Georgian Architecture
The
period of architecture that we call Georgian is very roughly equivalent
to the 18th century. Although the reign of George III extended into the
19th century, and George IV did not die until 1830, the style(s) of
architecture most commonly associated with
Georgian England is at its most strongly identifiable in the period 1730-1800.
With
all those disclaimers established, what characterized Georgian
design? More than any other period of English historic architecture,
Georgian style is linked with the classical period of Greece
and Rome.
Classical influence. The Georgian period was highly - at times
almost exclusively - influenced by the classical architecture. An
entire generation of aristocratic youth traveled throughout Europe on
the "Grand Tour", which was supposed to put a polish on their education.
These Grand Tours exposed the most influential class in Britain to the
classical traditions of style and architecture. These young men (only
very occasionally did women undertake a Grand Tour), came home to
Britain fired by an enthusiasm for classical architecture and design.
Georgian style - major themes
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Influenced by Greece and Rome
Terraces and Town Houses
Palladianism
Country Houses
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Country Houses. During the 18th century wealth was
accumulating in the hands of fewer and fewer people.
Basically, the rich were getting richer, and they put money
into their homes. Wealthy landowners enclosed vast tracts of
land to create huge landscaped parks, and those parks acted
as a setting for grand houses we call "
country houses".
These country house estates were dotted with copies of classical
temples and other allegorical architectural elements such as
grottoes, bridges, and that group of oddments we call "
follies".
These elements were aligned and joined by sinuous avenues or
subtle openings in carefully planted trees and shrubs. The
houses which dominated these parks carried on the classical
philosophy.
Baroque vs. Classicism. At the beginning of the century, the
Baroque
movement produced architecture which employed classical elements
in a willy-nilly free-for-all profusion. The opulent cascades of
ornamental elements of Baroque gave way in the Georgian
period to careful - and in some cases
rigid -
adherence to a sense of classical proportion. If Baroque is
"over-the-top", Georgian classicism is understated elegance.
Palladianism. Georgian classicism was most heavily influence by
Palladianism,
a philosophy of design based on the writings and work of
Andreas Palladio, an Italian architect of the 16th century who tried
to recreate the style and proportions of the buildings of
ancient Rome.
What characterizes Palladian architecture? In a nutshell, grace,
understated decorative elements, and use of classical
"orders".
Definition
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Orders: a formalized
system of proportions. The major Greek classical
orders were Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian.
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Also, a great deal of attention was paid to the alliterative, or
symbolic nature of architectural elements. Thus, a mock
temple of Apollo (the Greek god of War) was not simply a
building, but might symbolize war in the English world. The
relationship of that temple to other architectural elements,
made a statement of the builder's philosophy. Nothing was
"just" a decorative element.
The first popularizer of Palladian style was
Inigo Jones, Surveyor-General under James I. Jones was responsible for several early Palladian buildings, notably
Queen's House,
Greenwich, and the Banqueting House at Whitehall. Later, the
torch of Palladianism was taken up by Richard Boyle, Lord
Burlington, the foremost patron of the arts during the
mid-18th century.
Terraces. The type of building which most characterized the
Georgian period was the Town House, often, though not always,
joined end to end to create "terraces".
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A Georgian terrace
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The 18th century was a time of great urban growth. At the same time,
the density of settlement in towns meant that there was a
need to pack a lot of houses into a small space. This need
gave birth to the terrace, which allowed a whole street to be
given a sense of architectural wholeness, while keeping the
size of houses small. Most terraces were made of brick, with
sloping slate roofs hidden behind stone parapets. In fashionable
Bath, where local stone was plentiful, brick was used less
frequently.
Walls between houses were built thick to prevent the spread of fire.
These dividing walls carried the weight of the chimney
stacks. Most terraces were four stories high, and the front
door was accessed by a short flight of stairs. The most
important rooms were on the first floor. [North Americans
take note: the "first floor" is not the ground floor, but the
first floor up beyond that].
Windows were almost exclusively sash-windows, made of standardized
panes of glass divided by thin, delicate wooden glazing bars.
The pattern of windowing was the same everywhere; on the
ground floor windows were kept short, for stability of the
house structure. First floor windows were tall and elegantly
expansive, second floor windows shorter, and top floor
windows almost square. Front doors are paneled, with a semi-circular
fanlight above.
Terraces took several forms; often laid out in straight lines, but
also in squares around a central garden space, or in crescents
or oval "circuses". These last two curvilinear designs were
often augmented with vistas and avenues in brick or masonry,
punctuated with stands of trees or gardens.
Building developers. The widespread use of the terrace plan
was made possible by the growth of speculative building.
Landowners would build rows of terraced houses with an eye to
renting the houses to the upper and newly-wealthy middle
class. Although many of these land developers hired
architects to carry out their plans, some successful
architects were developers themselves, notably the father-son teams
of Woods and Dance, and the
Adams
brothers. Many great terraces in Bath are the work of the Woods, while
the Dances were responsible for developing terraces in
Dublin, and the Adams team held sway in London.
Related:
Robert Adam
Country Houses
Inigo Jones