Domestic and Residential architecture in 15th-17th century

History of Interior Design II 08 Domestic and Residential architecture in 15th-17th Century Tutor : Amal Shah Spring 2021 Faculty of Design, CEPT University

Domestic and Residential architecture: Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte Key features The great axis of the facade dominates every aspect of this composition, cleverly balanced at times to mask asymmetries. It creates a sense of transparency, passing through the château’s entrance hall and Grand Salon, It is planned as a simple structure,one room wide, facing a courtyard on one side and the gardens on the other. Rooms were therefore interconnected, limiting privacy.

Those on the ground floor were considered utilitarian, while those on the second floor were used for ceremonial purposes

The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a Baroque French château located in Maincy. Built between 1658 and 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet, the château was an influential work of architecture in mid-17th-century Europe

Andrea Palladio

Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) Based in Veneto, Italy, Palladio was one of the leading architects of the 16th century.

However, his legacy reached far beyond his own lifetime.

Palladio was one of the most influential figures in the history of Western architecture. He was an absolute superstar.

Palladio was living and working during the Italian Renaissance, a time in which people looked back to the accomplishments of ancient Greece and Rome as the foundations of Western culture. People of the Renaissance read the philosophies and ideas of classical antiquity and sought to build upon them. Palladio's role in this was translating classical ideas of architecture into buildings of the 16th century.

Andrea Palladio: Style of Architecture Some of Palladio's most important designs were the palaces erected in his native town of Vicenza. They were mostly built in brick faced with stucco, which has now fallen away from the brick background, and in consequence the designs, fine though they are in proportion and detail, suffer from having been executed in such mean materials.

Andrea Palladio: Villa Capra La Rotonda Palladio was acutely interested in engaging viewers, something he often accomplished by making use of striking façades. What makes La Rotonda extremely unique is that it displays not one, but four of them. Palladio was able to design a serene, sophisticated construction by emphasizing balance, visual clarity, and uniformity. The design of the building is completely symmetrical; it presents a square plan with identical porticoes projecting from each of the façades. At the center of the building, a dome emerges over a central, circular hall. Palladio was concerned with harmony and mathematical consonance and used the square and the circle as essential, yet elegant forms.

Andrea Palladio: Villa Capra La Rotonda La Rotonda has no foundations: it is positioned and stabilised on the arches and the brick cross-vaults on the ground floor, which constitutes the structural grid of the perpendicular axes on which the upper floors rest on. The design reflected the humanist values of Renaissance architecture. For each room to have some sun, the plan was rotated 45 degrees from each compass’s cardinal point. Each of the four porticos has pediments graced by statues of classical deities. The pediments were each supported by six Ionic columns. A single window flanked each porch. All principal rooms were on the second floor or piano mobile.

Andrea Palladio

Louis XIV style (1700-1715) The Sun King made France the richest and most powerful country in Europe. Under the enactment of newly established academies alongside policies favouring the arts, business and industry, the Louis XIV style or French Classicism shined throughout all the European courts.

Louis XIV style: Palace of Versailles Before the construction ordered by Louis XIV, the Château de Versailles domaine was made of bricks. It was the Italian Renaissance (14th-15th centuries), however, that would have a huge impact on French art for many decades. Baroque is characterized by extravagance in architecture, literature and music and was a veritable way of thinking that encouraged artisans to diversify decorative elements such as gilding, stucco arabesques, painted vaults and trompe-l’oeil.

The 'approved' style of painting during the age of Louis XIV was a modified version of Italian Baroque. Architecture revealed the same influences, seen at work in the scheme to reconstruct the Louvre, the Paris seat of the French kings.

Louis XIV style: Palace of Versailles A historic monument since 1862, the palace’s apartments are located in its central axis. The most northern point in the palace houses the Battle Gallery and the Congress Hall. The palace’s chapel and the royal opera, completed after the death of Louis XIV, are in the north wing. In addition to its buildings, the palace is built around interior and exterior courtyards. The Arms Square welcomes visitors and immediately evokes the immensity of the palace.

