Siegfried Giedion, whose first book (1922) had the suggestive title Late Baroque and Romantic Classicism, asserted later "The Louis XVI style formed in shape and structure the end of late baroque tendencies, with classicism serving as its framework." In the sense that neoclassicism in architecture is evocative and picturesque, a recreation of a distant, lost world, it is, as Giedion suggests, framed within the Romantic sensibility.

Intellectually Neoclassicism was symptomatic of a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts of Rome, the more vague perception ("ideal") of Ancient Greek arts and, to a lesser extent, sixteenth-century Renaissance Classicism, the source for academic Late Baroque.

Many neoclassical architects were influenced by the drawings and projects of Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude Nicolas Ledoux. The many graphite drawings of Boullée and his students depict architecture that emulates the eternality of the universe. There are links between Boullée’s ideas and Edmund Burke’s conception of the sublime. Ledoux addressed the concept of architectural character, maintaining that a building should immediately communicate its function to the viewer.

Buildings in the United States, such as the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, are still being built in neoclassical style today. In Britain a number of architects are active in the neoclassical style. Two new university Libraries, Quinlan Terry’s Maitland Robinson Library at Downing College and Robert Adam Architects. Neoclassical architecture is usually now classed under the umbrella term of "traditional architecture" and is practised by a number of members of the Traditional Architecture Group.

Links

• Neoclassical architecture – Wikipedia

Incoming search terms:

• neoclassical architecture
• features of neoclassical architecture

The Italianate style was first developed in Britain about 1802 by John Nash, with the construction of Cronkhill in Shropshire. This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the late Regency and early Victorian eras.

The Italianate style was further developed and popularized by the architect Sir Charles Barry in the 1830s. Barry’s Italianate style drew heavily for its motifs on the buildings of the Italian Renaissance, this concept, sometimes at odds with Nash’s semi-rustic Italianate villas, produced what came to be accepted as the Italianate style. The style was not confined to England and was employed in varying forms, long after its decline in popularity in Britain, throughout northern Europe and the British Empire. From the late 1840s it achieved huge popularity in the United States, where it was promoted by the architect Alexander Jackson Davis.

Elements of the style

Key visual components of this style include:

• Low-pitched or flat roofs; roof is frequently hipped
• Projecting eaves supported by corbels
• Imposing cornice structures
• Pedimented windows and doors
• Arch-headed, pedimented or Serlian windows with pronounced architraves and archivolts
• Tall first floor windows suggesting a piano nobile
• Angled bay windows
• Attics with a row of awning windows between the eave brackets
• Glazed doors
• Belvedere or machicolated signorial towers
• Cupolas
• Quoins
• Loggias
• Balconies with wrought-iron railings, or Renaissance balustrading
• Balustrades concealing the roof-scapes
• About 15% of Italianate houses in the United States include a tower

Links

• Italianate architecture – Wikipedia

Incoming search terms:

• Italian Victorian Classical Building
• machicolated signorial towers

Most of the styles originating in post-renaissance Europe can be described as classical architecture. This broad use of the term is employed by Sir John Summerson in The Classical Language of Architecture.

The "elements" of classical architecture have been applied in radically different architectural contexts than those for which they were developed. The classical orders – Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian – have meaning in the stylistic history of 5th century BC Greece, shifting to the developments in 1st century AD Gaul, with the styles revived over and over again since then.

Classical architecture can be divided into:

• Greek architecture (before Alexander the Great)
• Hellenistic architecture
• Roman architecture

Only Greek architecture in the time before Alexander (who died in 324 BC) carries an authentic, ethnic designation. The ancient Greeks were notoriously dismissive of barbaroi – those who spoke Greek non-natively or not at all. The incredible conquests of Alexander and the subsequent application of a veneer of Greek city states to a base of Egyptian, Semitic, and even Iranian populations produced an important change.

Though speaking Greek remained the touchstone of whether one was a member of civilized culture or not, the ethnic diversification of the Hellenistic world is clear. The formal elements of classical Greek architecture were applied to temples for gods never worshipped in Greece.

The Romans can be seen as the latest Hellenistic empire. Pre-imperial architecture is more or less Etruscan with some Greek elements. By the time the Romans conquered mainland Greece in the 2nd century BC they were importing Greek craftsmen to build major public buildings.

The term Roman Art and Roman Architecture has no ethnic meaning relating to Italic Romans. Most art historians assume that it has the ethnic meaning of "Greek-speaking slave" or "Greek-speaking free laborer," in fact.

Links

• The Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America
• List of classical architecture terms
• Classical orders
• Neoclassicism
• Architectural style