Architectural Styles and Emergence
Revivalism in architecture defines the use of visual styles that reflect the style of a previous architectural era. Architecture has undergone several revival styles which can be summarized within New Classical Architecture and at other times under the umbrella term traditional architecture (Bradbury, 2015, p.112). Architectural styles are those features that identify a building or a structure and may be inclusive of such elements as method of construction, character of the region, form and the materials used in building. Most architecture is classifiable within a chronology of styles that varies over time an illustration f the changing beliefs, fashions, religions, technology, materials or even emergence of new ideas that make the styles attainable.
Architectural styles are therefore emergence from the history of a particular society that is associated with the style. These styles are recorded in the subject of architectural history. It is possible that numerous architectural styles may be fashionable at the same time (Groom, 2012, p.88). When a style changes to another, it normally takes place in a very gradual way since the architects learn and embrace the ideas with time and not instantaneously. At other times, the new style mat be a n antagonist of the existing style for example post modernism which is a style that defines after modernism which has recently found entry into the language of architecture and broken down into numerous styles with each of the styles having a defining name (Bonner, 2013, p.111).
An architectural style develops from a given region or location and then spreads to other regions to give the style an opportunity to develop in other new ways from the sources as other regions develop their own strategy or way of twisting it (Brittain-Catlin, 2017, p.158). An example is the renaissance ideas which came from Italy around 1425 and in 200 years spread to all the countries of Europe with English, Belgian, French and Spanish renaissances illustrating conspicuity the same style but with unique features. Styles can also be spread through colonialism. This can be by the foreign colonies getting the ideas from their own country or by settler establishing a residence in a new land. An example of such is the Spanish missions in California which brought priests from Spain in the late 18th century who established a unique style (Chambers, 2012, p.269).
Reinterpretations and revivals crop in as soon as s style runs out of fashion. An example is classicism which has undergone numerous revivals and found a new outfit as neoclassicism. Each time a style is revived it becomes different from the initial style and with different characteristics from what it had before (Ford, 2012, p.187). Another example was the Spanish mission style that underwent revival after 100 years and was renamed Mission Revival before it was evolved again into the Spanish Colonial Revival.
Spread of Architectural Styles
All forms of art were affected by revivalist art in more specifically architecture. Most of the revivalism was mainly recorded during the nineteenth century partly as a Romanticism reaction to the nature of industrial revolution that was perceived to be impersonal (Demissie, 2012, p.230). Mass production of objects among them art and furniture ignited people to move back to what they termed their good old days that was strongly rooted in the prevailing romanticism trend. All the past styles were at risk of being updated during the nineteenth century more specifically in the United States. In the beginning styles that were inspired classically such as roman revival and Greek Revival were really popular in the United States as they were perceived by Americans that the democracy of the United States was founded on the democracies of antiquity. Numerous other revivals came up in the mid nineteenth century among them Italian Renaissance, Baroque art, Ricco Style, Gothic, ancient Egypt and Romanesque (Finlay, 2010, p.269).
The Gothic Revival Style was most common with churches, public buildings, modest private homes as well as mansions. This style was revived in the late 18th century in England and became polarized for domestic architecture in the 1850s (Douglass, 2013, p.248). The Gothic Revival was a representation of chiefly two things: a romantic celebration in the environment of the Middle Ages and stone of the spirit as for the case of the earlier form and a reflection of the philosophical and architectural conviction of the exponents that there was a reflection in the Gothic architecture the morel vigor that came with the Middle Ages in the later and more serious form.
The revival also assumed that through reintroducing Gothic architectural styles in the 18th century society, the society would be reinvigorated morally (Eastlake, 2010, p.255). Highly ornamental, visually powerful, decadent and intricate forms were the nature of the Neo-Gothic architectural style when it was at its earlier forms as was illustrated by buildings such as Strawberry Hill designed by Horace Walpole. Such a style gave minimal attention to functionality neither did it adhere to the specific structures of the building. By illustrating such feature, Neo-Gothic architectural style failed to meet the poetic spirit of age and Romantic literacy test as had been illustrated in the works of architects like Horace Walpole (Finlay, 2010, p.313).
In another view, Neo-Gothic architecture was thus perceived to be nostalgic and sentimental backward glance following its features. In another sense, Gothic Revival was a representation of the attempts by architects and men of the church to relate the liturgical vigor of Gothic churches of the Middle Ages to the 18th century through recording it in stone. It was thus argued that Gothic Revival was a representation of the expected standard moral excellence which was to be adopted and practices widest possible.
