I have always been transfixed by the work of the French Visionary Architects of the Enlightenment. Let's start with Étienne-Louis Boullée's Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, 1784.
House of the Temple, Scottish Rite Masonic temple in Washington, D.C., United States, Architect, John Russell Pope, 1911-1915 A masterpiece by the last great practitioner of the American Renaissance.
I was transported by the brilliant TV production of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited in the early '80s. The scene of Lord Marchmain's funeral procession approaching Hawksmoor's severe and somber Mausoleum at Castle Howard, (in Yorkshire, an estate Bill writes about visiting often), was one of the most influential images of my impending architectural career.
@EERO thanks for the background on this. I read the book but it was after I watched the series as a kid. The opening and closing sequences of BR would sometimes cause me to cry.
@Alec , it was a remarkable series. It completely captured the flavor of the book. The scene of Charles Ryder and Julia Marchmain strolling the deck of their Ocean liner in a storm-tossed sea was for me, the most romantic moment I seen on film.
@Alec I think that is what makes Hawksmoor so remarkable. He uses the language of Classicism, which has a prescribed set of rules-guidelines is perhaps a better word-in a non-canonical way. He was inventative, fantastic, sculptural and wholly original.
To throw in some more, I was captivated the first time I saw images on Nicholas Hawksmoor's churches in London projected on a screen in a dark lecture hall. They were the first buildings I went to see went I first went to London. Christchurch, Spitalfields, 1714-29
A sad loss; not a brilliant building, but an interesting one and certainly evocative of a time when Modernity was somehting to look forward to rather than fear. I like the way idt addresses the corner. It's a good, though not contextual building.
@Alec , I hadn't really thought of that, but it's pretty obvious now that I see it. The stepped gables are typical around the Baltic and are often called Hanseatic Stepped Gables. They are also a common feature on the towers of Danish and Swedish churches. In this case, I think Klint was exaggerating and celebrating the form and making a reference to a bank of organ pipes as well.
@Alec , I think any building with a drum without dome bears similariy. Within the context of an architectural education 40 years ago, we would have been told "they share a formal typology."
I guess the time has come for me to throw in a few of my favorite buildings. The Stockholm Public Libray, (Stockholms stadsbibliotek) Erik Gunnar Asplund, 1928.
Minangkabau paddy houses, West Sumatra, Indonesia, 1950s
Casa Álvarez
Mexico City
1971 - 1975
Augustín Hernández
The Green Cape Hotel, Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 1973
It should be obvious by now that I have a weakness for monumental neo-classicism.😎
Étienne-Louis Boullée's, Deuxieme projet pour la Bibliothèque du Roi (Second project for a Royal Library), 1785.
I have always been transfixed by the work of the French Visionary Architects of the Enlightenment. Let's start with Étienne-Louis Boullée's Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, 1784.
House of the Temple, Scottish Rite Masonic temple in Washington, D.C., United States, Architect, John Russell Pope, 1911-1915 A masterpiece by the last great practitioner of the American Renaissance.
Chichén Itzá
Mexico
I was transported by the brilliant TV production of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited in the early '80s. The scene of Lord Marchmain's funeral procession approaching Hawksmoor's severe and somber Mausoleum at Castle Howard, (in Yorkshire, an estate Bill writes about visiting often), was one of the most influential images of my impending architectural career.
St George's Bloomsbury (1716–1731)
St. Mary, Woolnoth, 1716-23
To throw in some more, I was captivated the first time I saw images on Nicholas Hawksmoor's churches in London projected on a screen in a dark lecture hall. They were the first buildings I went to see went I first went to London. Christchurch, Spitalfields, 1714-29
A sad loss; not a brilliant building, but an interesting one and certainly evocative of a time when Modernity was somehting to look forward to rather than fear. I like the way idt addresses the corner. It's a good, though not contextual building.
I think every architecture student is awed the first time they see the drawings of Italian Futurist Antonio Sant Elia.
Grundtvigs Kirke, Copenhagen, Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint, 1927-40
Rotonde de la Villette, Paris, Claude-Nicholas Ledoux, 1784-1788
I guess the time has come for me to throw in a few of my favorite buildings. The Stockholm Public Libray, (Stockholms stadsbibliotek) Erik Gunnar Asplund, 1928.
Buqshan Khaila Hotel, Hadramaut, Yemen