Renaissance Revival architecture
Renaissance Revival architecture is a group of 19th-century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes. Under the broad designation Renaissance architecture 19th-century architects and critics went beyond the architectural style which began in Florence and Central Italy in the early 15th century as an expression of Renaissance humanism; they also included styles that can be identified as Mannerist or Baroque. Self-applied style designations were rife in the mid- and later 19th century: "Neo-Renaissance" might be applied by contemporaries to structures that others called "Italianate", or when many French Baroque features are present.
The divergent forms of Renaissance architecture in different parts of Europe, particularly in France and Italy, has added to the difficulty of defining and recognizing Neo-Renaissance architecture. A comparison between the breadth of its source material, such as the English Wollaton Hall, Italian Palazzo Pitti, the French Château de Chambord, and the Russian Palace of Facets—all deemed "Renaissance"—illustrates the variety of appearances the same architectural label can take.
Origins of Renaissance architecture
The origin of Renaissance architecture is generally accredited to Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi and his contemporaries wished to bring greater "order" to architecture, resulting in strong symmetry and careful proportion. The movement grew from scientific observations of nature, in particular, human anatomy.Neo-Renaissance architecture is formed by not only the original Italian architecture but by the form in which Renaissance architecture developed in France during the 16th century. During the early years of the 16th century, the French were involved in the Italian Wars, bringing back to France not just the Renaissance art treasures as their war booty, but also stylistic ideas. In the Loire valley a wave of chateau building was carried out using traditional French Gothic styles but with ornament in the forms of pediments, arcades, shallow pilasters and entablatures from the Italian Renaissance.
In England, the Renaissance tended to manifest itself in large square tall houses such as Longleat House. Often these buildings had symmetrical towers which hint at the evolution from medieval fortified architecture. This is particularly evident at Hatfield House, where medieval towers jostle with a large Italian cupola. This is why so many buildings of the early English Neo-Renaissance style often have more of a "castle air" than their continental European contemporaries, which can add again to the confusion with the Gothic Revival style.
Birth of the Neo-Renaissance
When the revival of Renaissance style architecture came en vogue in the mid 19th century, it often materialized not just in its original form first seen in Italy, but as a hybrid of all its forms according to the whims of architects and patrons, an approach typical of the mid and late 19th century. Modern scholarship defines the styles following the Renaissance as Mannerist and Baroque, two very different, even opposing styles of architecture, but the architects of the mid 19th century understood them as part of a continuum, often simply called 'Italian', and freely combined them all, as well as Renaissance as it was first practiced in other countries.Thus Italian, French and Flemish Renaissance coupled with the amount of borrowing from these later periods can cause great difficulty and argument in correctly identifying various forms of 19th-century architecture. Differentiating some forms of French Neo-Renaissance buildings from those of the Gothic revival can at times be especially tricky, as both styles were simultaneously popular during the 19th century.
As a consequence, a self-consciously "Neo-Renaissance" manner first began to appear. By 1890 this movement was already in decline. The Hague's Peace Palace completed in 1913, in a heavy French Neo-Renaissance manner was one of the last notable buildings in this style.
Charles Barry introduced the Neo-Renaissance to England with his design of the Travellers Club, Pall Mall. Other early but typical, domestic examples of the Neo-Renaissance include Mentmore Towers and the Château de Ferrières, both designed in the 1850s by Joseph Paxton for members of the Rothschild banking family. The style is characterized by original Renaissance motifs, taken from such Quattrocento architects as Alberti. These motifs included rusticated masonry and quoins, windows framed by architraves and doors crowned by pediments and entablatures. If a building were of several floors, the uppermost floor usually had small square windows representing the minor mezzanine floor of the original Renaissance designs. However, the Neo-renaissance style later came to incorporate Romanesque and Baroque features not found in the original Renaissance architecture which was often more severe in its design. John Ruskin's panegyrics to architectural wonders of Venice and Florence in the 1850s contributed to shifting "the attention of scholars and designers, with their awareness heightened by debate and restoration work" from Late Neoclassicism and Gothic Revival to the Italian Renaissance.