Louis XIV style: Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles's interior design was legendary in its range, quality and expense. It featured the finest furniture and furnishings, beautiful ceramic art including Sevres porcelain, as well as tapestry art and small-scale bronze sculpture. The initial salons and the Hall of Mirrors even contained lavish displays of silver table pieces, gueridons and other furniture, though these were later melted down to finance further military campaigns. Not surprisingly, Louis XIV's astronomical expenditure stimulated a huge expansion of French crafts and specialist applied art, led directly to the emergence of Rococo art (dominated by France), and created an impetus in French painting and sculpture that paved the way for Paris to become the arts capital of the world.

Palace of Versailles

Hotels Commencement: In France, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the law required that hotels keep a register. English law also introduced rules for inns at that time.

At the same time, around 1500 thermal spas were developed at Carlsbad and Marienbad.

Layout of the Inns Their architecture often consisted of a paved interior court with access through an arched porch. The bedrooms were situated on the two sides of the courtyard, the kitchen and the public rooms at the front, and the stables and storehouses at the back.

English Renaissance

Influential Events : The extended use of gunpowder rendered ancient castles with thick walls obsolete The introduction of printing (1476) aided the new movement, as the hoarded knowledge caused increased spread of knowledge throughout the country.

The reign of Elizabeth (A.D. 1558-1603) inaugurated the era of the building of the great domestic mansions.

Flemish and German workers and weavers came to England in large numbers, settling in the eastern counties especially, thereby influencing the architecture of certain districts.

In literature the writings of Shakespeare had considerable influence.

Haddon Hall

English Renaissance: Tudor Architecture Influential Events : The Tudor architectural style is the final development of Medieval architecture in England, during the Tudor period (1485–1603) and even beyond, and also the tentative introduction of Renaissance architecture to England.

English Renaissance: Tudor Architecture Typical Character of a wealthy home: 1.

An 'E' or 'H' shaped floor plan

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Brick and stone masonry, sometimes with half timbers on upper floors in grand houses earlier in the period

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Large displays of glass in very large windows several feet long; glass was expensive so only the rich could afford numerous large windows

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Depressed arches

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Hammer beam roofs still in use for great halls Most windows, except large ones, are rectangular,

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Classical accents such as round-headed arches over doors and alcoves

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Enormous ironwork for spit roasting located inside cooking fireplaces. In the homes of the upper class and nobility it was fashionable to show off wealth by being able to roast all manner of animals.

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Long galleries

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Tapestries serving a triple purpose of keeping out chill, decorating the interior, and displaying wealth. In the wealthiest homes these may contain gold or silver thread.

English Renaissance Social and Political: The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) caused a terrible destruction of life, while the ancient nobility was almost entirely annihilated. This resulted in period of architectural depression, from which there was a reaction at the end of the fifteenth century.

The new nobility and rich merchants desired important country houses, being anxious to provide themselves with the stuff suited to their rank, or newly acquired wealth.

Lyme Hall, Cheshire

Climate: A great increase of warmth was found necessary as greater comfort was demanded, and the opening out of the great coal industry, by cheapening fuel, led to each room having a fireplace.

Geology: In the increase of population and cultivation of the land, the forests were reduced, and wood had been gradually disused as an external building material, so that the timber architecture of the medieval period had died out.

Crewe Hall, Cheshire : Library

Withdrawing Room. Bramall Hall

Elizabethan Architecture Style English Renaissance Elizabethan Architecture was a transition style, for many Gothic features were retained and ornamented with Renaissance details which were at first applied only in a tentative manner.

The examples of Elizabethan architecture, like those of the French Renaissance, were country houses erected by powerful statesmen, successful merchants, and newly-enriched gentry; contrasting with the palaces and churches of the Italian Renaissance, principally erected in cities.

The influence of landscape gardening was important, for in designing the house with fore- court, formal garden, arcades, fountains and terraces, a special and finished character was given to the buildings themselves.

Holland House. Kensington 1607 AD

Many Gothic features, such as the tower, oriel, large mullioned "bay," and other windows, gable, pierced parapet, and large chimney stacks were retained.

Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire

Elizabethan Architecture Style English Renaissance Typical Character of an Elizabethan Home: Architecture Features of Half Timbered Tudor / Elizabethan Houses Elizabethan houses included the following features:

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Vertical and diagonal timbers High chimneys Overhanging first floors galleries Pillared porches Dormer windows Thatched roofs Leaded casement windows

In the Elizabethan houses of the Upper and Middle classes panes of glass were added, replacing horn or wooden shutters, and the interior of homes became lighter and airier.

Middle or Lower Class Elizabethan houses had thatched roofs. The materials used to make a thatched roof was either straw or reeds.

Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire

Elizabethan Architecture Style English Renaissance Typical Interior Environment of a wealthy home: • • • • • • • • • • •

Multi-paned, lattice work and casement windows Stained glass with heraldic and ecclesiastical motifs Rich oak panelling Plasterwork and stone hearth surrounds Walls adorned with tapestries and embroideries Colours of dark brown, gold, red and green Walls adorned with tapestries and embroideries Velvet, damask and brocade fabrics for bed hangings and drapes Decorative symbols of Tudor rose, thistle and fleur de lys Trestle tables, benches, heavy chests and carved four-poster beds Wooden floors, encaustic tiles and plaited rush matting.

Hardwicke Hall, Derbyshire, 1597

Elizabethan Architecture Style : Furniture Furniture Characteristics •

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Heavy bulbous tables – bulbous turning often with much carved ornament such as gadrooning, nulling and acanthus leaves.

Tables with 4 or 6 bulbous legs with stretcher rails at the bottom as a footrest to keep feet of the floor rushes.

Melon bulb turning.

Inlaid fruitwood.

Elaborate four poster beds with solid or draped testers to protect from drafts.

Turning was produced using a foot lathe, producing asymmetrical objects.

Court Cupboard – the court cupboard was developed for holding plates and eating utensils. Cupboard space and flat top for serving food. Hardware was handmade and rather conspicuous.

Bible box – the bible box appeared, these were small side chests designed to hold the family bible. They were later made with a sloping top to facilitate writing and reading. It was the forerunner to the writing desk. They were oak, left natural or finished with oils or beeswax.

Jacobean Architecture Style English Renaissance The Jacobean style was an evolution of the Elizabethan, gradually deviating from Gothic aesthetic as classic literature and models became better known. The use of the columns with their entablatures became more general.

The buildings of this style were most suitable to the wants of the people in whose era they were built. Some of the detail and ornamentation were the outcome of the social conditions of that age.

Jacobean furniture design continued on the same lines as the architecture.

Model of a Jacobean “withdrawing room” or bedroom, based upon an interior from the manor house of Knole, Kent, England

Characteristic features: Layout: • • • •

The great hall, the broad staircase the long gallery, Broad terraces, with balustrades, raised above the garden level • wide flights of steps • Gardens were often laid out in a formal manner Hatfield House, Derbyshire, 1597

Jacobean Architecture Style English Renaissance Columns: • The orders were employed rarely with purity, a characteristic treatment being the reduction downwards, more especially in pilasters, accompanied by bulbous swellings.

• Square columns were used, banded with strap ornamentation, and pilasters were similarly treated or panelled.

• the topmost order is the smallest, corresponding to the comparative unimportance of the upper rooms.

• Arcades were much employed.

Enclosures: • Elevations have the character of visually charm, • the Classic orders being used in a very free manner, often placed one above the other in the facades, as at Hatfield House Layout: • • • •

The great hall, the broad staircase the long gallery, Broad terraces, with balustrades, raised above the garden level • wide flights of steps • Gardens were often laid out in a formal manner

Jacobean Architecture Style : Furniture Characteristics: •

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Early Jacobean furniture was somewhat inward looking, not fully embracing exotic influences, and its ornamentation became less prominent and applied in a less willy-nilly, more ordered, fashion.

It was solidly built of oak wood.

The furniture was usually large in sizing, was made to be sturdy and was certainly made to last a long time.

