The Palladian Villa - Research Paper Example

 The Palladian Villa Introduction Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), the Italian architect, was one of the most prolific architectural designers to use factual information about ancient Roman architecture: the design goals, materials, construction techniques, and engineering devices. He used the knowledge obtained from an ancient architectural treatise1. Palladio published his reconstructions of ancient Roman buildings and his own designs of villas2. The architect’s work and treatise “inspired a major architectural movement outside of Italy, named Palladianism after him” (Palladio et al: vii), based on his rigorous interpretation of classical architecture. For several centuries after Palladio’s lifetime, the appeal of Palladianism grew, exerting a great impact on the architecture of the western world. Thesis Statement: The purpose of this research paper is to investigate the Palladian Villa, and analyse Palladio’s architectural concepts and design principles. Discussion Palladio constructed a unique and precise architectural language to articulate his designs. His architectural vocabulary or the elements that he used for composing his designs developed from his studies of the ruins of ancient Rome, the creative work of other architects, as well as the masterpieces of contemporary architecture. According to architectural historian James Ackerman, Palladio was the “world’s most imitated architect” partly because of his well-developed and perfected vocabulary of classical architecture from its most abstract to its highly literal form. Palladio’s use of classical conceptualization is evident from its abstract portrayal in the early design of Villa Poiana, followed by its more literal form in the Villa Barbaro created in the middle of his career, to the most characteristically Palladian representation in his crowning achievement, Villa Almerico, the “Rotonda” in Vicenza, Italy (Williams et al: 16). Figure 1. The Villa Rotonda (Wassell: 122) The Villa Rotonda (Figure 1) displaying the juxtaposition of geometric elements in the form of classical motifs, in compliance with well-defined rules of symmetry. Figure 2. Plan of the Villa Rotonda (Wassell: 125) Figure 2. depicts Andrea Palladio’s plan of the Villa Rotonda. Geometric relationships between the three dimensions of 30, 26 and 15 are evident within the five primary rooms of the Villa Rotonda, as specified in the architect’s fourth book (Wassell: 125). Figure 3. Villa Barbaro (Encarta 2009) Figure 4. Plan of the Villa Barbaro Figures 3 and 4 represent the Villa Barbaro and its ground plan respectively. The villa was completed around 1560, in the Veneto region of northern Italy Palladio’s greatest contribution to the Villa as a residential building was that he replaced the earlier use of refurbished castles or haphazard collection of buildings which were unsuitable to contemporary tastes. The Palladian villa was a new kind of agricultural and residential complex that accurately suited the needs of his sixteenth century Venetian patrons (Williams et al: 16). However, some villas such as the Villa Foscari, 1559, was not related to agricultural land (Huse et al: 126). The remarkable fact about Palladio’s villas is that they also proved to be exactly suitable for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English nobles and Southern American planters. The concept of Palladianism has elevated Palladio’s villas beyond Venetian architecture to an international style (Williams et al: 16). Regulating Principles Used in Palladian Villa Architecture The architecture of Palladio’s villas reveals flexibility of style; his inventiveness evident in the derivation of new formal solutions according to individual requirements and site constraints or characteristics. The architect did not employ any specific formula in designing his well-known villas, although distinctive principles of architectural form, symmetry and proportion constitute a basic regulating system for his plans. One of the significant regulating principles is symmetry which contributes both functionally as well as aesthetically. Another unifying feature for all his architectural works is their tripartite division, which is the division of the main body of the villa into three parts. The tripartite division is clearly perceived in the facade of the villa where the central portion is demarcated for the formal entrance to the villa which may be composed of three arches, a serliana or a columned porch crowned with a triangular pediment, and is flanked by symmetrical side components. Besides the enhanced aesthetic effect, this feature emerged from Palladio’s attention to structure as a skilled engineer. The architect used the tripartite division to place load bearing walls for maximum structural soundness and optimal effect (Williams et al: 16). The mathematics of Palladio’s villas is universally acclaimed, and while various scholars differ in their approach to his use of proportion, there is complete consensus on Palladio’s brilliant use of geometric forms in two and three dimensions, and his skilled use of symmetry as a consistent design principle. Moreover, the sheer variety of designs found in his architecture has been considered as further evidence of his genius. Since Palladio used various aspects of mathematics as design tools, no mathematical formula would capture his design process. The distinctive feature of Palladio’s work is his ability to shape spaces, individually as well as in combination. This necessitated his conceptualization of designs in the four dimensions of spacetime, and a masterful articulation of those spaces using classical