Russian Revival

blogtopia — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:12:31 +0000

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.

The first extant example of Byzantine Revival in Russian architecture, in fact the first example ever built, stands in Potsdam, Germany – a five-domed Church of Alexander Nevsky by Neoclassicist Vasily Stasov (builder of neoclassical Trinity Cathedral, St. Petersburg, father of critic Vladimir Stasov). Next year, in 1827, Stasov completed a larger five-domed Church of the Tithes in Kiev.

Buildings designed by Thon or based on Thon’s designs were: Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Armoury in Moscow, also cathedrals in Sveaborg, Yelets, Tomsk, Rostov-on-Don and Krasnoyarsk.

Modernisme

blogtopia — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:40:06 +0000

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.

Although the Catalan word modernisme has a wider sense, in the arts it usually refers to the currents known in other countries as Art Nouveau, Modern Style, Jugendstil, Stile Liberty, Sezessionstil, etc. It is a style basically derived from the English Arts and Crafts movement, the Pre-Raphaelite movement, the Gothic revival and the Aesthetic Movement (a restrained prelude to Art Nouveau), as well as from Symbolism. It is characterized by the predominance of the curve over the straight line, by rich decoration and detail, by the frequent use of vegetal and other organic motifs, the taste for asymmetry, a refined aestheticism, and the dynamic shapes.

Antoni Gaudí is the best-known architect of this movement. Other influential architects were Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadafalch, and later Josep Maria Jujol. Notable painters from the movement include the abovementioned Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Casas.

Building Techoclogy » Modern Style

Russian Revival

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Modernisme

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