Jacobean furniture was usually constructed from two distinct types of wood, namely oak and pine, although other woods were used.

Oak and pine were the most popular wood choices during this period.

The latter period of Jacobean design had more embellishments on the furniture, with most tables being adorned with carved panels and other ornamental twists.

A highlight of the period were Jacobean chairs in particular the Farthingale, and also the development of its mule chests and long tables.

Anglo-Classical Architecture Style : Inigo Jones English Renaissance Inigo Jones was the first significant English architect in the Jacobean era, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings.

As the most notable architect in England, Jones was the first person who introduced the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to Britain.

He left his mark on London by single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, and Whitehall palace.

Queen’s House, Greenwich, 1635

Anglo-Classical Architecture Style : Inigo Jones English Renaissance S. Paul and the City churches, were executed in Portland stone, which by its good weathering properties adds to their dignity and importance ; while in domestic work, Wren used red brick with stone dressings, as at Hampton Court, Marlborough House, and elsewhere.

S. Paul, London (1675-1710), which ranks amongst the finest Renaissance Cathedrals in Europe, was Wren's masterpiece. The first design, of which there is a fine model in the northern triforium of the Cathedral, was in plan a Greek cross, with a projecting western vestibule ; but the influence of the clergy, who desired a long nave and choir suitable for ritualistic purposes, finally caused the selection of the mediaeval type of plan.

St. Paul’s Cathedral by Christopher Wren

Queen Anne/ Georgian Style English Renaissance Geographic Range: Georgian houses are most commonly found along the eastern seaboard, Typical Features: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Symmetrical shape Center hall axis plan Classical porticos Glass fanlights and geometrical patterns Large square rooms Sash, double-hung windows Staircases A center hall stairway Pediment doorway Decorated classical cornice with dentils Lintels above rectangular window Side-gabled or hipped roof Stone or brick walls

Kensington Palace : Plan, Elevation and Entablature

Queen Anne/ Georgian Style English Renaissance Ornamentation Ornament is also normally in the classical tradition, but typically restrained, and sometimes almost completely absent on the exterior. Simple mathematical ratios were used to determine the height of a window in relation to its width or the shape of a room as a double cube.

In Georgian detailing, the families of joinery details, plaster shapes and other embellishments are applied to alcoves, doors and mouldings in Georgian interiors.

Room sets are considered as a whole so that skirting boards, architrave, fireplaces, dado and doors and ceiling details all tend to have clearly related shapes.

Georgian doors and mouldings were designed with precision around the detailed order of classical columns.

In Georgian interiors we see Roman inspired niches, alcoves, classical columns (Corinthian, Ionic and Doric), masonry figures, vases, urns, ribbons and garlands. Painted images of Roman gods and goddesses, luxurious wallpapers and painted colour schemes

Queen Anne/ Georgian Style : Somerset House Somerset House Somerset House is a large Neoclassical building situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames.

The Georgian structure was built to be a grand public building housing various government and public-benefit society offices.

The Strand facade is a modest nine bays in width, with an order (half-columns) above an arched rusticated basement in the manner of a sixteenth-century Italian palace.

The interior chambers are symmetrical, but broken into several subsidiary sections rather like Versailles. In addition to applying a rich scheme of architectural decoration, Chambers enhanced the exterior of Somerset House with a multiplicity of sculptures and other visual embellishments

Queen Anne/ Georgian Style

Georgian Period Furniture

Designers distinguished themselves in the late Georgian Period, this is known as the “The Golden Age of Furniture”. The designers were: •Thomas Chippendale 1745-1780 •Hepplewhite 1760-1790 •Adam 1760-1792 •Sheraton 1790-1806 Queen Anne furniture is "somewhat smaller, lighter, and more comfortable than its predecessors," and examples in common use include "curving shapes, the cabriole leg, cushioned seats, wing-back chairs, and practical secretary desk-bookcase pieces."

Other elements characterizing the style include pad feet and "an emphasis on line and form rather than ornament." The style of Queen Anne's reign is sometimes described as late Baroque rather than "Queen Anne.“

Queen Anne/ Georgian Style