Theory of Architecture: study of British American victorian architecture

1. ABOVE PICTURE SHOWS AN EXAMPLE OF VICTORIAN ARCHITECTURE:
GENERAL POST OFFICE, MARTIN PLACE
The Victorian Age, the period between mid 1800s to the beginning of 1900’s,
is significant because of the sense of dizzying change it is characterized by.
This era witnessed some form of change in every imaginable sphere of life-
technology, literature, art, woman rights, religious beliefs, fashion, social
structure et al.
This sense of freedom permeated every section of the society and evoked a
sense of doubt that challenged the existing beliefs regarding religion,
sexuality, social structure and the role of women. Unsurprisingly, this sense of
freedom and the tumulus change in the thought process is reflected heavily in
the architecture of this period..
• JACOBETHAN (1830-70)
INTRODUCTION
OTHERMOVEMENTSPOPULARISEDIN THEPERIOD
Blackwell by Baillie Scott
Anthony Salvin's Harlaxton Manor
Jacobethan is the style
designation coined in
1933 by John Betjeman to
describe the mixed
national Renaissance
revival style that was made
popular in England from
the late 1820s
STYLESCONCEIVEDIN VICTORIANERA
• RENAISSANCE REVIVAL (1840-90)
Mentmore Towers
National Westminster Bank
• NEO GREC (1845-65)
• ROMANESQUE REVIVAL
• SECOND EMPIRE (1855-80)
• QUEEN ANNE (1870- 1910)
County Hall, Wakefield,
designed by architects
James Glen Sivewright
Gibson and Samuel
Russell in 1894.
• BRITISH ARTS AND CRAFT MOVEDMENT (1880-1910)
• GOTHIC REVIVAL
Palace of Westminster,
completed in 1870. Designed
by Sir Charles Barry and August
Pugin
Fonthill Abbey by
William Thomas
Beckford
• ITALIANATE
• NEO CLASSICISM
Glasgow City Chambers by John
Carrick
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2. “SARCENIC” was the term basically used to refer to the style that diffused from
the 1870‘s to the early 20th century for colonial buildings in India, adding the
elements of Mughal architecture, to the base of Victorian Gothic style.
Initially the British constructed governmental and public buildings in European
classical styles regardless of Indian local climate and traditions. Only after the
1858, the local architectural traditions, especially the Mughal tradition were
introduced to the colonial erections. This was also the time of Gothic Revival,
so Gothic features were used as the base and the domes and Chhatris were
used to produce the external appearances to the buildings. This is the reason
that it is also known as Indo-British style.
VICTORIAN ARCHITECTUREIN KOLKATA
The red brick structure was built on a classical quadrangular plane. It has tall
windows with beautiful arches, matching sets of Corinthian pillars and railed
roofs with pair of phoenixes at intervals. The decorative tablets, arching
gateways and beautiful mansards at each end of the long cloisters running
along quadrangles making it gracefully gorgeous.
Originally it was meant to acomodate the offices of the finance department of
the British India. Now it housed the main office of the Principal Accountant
General (audit & accounts), Government of West Bengal.
Calcutta's rapid growth showed how the colonialists converted the three small
villages of Sutanuttee. Gobindapur and Kalikata into a centre for
administration, trade and commerce for the east India Company's affairs for
the whole sub-continent.
By the 1870's, a Victorian character was created with the construction of the
Treasury Building, the Imperial Secretariat, the East India railways office and
the culmination of the style, the Calcutta collectorate. such eclectic style can
be seen in the East Indian railway's Office (1882-84) in Koilaghat Street.
• TREASURY BUILDING
• IMPERIAL LIBRARY
The building was constructed in 1872, ten years after the
establishment of the court itself. The design, by then
government architect Walter Granville, was loosely modelled on
the 13th-century Cloth Hall at Ypres, Belgium.
• THE COLLECTORATE
• THE HIGH COURT
• VICTORIA MEMORIAL
This foremost of landmarks in Calcutta, designed in the budding Indo-Saracenic
architectural style (combining Indian architectural practices that were a fusion of Hindu
and Islamic designs with Victorian,Venetian and Egyptian influences and layouts) by Sir
William Emerson, the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
• THE INDIAN MUSEUM
Walter Granville's grand neoclassical Indian Museum of 1875, assumed to have been
designed to emulate the British Museum (see Bach 247), is at least as handsome as his
General Post Office.
Originally founded in 1814, the museum was for a long time not only the oldest such
foundation in Asia, but the largest, and it is still the largest in India (see Director's Note).
But since those early years, much has changed. In recent times, it has not been treated
with reverence at all. A huge flyover has been set right in front of it. The "massive
simplicity" (Davies 207) of Granville's composition is now best appreciated from inside
the courtyard.
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3. Built in 1863, this monument commemorates the memory of
soldiers killed in the fierce battle to recapture Delhi over which
the British had lost complete control during the Great Indian
Mutiny-Revolt of 1857.
VICTORIAN ARCHITECTUREIN DELHI
This building is near St Stephen's Church in Old Delhi, and was
completed soon after it. According to R. V. Smith, a raconteur of Delhi's
past, "before becoming a rabbit warren of a municipal office" it housed
a library and museum
Calcutta was the capital of India during the British Raj until December 1911.
However, Delhi had served as the political and financial centre of several
empires of ancient India and the Delhi Sultanate, most notably of the Mughal
Empire from 1649 to 1857. During the early 1900s, a proposal was made to the
British administration to shift the capital of the British Indian Empire (as it was
officially called) from Calcutta to Delhi.[8] Unlike Calcutta, which was located
on the eastern coast of India, Delhi was at the centre of northern India and the
Government of British India felt that it would be logistically easier to
administer India from the latter.
The British in 1911 shifted the capital of India to Delhi. The eighth city of New
Delhi took shape in the imperial style of architecture. From then to now Delhi
continues to throb with vitality and hope.
• THE OLD TOWN HALL
The Albert Hall Jaipur was designed by a British architect, Sir
Samuel Swinton Jacob, who combined India Islamic architecture
with neo-gothic that was fashionable in the Victorian era. This
style of architecture is referred to as Indo-Saracenic and the
Albert Hall Museum is the finest example in Rajasthan.
• THE MUTINY MEMORIAL
• HAZRATGANJ
VICTORIAN ARCHITECTUREIN Jaipur
Prince Albert ceremonially laid the first stone of the building to be named after
him and the ceremony took place on the 6th of February 1876. The complex was
completed 10 years later in the reign of Madho Singh II who decided the Albert
Hall Jaipur should be used as a museum instead of a government building as
Madho Singh I had planned.
VICTORIAN ARCHITECTUREIN lucknow
Around Hazratganj, the city's main market, there is a fusion of old and modern
architecture. It has a multi-level parking lot in place of an old and dilapidated
police station making way for extending the corridors into well-aligned pebbled
pathways, adorned with piazzas, green areas and wrought-iron Tall, beautifully
crafted cast-iron lamp-posts, reminiscent of the Victorian era, flank both sides of
the street.
Hazratganj is a major Victorian style shopping area.
Hoardings from rooftops and encroachments on the road were removed.
Buildings were painted in a uniform crème and pink, same size and colour
signages, stone pavements and the Victorian style balustrades, lamp posts, waste-
bins, benches, an open air tiny amphitheatre and colourful fountains were
constructed
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