Like all architectural styles, the Neo-Renaissance did not appear overnight fully formed but evolved slowly. One of the first signs of its emergence was the Würzburg Women's Prison, which was erected in 1809 designed by Peter Speeth. It included a heavily rusticated ground floor, alleviated by one semicircular arch, with a curious Egyptian style miniature portico above, high above this were a sequence of six tall arched windows and above these just beneath the slightly projecting roof were the small windows of the upper floor. This building foreshadows similar effects in the work of the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson whose work in the Neo-Renaissance style was popular in the US during the 1880s. Richardson's style at the end or the revival era was a severe mix of both Romanesque and Renaissance features. This was exemplified by his "Marshall Field Warehouse" in Chicago. Neo-Renaissance was adopted early in Munich, often based directly on Italian Palazzi, first appearing in the Palais Leuchtenberg, by Leo von Klenze, then adopted as a state style under the reign of Ludwig I of Bavaria for such landmarks as the Alte Pinakothek, the Konigbau wing of the Munich Residenz, and the Bavarian State Library.
Development and expansion
Europe
While the beginning of Neo-Renaissance period can be defined by its simplicity and severity, what came later was far more ornate in its design. This period can be defined by some of the great opera houses of Europe, such as Gottfried Semper's Burgtheater in Vienna, and his Opera house in Dresden. This ornate form of the Neo-Renaissance, originating from France, is sometimes known as the "Second Empire" style, by now it also incorporated some Baroque elements. By 1875 it had become the accepted style in Europe for all public and bureaucratic buildings. In England, where Sir George Gilbert Scott designed the London Foreign Office in this style between 1860 and 1875, it also incorporated certain Palladian features.Starting with the orangery of Sanssouci, "the Neo-Renaissance became the obligatory style for university and public buildings, for banks and financial institutions, and for the urban villas" in Germany. Among the most accomplished examples of the style were Villa Meyer in Dresden, Villa Haas in Hesse, Palais Borsig in Berlin, Villa Meissner in Leipzig; the German version of Neo-Renaissance culminated in such projects as the Town Hall in Hamburg and the Reichstag in Berlin.
In Austria, it was pioneered by such illustrious names as Rudolf Eitelberger, the founder of the Viennese College of Arts and Crafts. The style found particular favour in Vienna, where whole streets and blocks were built in the so-called Neo-Renaissance style, in reality, a classicizing conglomeration of elements liberally borrowed from different historical periods.
File:La haye palais paix jardin face.JPG|thumb|250px|Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, 1913. One of the last notable buildings in this style.
Neo-Renaissance was also the favourite style in Kingdom of Hungary in the 1870s and 1880s. In the fast-growing capital, Budapest many monumental public buildings were built in Neo-Renaissance style like Saint Stephen's Basilica and the Hungarian State Opera House. Andrássy Avenue is an outstanding ensemble of Neo-Renaissance townhouses from the last decades of the 19th century. The most famous Hungarian architect of the age, Miklós Ybl preferred Neo-Renaissance in his works.
In Russia, the style was pioneered by Auguste de Montferrand in the Demidov House, the first in Saint Petersburg to take "a story-by-story approach to façade ornamentation, in contrast to the classical method, where the façade was conceived as a unit." Konstantin Thon, the most popular Russian architect of the time, used Italianate elements profusely for decorating some interiors of the Grand Kremlin Palace. Another fashionable architect, Andrei Stackenschneider, was responsible for Mariinsky Palace, with "the faceted rough-hewn stone of the first floor" reminiscent of 16th-century Italian palazzi.
The style was further elaborated by architects of the Vladimir Palace and culminated in the Stieglitz Museum. In Moscow, the Neo-Renaissance was less prevalent than in the Northern capital, although interiors of the neo-Muscovite City Duma were executed with emphasis on Florentine and Venetian décor. While the Neo-Renaissance is associated primarily with secular buildings, Princes Yusupov commissioned the interior of their palace church near Moscow to be decorated in strict imitation of the 16th-century Venetian churches.