Revivalism in Architecture
The emergence of Greek Revival was from neoclassic movement and was a representation of the attempts by the architects to establish it in the architecture of antiquity, a style or form of architecture that was in line with the principles of order and reason that derived from their own Age of Enlightenment and Reason. Neoclassicism and Greek Revival were both a representation of a pursuit for intellectual and architectural truth (Harris, 2013, p.112). An architect perceives in the forms of the principles of antiquity of excellent intelligence and reasons that dominated in the rationalistic spirit of his own age. This was also achievable through reinvigorating the traditional style. In such styles, the architect would build buildings that drove inspirations by and from other principles of reason and rationality.
There was an antagonism between neoclassic and Greek revival with the Gothic Revival due to their perceptions on what the moral truths claimed by the Gothic revivalists were. According to them these moral truths were mainly false and illusionary and thus could not be used as any for an argument or discussion (Jenkins, 2012, p.415). To the eyes of a neo-classicist, Greek Revival is a mere decadent celebration of a style over substance that appreciated and lifted illusion and ornament above reason and truth. Neo-Gothic architects were determined to make endless claims and weak limitations of the Gothic style just in a bid to please the frivolous aristocrats.
Gothic Revival was divided into two main stages with each stage representing different ideas. The first stage was mainly composed of raw and ignorant imitation of Gothic architecture that did not have either a coherent system of planning or an architecture philosophy (Yorke, 2017, p.85). The initial building of this type of stage was the Strawberry Hill that was done in 1747. Another example was Fonthill Abbey designed by James Wyatt. The two building were similar in the sense that both of them attempted to conserve in stone the atmosphere of Rome of the Middle Ages. Still, the two building illustrated more concisely and clearly how impractical Neo-Gothic building was and how it lacked structures.
Numerous efforts were applied towards the changing of the Gothic Revival to ground it on such principles as diligent observation and restoration of Gothic architecture (Llc, 2010, p.163). This was observed in the late person of Neo-Gothic architecture that was associated with more strict observance to the forms of medieval architecture as well as to the philosophical interpretation that treated Gothic architecture as a paragon of excellence and paragon value. This is the reason for the possible clear observation of a more concise evolution in the nature of the Gothic Revival that is distinct from the loose quality of picturesque and essentiality of the ancient period. By the end of the 18th century, Gothic Revival had undergone massive transformation from what started as a fondness inspired by the Romantic lifestyle and desire for majestic ornamentation into an architectural style that was based upon very powerful philosophical and moral principles beside an elaborate and intricate awareness of the Gothic form (Palmer, 2011, p.166).
Gothic Revival and Greek Revival
The Greek Revival which grew out of neoclassicism movement developed between the years 1750 and 1830 and was in several ways the antithesis of the Neo-Gothic architectural form which was its contemporary form (Murph, 2017, p.693). Regardless of the later manifestations of these styles, Gothic Revival is a derivative of Romanticism as well as the string desire for emotions and passions. On the other hand, the Greek Revival uplifted reason, intelligence and rationality above any other principles. Neoclassicism on the other hand was focused on achieving intellectual and intellectual purity and truth, a sharp contrast to what it was perceived to be agitating for which was illusionary truth and ornamentals of the Neo-Gothic style (Palmer, 2011, p.312). The foundation of neoclassicism was based on observations mad on classic forms and classic art. With reference to the words of Crook, neoclassicism was basically an art of the ideal, an artist that s properly schooled and comfortably familiar with the canon and one who does doe duplicate lifeless reproductions but instead synthesizes the ancient in new forms in each and every piece of work he does.
Neoclassicism of which Greek Revival was to be part focused on the highest attainable levels of art was in existence only to reinterpret in the contemporary circumstances the principles and tremendous work that was already achieved in the past (Palmer, 2011, p.188). In other words, neoclassicism means an ideal control of an idiom which basically means a perfection of an already existing achievement. In this style, the architect aims at fitting the perfection of antiquity into a modern cast. The above discussions are shedding light on the antagonism between Gothic Revival and Greek revival. In the early days, Neo-Gothic architecture was compromised of a relatively more crude and ignorant imitation of Gothic woks that were quite different from the original productions. Under such ignorant imitation, creativity and continuation of progress on the already existing idiom were limited (Ruskin, 2013, p.207). This made Neo-Gothic form of architectural style to be perceived to be inferior and superfluous by the Greek revivalists as per their own architectural pursuits.
