassare Peruzzi (1481–1536)
• Peruzzi’s most famous work is
the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in
Rome.
• The unusual features of this building
are that its façade curves gently
around a curving street. It has in its
ground floor a dark central portico
running parallel to the street, but as
a semi enclosed space, rather than
an open loggia.
• Above this rise three
undifferentiated floors, the upper
two with identical small horizontal
windows in thin flat frames which
contrast strangely with the deep
porch, which has served, from the
time of its construction, as a refuge
to the city’s poor
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Giulio Romano (1499–1546)
• a pupil of Raphael, assisting him on
various works for the Vatican.
• Romano was also a highly inventive
designer, working for Federico II
Gonzaga at Mantua on the Palazzo
Te, a project which combined his
skills as architect, sculptor and
painter.
• In this work, incorporating
garden grottoes and extensive
frescoes, he uses illusionistic effects,
surprising combinations of
architectural form and texture, and
the frequent use of features that
seem somewhat disproportionate or
out of alignment.
• The total effect is eerie and
disturbing.
Giulio Romano, Palazzo Tel
T’e, 1525-1535, Matnua, Italy
Exterior
Interior courtyard
•Horse farm and a
villa
•Unsettling
architectural setting
•Triglyphs dip into
the cornice,
creating holes
above
•Pediment corners
do not meet
•Window openings
at unconventional
locations
Engaged columns divide façade into unequal bays
Massive columns carry almost no weight, a narrow cornice
Keystone pops out of the arches
Oddly sized stones
Highly unusual placement of arch, below a pediment
17
18
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564)
• He excelled in each of the fields of
painting, sculpture and architecture and
his achievements brought about
significant changes in each area.
• His architectural fame lies chiefly in two
buildings: the interiors of the Laurentian
Library and its lobby at the monastery of
San Lorenzo in Florence, and St Peter's
Basilica in Rome.
• St Peter's was "the greatest creation of
the Renaissance",and a great number of
architects contributed their skills to it.
• But at its completion, there was more of
Michelangelo’s design than of any other
architect, before or after him.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
St Peter's
• The plan that was accepted at the laying of the foundation stone in
1506 was that by Bramante.
• Various changes in plan occurred in the series of architects that
succeeded him, but Michelangelo, when he took over the project in
1546, reverted to Bramante’s Greek-cross plan and redesigned the
piers, the walls and the dome, giving the lower weight-bearing
members massive proportions and eliminating the encircling aisles
from the chancel and identical transept arms.
• Michelangelo’s dome was a masterpiece of design using two
masonry shells, one within the other and crowned by a massive
lantern supported, as at Florence, on ribs.
• For the exterior of the building he designed a giant order which
defines every external bay, the whole lot being held together by a
wide cornice which runs unbroken like a rippling ribbon around the
entire building.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
St Peter's
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
St Peter's
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
St Peter's
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
St Peter's
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Laurentian Library, Florence
• Michelangelo was at his most Mannerist in the design of the
vestibule of the Laurentian Library
• The Library is upstairs.
• It is a long low building with an ornate wooden ceiling, a matching
floor and crowded with corrals finished by his successors to
Michelangelo’s design.
• But it is a light room, the natural lighting streaming through a long
row of windows that appear positively crammed between the order
of pilasters that march along the wall.
• The vestibule, on the other hand, is tall, taller than it is wide and is
crowded by a large staircase that pours out of the library
• The space is crowded and it is to be expected that the wall spaces
would be divided by pilasters of low projection.
• But Michelangelo has chosen to use paired columns, which, instead
of standing out boldly from the wall, he has sunk deep into recesses
within the wall itself
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Laurentian Library
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Laurentian Library
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Laurentian Library
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Laurentian Library
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Andrea Palladio (1508–80)
• "the most influential architect of the whole Renaissance
• His first major architectural commission was the rebuilding of
the Basilica Palladiana at Vicenza, in the Veneto where he was to
work most of his life.
• Palladio was to transform the architectural style of both palaces and
churches by taking a different perspective on the notion of
Classicism, with their simple peristyle form.
• When he used the “triumphal arch” motif of a large arched opening
with lower square-topped opening on either side, he invariably
applied it on a small scale, such as windows, rather than on a large
scale as Alberti used it at Sant’Andrea’s.
• This Ancient Roman motif is often referred to as the Palladian Arch.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Andrea Palladio (1508–80)
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER
Andrea Palladio (1508–80)
• The best known of Palladio’s domestic buildings is Villa Capra,
otherwise known as "la Rotonda", a centrally planned house with a
domed central hall and four identical façades, each with a temple-like
portico like that of the Pantheon in Rome.
Andrea Palladio, Villa Rotunda, 1566-1570, Vincenza,
Italy
•Building has four identical facades, each with a different view
•Interior has rotunda, with four larger rooms alternating with four
smaller spaces to allow for more intimate settings
•When building viewed from a far, no matter from what angle, it looks complete
•Used as a working farm, family estate, villa retreat
•Villa appears as a mini temple; perhaps a residence of the Muses; ideal nature of
the central plan evokes the ancients
•Symmetrical ground plan
•Low round Roman-style dome, not the domes of the
Renaissance
•Originally the dome had an oculus, like the Pantheon, now
glazed
•Building set on a high podium; pediments dominate doors and
windows
Andrea Palladio, San Giorgio Maggiore, 1565, Venice
•Interlocking pediments
and columns
•High pedestals for
columns
•More Mannerist than
the Villa Rotunda, two
temple facades
intersect
•Clearly lit interior
