Neoclassical Architecture: Exploring 17th-19th Century European Masterpieces

Abstract

In the 17th century, Europe embraced new artistic styles in architecture, painting and sculptures. From 1750 to around 1830, a new design of classicism flourished, known as neoclassicism (Irwin, 1997). Neoclassicism was used to distinguish it from the classical architecture of ancient Rome, or renaissance, as known at that time. Around the 18th century, modern classicism was described as the authentic style that emphasized illusion and applied ornament. Architects began this new architecture to outdate the baroque architecture. This essay aims to discuss three buildings in separate periods and how each was in terms of style, ornament, plan and construction technique. Versailles's palace is the leading world's most famous 17th -18th-century monumental complex located approximately twenty kilometres southwest of Paris. In 1624, king Louis XIII while on several hunting trips, was pleased with the location of the area and ordered the construction of a hunting lodge. The directives of the construction facilitated and designed by Philibert Le Roy, whereby a small chateau was constructed of stone and red brick. It was later on that King Louis XIII started the enlargement of the Chateau. The palace was executed in the French Baroque style (Marin and Lehman, 1991). The French Baroque was evident through the large curved forms, twisted columns, high domes and complicated shapes. The interiors consist of richly woven red and gold fabrics, heavily gilded plaster moulding, heavy marbling and large sculpted sideboards. The landscape designing was done by Andre Le Notre and were characterized by French formal garden styles. On the other hand, in 1805, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, an architect, oversaw the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary's Assumption; this was a Roman Catholic cathedral of Baltimore. The cathedral was constructed in a way that portrayed a beautifully proportioned slightly disfigured by the onion-shaped domes, which were added later after the death of Latrobe (Lewis, 2021). The cathedral was built in neoclassical architecture design. The design was believed to have been produced by the neoclassical movement in Italy and France in the mid-18th century (Fayyaz, 2018). Neoclassical architecture emphasizes the wall instead of the artistic use of light and shade. The walls tend to maintain separate identities to each of their parts, which translates to the definition in symmetry, simple geometry instead of ornament (Fayyaz, 2018. The cathedral was designed in conformity to a Latin cross basilica plan, different from the previous American church architecture Latrobe had earlier done but maintained the European traditions of cathedral designs. The plan was also meant to unite a longitudinal axis and a domed space. The exterior consisted of the main façade, a classical Greek portico consisting of ionic columns arranged in a double hexastyle pattern (Lewis, 2021. The...