Efflorescence of archeological exploration into the various sites and cultures led to the emergence of Greek Revival in Greece and Rome in the mid-18th century. The revival was mainly sustained and inspired by the discoveries that were made by the archeologists (Pennington, 2013, p.268). In his writings, Bernard de Montafaucon illustrated how the imaginations of numerous tourists were intrigued and they began flocking the archaeological sites of the ancient Rome and Greece. Still, the excavations that were made in cities like Pompeii and Herculaneum in 1748 and 1738 also ignited the imaginations of many architects, novelists and archaeologists. The interests that were developed in classical antiquity quickly changed into a burst of fascination most specifically with the Greek antiquities (Sagarena, 2014, p.333). The transformation illustrated a conviction of a Greek architecture being superior to the Roman architecture.
Neo-Gothic Architecture
The architects of the Greek Revival often made references to the classical forms of reason and order which were in correspondence to the discoveries being made in the own Enlightenment age (Wright, 2014, p.288). From the neoclassical architects’ point of view, if the buildings by the Greek Revival architects embrace the principles of order and reason, then the whole society would be edified by the experience got from building using such principles. Greek Revival was associated with paradox in the sense that it had a longing backward-stare to the times of antiquity when inspirations were derivatives of emotions.
The Gothic Revival architecture deployed specific patterns of design that allowed for the creation of soaring paces that received enough light by the use of numerous windows (Bradbury, 2015, p.177). Just before Gothic age was the Romanesque architecture which was mainly associated with thick walls that were important in bearing the structural loads of the building. Narrow wall portions were the most important part of the Gothic buildings as they served as the loading bearing systems of the building and permitted puncturing of the rest of the walls using windows (Nylander, 2010, p.201). Still, buttresses found their applications widely on Gothic architecture which further reduced the necessity of the numerous thick walls and thus allowing great height spaces to be achieved. The windows were pointed and thus were larger and higher in comparison to curved windows and thus provided more light especially when used with stained glass in coloring the interior.
The height was the main characteristic of the gothic church. The height of the church was both real and professional with the main body of the church illustrating the main central part of the church which was also called the nave (Visser, 2012, p.212). Apart from providing a higher degree of flexibility to the architectural form, the pointed windows used in Gothic buildings also acted to direct the gaze of an individual to the heaven.
Religion acted as the principal force for the masons and the carvers who were behind the creation of these massive buildings. The masons and the carvers acted to exercise their talents in the service of the Lord (Lindfield, 2016, p.162). An example of the Gothic feature was the South Rose Widow that was installed in 1260 at the cathedral of Notre-Dame that was laid in France in 1163.
Gothic c revival resulted from a reaction to the classical revival and its influence was felt across Australia, America and even Europe. The reawakening of the revival was spearheaded by John Ruskin and Augustus Pugin and the revival continued into the 19th century where in gradually replaced the classical styles that was dominant by then (Sagarena, 2014, p.412). Religious and spiritual terms of perceptions besides the structural terms were the perception of the men who came up with the idea of gothic architecture. To the view of those who clang to religion, the purported that religion has generated its own supreme architecture which was ideal in the expression of their spirit and ethos. These groups of persons were convinced that renaissance architecture was pagan (Harris, 2013, p.197). This was because renaissance architecture derived its influences from the heathen temples of Rome. Ruskin and Pugin permitted only Gothic architecture to represent the Christian faith.
Greek Revival and Neoclassicism
Those who subscribed to the ideologies of the revival of the Gothic style were against the mechanization of industrialization. The ideas led to the emergence of Arts and Crafts movement that was founded from the Gothic style (Bradbury, 2015, p.265). Gothic Revival acted as a form of controversy between the various groups of people and scholars. By declaring Gothic style as the only architectural style allowed to represent the Christian faith in buildings and design, it was apparent that any other styles were pagan and did not have a space in the life of a Christian faithful (Llc, 2010, p.320). This created divisions and unnecessary disunity among the people. A certain group of people were considered to be holy while another was perceived to be not belonging to any faithful.
Gothic Revival was against the mechanization of industrialization in the countries where it was adopted. As a result, Gothic architecture came out to be a stumbling block to any forms of industrialization in the countries which would in turn be treated as a form of economic progress and development (Demissie, 2012, p.311). There could be noticed various forms of conflict in cases where industrialization was to be carried out in countries in which Gothic Revival was taking place.
In conclusion, the ancient Gothic architecture and Gothic Revival are distinctive and yet interlinked. Architecture revolves around design and improving the beauty, style and shape of building and structure around the human habitation environment. Even as early as the 12th century, Gothic architecture aimed at achieving the three design aims and beauty attempts even though the amount of achievement is not comparable to what is achievable today as a result of changes in technology and numerous developments. Churches, which were the most important and illustrative of the Gothic architecture, had large stained glass windows. These windows were very fascinating bearing their ability to bear a religiously significant story. The Gothic architecture of that time ensured that the windows were to be made very large which in turn proved more inviting to not any the local worshippers but also the visitors as well.
References
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