forms (Wassell: 122-123). Palladio’s use of proportion is seen in his use of a hierarchy of spaces; alloting space for large, medium and small rooms around the main hall or salone of the villa. Palladio was one of the most influential architects of the Renaissance, on the basis of his deep knowledge of design and construction, and the extensive variety of his numerous works. His interiors were orderly and harmonious, the height of the rooms designed in proportion to their width and length. Frequently, Palladio used his villas to test other architectural concepts, as he considered the country residences to offer more freedom to experiment than urban palaces. Early in his career, he created a temple front in the Villa Gazzotti, and later as an experienced architect “audaciously added a dome” (Williams et al: 16) to the Villa Almerico, the “Rotonda”. The issue of proportion in Palladio’s architecture has been thoroughly investigated by scholars. Wittkower3 strongly asserts that Renaissance architects such as Palladio and Alberti used proportions derived from music in their architecture. Since “harmonic proportions” are beautiful to the ear, it was believed that architectural proportions were similarly part of a higher universal design, and hence equally beautiful to the eye. The author attributes the “evolution of this idea back to the Pythagoreans through Plato, who in his Timaeus explained that cosmic order and harmony are contained in certain numbers” (Wittkower: 105). Controversy on the origin of architectural details such as dentils, modillions and entablatures have been evoked. There is evidence that combinations of dentils and modillions emerging from ancient Roman works already appeared on fifteenth century buildings, such as on the facade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, though in quite a non-standard form. Moreover, fully developed versions of entablature in earlier works in Venice by Mauro Cadussi had been encountered in the early sixteenth century. However, according to Renaissance theory, it was the influence of Palladio and his contemporary Vignola that the combination of dentils and modillions in their canonical Corinthian entablatures made this solution widely accepted. During the time Palladio was formulating his canon of the five orders, the Corinthian entablature was “still the most significant element of the five orders whose form and proportions were ambiguous and undefined” (Mitrovic: 116). Palladio’s inclination to restrict the use of his canonical Corinthian entablature to buildings without pediments could be due to tectonic concerns. Since dentils are secondary rafters, they should not normally be used on a pedimented facade. It was found that Palladio presented idealized versions of his own buildings such as the Basilica in Vicenza, in his first book of architecture. He consciously adjusted material in his treatise to present idealized versions of buildings, differing considerably from the versions constructed. Boucher (p.296) points out that Palladio’s tendency to idealize is also seen in his unpublished archaeological surveys. On the other hand, in some of his unpublished reconstructions of ancient buildings such as the mausoleum of Romulus on the Via Appia, Palladio was more accurate than most of his contemporaries (Boucher: 298). However, he frequently projected his own preconceptions, such as in his surveys of the Roman theatre in Verona, and the temple in Assisi, through a process of “creative rearranging”, by means of imagining what the Roman architect had done, or had wanted to do (Boucher: 301-302). From Boucher’s paper it is evident that there are strong grounds for wondering whether, similar to his unpublished surveys, the published archaelogical surveys of Roman entablatures in the fourth book may have also emerged from idealization. Hence, there is a doubt about the possibility of Palladio manipulating the archaeological data in order to show that “his canonical Corinthian order, as advocated in Book One, is in accordance with Roman building practices” (Mitrovic: 117). Conclusion This paper has highlighted the work of Italian architect of the Renaissance, Andrea Palladio, in the creation of villas during the sixteenth century. It is evident that his work was brilliant; the foundations of which were classical architecture, mathematics and music. It is entirely justified that he has been the most imitated architect over the centuries, and continues to hold its own even in the contemporary world of architecture. Works Cited Boucher, Bruce. Nature and the antique in the works of Palladio. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 59 (2000): 296-311. Encarta. Villa Barbaro. (2009). Retrieved on 3rd June, 2009 from: http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t014/T014135A.jpg Huse, Norbert, Wolters, Wolfgang & Jephcott, Edmund. The art of Renaissance Venice: Architecture, sculpture, and painting, 1460-1590. The United States of America: University of Chicago Press. (1993). Mitrovic, Branco. Palladio’s canonical Corinthian entablature and the archaeological surveys in the Fourth Book of I quattro libri dell’architettura. Architectural History, 45 (2002): 113-127. Palladio, Andrea, Tavernor, Robert & Schofield, Richard. The Four Books on Architecture. Boston: MIT Press. (2002). Wassell, Stephen R. The mathematics of Palladio’s villas: Workshop ’98. Nexus Network Journal, 1 (1999): 121-129. Williams, Kim, Giaconi, Giovanni & Palladio, Andrea. The villas of Palladio. The United States of America: Princeton Architectural Press. (2003). Wittkower, Rudolph. Architectural principles in the age of humanism. London: Random House. (1965). Read More