Russian Revival

May 29, 2009 by blogtopia  
Filed under Architectural style

cathedral_of_christ_the_saviour_in_russia The Russian Revival style is the generic term for a number of different movements within Russian architecture, that arose in second quarter of the 19th century and was an eclectic melding of pre-Peterine Russian architecture and elements of Byzantine architecture.

The Russian Revival style arose within the framework the renewed interest in the national architecture, which evolved in Europe in the 1800s, and it is an interpretation and stylization of the Russian architectural heritage. Sometimes Russian Revival style is often erroneously called Russian or Old-Russian architecture, although the majority of Revival architects did not directly reproduce the old architectural tradition. Being instead a skillful stylization, the Russian Revival style was consecutively combined with other, international styles – from the architectural romanticism of first half of the 19th century to the modern style.

Read more

Modernisme

May 28, 2009 by blogtopia  
Filed under Architectural style

palau_de_musica Modernisme, also known, in English, as Catalan modernism, was the Catalan equivalent to a number of fin-de-siècle art movements, such as Symbolism, Decadence and Art Nouveau / Jugendstil, from roughly 1888 to 1911. The modernisme movement was centered on the city of Barcelona, and its best-known exponent was the architect Antoni Gaudí.

Modernisme was a cultural movement led by deeply individualistic and anti-traditionalist intellectuals who, roughly from 1888 (the First International Exposition of Barcelona) to 1911 (the death of Joan Maragall, the most important Modernista poet), attempted to update Catalan arts and ideas so as to uplift Catalan culture to a par with other European cultures. Such renewal included a distinctive style of Art Nouveau in architecture and plastic arts, but also the introduction of Symbolism, Decadence, Nietzschean Vitalism, Parnassianism and other contemporaneous movements into Catalan literature and philosophy, a modernizing transformation of Catalan traditional music, and so forth.

Read more