1. The French Academic Tradition

2. Context Post Renaissance
Baroque Era - beginning 1600 A.D.
Neo Classicism / 1750 – 1900
French Academic Tradition
Decline of Neoclassicism
Nineteenth Century Concepts
Gothic Revival - Structural Rationalism
The industrial revolution

3. Like painting, Renaissance architecture was inspired by the
Classical.
The architecture reflects the philosophy of Humanism, the
enlightenment and clarity of mind as opposed to the darkness
and spirituality of the Middle Ages.
Bramante
Brunelleschi
Michelangelo

4. Baroque
The Architects of the Baroque Era were intent on extending the
horizon of their sources of inspiration beyond the Classical, and
sought artistic freedom.
new emphasis was placed on bold massing, colonnades, domes,
light-and-shade (chiaroscuro), 'painterly' color effects, and the
bold play of volume and void.

5. Francois Mansart's Chateau de Maisons.

6. As an assault on orthodox Renaissance conventions, Baroque
Architecture also tended toward what was in many respects a
stricter geometrical and scientific determinism experimentation with form and a greater emphasis on a
geometric approach to design.

7. Church of St.Mary, Venice
Salzburg Cathedral

8. Louvre Extension
 Typical Baroque Exterior

9. Neoclassical architecture and the
influence of antiquity
In architecture, neoclassicism was the dominant style in
Europe during 1750s-1850s, marked by the imitation of
Greco-Roman forms. Classical architectural models were
adapted or referenced in a range of architectural forms,
including churches, arches, temple, house, terraces, garden
monuments and interior designs. Later, Neoclassical
architecture became an international style, each country
held some distinct characteristic in their style.

10. Altes Museum, Berlin
Circus at Bath
Petit Trianon

11. Neoclassical, or "new" classical, architecture describes
buildings that are inspired by the classical architecture of
ancient Greece and Rome.
The over-elaboration of architectural language in the
Baroque era led to the search by architects for a true
style through a precise re-appraisal of Classical Design
Tenets. Their motivation was not simply to copy the
ancients but to obey the principles on which their work
had been based.

12. Ancient Greek Architecture was studied and emulated in
terms of the qualities like Harmony, Proportion, Rationality,
Balance, etc.
This was more than a revival, it was an argument for a
return to rational structural principles and their expression in
buildings

13. Zwinger Palace in Dresden
 many of the first generation of neoclassical architects received training
in the classic French tradition through a series of exhaustive and
practical lectures that was offered for decades by Jacques-François
Blondel

14. Neo Classicism / Palladianism
 Last phase of the Renaissance, when Ancient Greek Architecture was studied
and emulated in terms of the qualities like Harmony, Proportion, Rationality,
Balance, etc.
 The architecture of Neo-Classicism emerged out of two different but related
developments which radically transformed the relationship between man and
nature.
 A sudden increase in man’s capacity to control nature due to technical advances of the
Industrial Revolution
 A fundamental shift in the nature of human consciousness, in response to major changes
taking place in society, resulting in a new cultural formation that was equally appropriate to
the life styles of the declining aristocracy and the rising bourgeoisie.
 Neo Classicism was more than a revival; it was an argument for a return to
rational structural principles and their expression in buildings

15. American Examples
Fanueil Hall
The Capitol, WashingtonD.C.

16. Massachusetts State
House
Low Library, New York
Mount Vernon, Virginia

17. French Academic Tradition
Chiefly articulated by
Jacques Francois Blondel
Claude Perrault
The founding of the Royal Academy of Architecture in Paris
in 1671 can be taken as the starting point of modern
European theory and practice. The purpose of the Academy
was to codify the principles of Classical Design and to
espouse them in practice.
Symbolically, the new academy represented, in line with
the political and cultural ascendancy of France, a declaration
of independence from the Renaissance tradition.

18. Jacques-François Blondel
Claude Perrault
Jean Nicolas Louis Durand
Jean Baptiste Rondelet

19. In response to the perceived architectural excesses of the
baroque period, the academy’s foundation reflected the tendency
to provide a nationally sanctioned forum for the consolidation
and rational reinterpretation of traditional conventions.
The question of whether contemporary culture could match or
even exceed classical accomplishments led to the re-evaluation of
Vitruvius and Renaissance theory.

20. French Academic Theory
 The theoretical developments that attended the emergence of Neo-
Classicism in France were chiefly articulated by Perrault & Blondel.
 Claude Perrault questioned the validity of the Classical Vitruvian
proportions to his time as these had been received and refined through
Classical theory.
 Instead, he elaborated his thesis of positive beauty and arbitrary
beauty, giving to the former the normative role of standardization and
perfection and to the latter such expressive function as may be
required by a particular circumstance or character.
 Jacques – Francois Blondel, after opening his architectural school in
Rue de la Harpe in 1743 became the master of a ‘visionary’
generation of architects
 Blondel’s preoccupation was an appropriate physiognomy to accord
with the varying social character of different building types.

21. Jean Baptiste Rondelet
French theory took a new direction in the nineteenth century
when Jean Baptiste Rondelet, famed for saving the collapsing
church of Ste. Genevieve in Paris (now the Pantheon)
published his volume ‘Traite theorique et pratique de l’art de
batir’, a work that is remarkable simply because it contains
almost no theoretical discussion.
Rondelet was one of the first modern architects to argue that
the art of building should emulate the science of engineering,
that was based on the principles of mathematics and physics.

22. Jean Nicolas Louis Durand
Jean Nicolas Louis Durand taught a course on architecture
at the Ecole Polytechnique which was without academic
precedent. The classical Orders, he argued, were not the
essence of architecture; rules for proportion should be
derived from the nature of the material and its use.
Convenience, rather than beauty, was the reason for making
architecture, thus the architect had two problems to solve :
how to design and build a private building with the greatest
convenience within a given budget; and how to design and
build a public edifice with the greatest possible economy.

23. Durand sought to establish a universal building method by
the application of a normative building typology with which
economic and appropriate structures could be created
through the modular permutation of fixed plan types and
alternative elevations- an interchangeable typology of
compositional parts that could be assembled or organized in
various combinations.
Durand’s compositional methodology proved to be
enormously influential throughout Europe, especially in
Germany. Economic factors, such as the injunction that
maximum floor area be obtained with minimum perimeter
construction, became the overriding criteria of design.

24. Decline of Neoclassicism
During the second half of the 18th century the the
interaction of a number of a number of unprecedented
technical developments and socio-economic forces gave rise
to a new context. In the space of a century the finite city
was totally transformed.
The rapid decline of Neoclassicism was due to a progressive
functionalism propelled by technological developments of
fireproof construction, gas lighting, central heat and
ventilation, and exposed cast-iron structure.