Italian Renaissance Architect: Andrea Palladio - Essay Example

ITALIAN RENAISSANCE ARCHITECT: ANDREA PALLADIO Introduction The basic axiom of Renaissance architects is the concept of architecture as a science, and each part of a building both internal and external integrating into the same system of mathematical ratios. Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), an architect of the Italian Renaissance, was one of the most prolific architectural designers to use factual information about ancient Roman architecture: the design goals, materials, construction techniques, and engineering devices. He used the knowledge obtained from an ancient architectural treatise of Vitruvius: De architectura. Palladio published his reconstructions of ancient Roman buildings and his own designs of villas in the Four Books on Architecture: all’antica in I quattro libri dell’ architettura. The architect’s work and treatise “inspired a major architectural movement outside of Italy, named Palladianism after him”1, based on his rigorous interpretation of classical architecture. For several centuries after Palladio’s lifetime, the appeal of Palladianism grew, exerting a great impact on the architecture of the western world. Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to investigate Andrea Palladio’s architecture, and analyse the architectural concepts and design principles of his Palladian Villa. The methods by which Palladio achieved the integration of each part of his buildings into the same system of mathematical ratios, will be examined; and his success in doing so will be assessed. Andrea Palladio’s Unique and Precise Architecture Palladio’s architectural vocabulary developed from his studies of the ruins of ancient Rome, the creative work of other architects, and the masterpieces of contemporary architecture. According to architectural historian James Ackerman, Palladio was the world’s most imitated architect partly because of his well-developed use of classical architecture from its most abstract to its highly literal form. This is evident from the abstract early design of Villa Poiana, followed by its more literal form in the Villa Barbaro created mid-way in his career, to the most characteristically Palladian representation in his crowning achievement, Villa Almerico-Capra or the “Rotonda” in Vicenza, Italy2. Figure 1. Villa Barbaro at Maser3 Figures 1 and 2 represent the Villa Barbaro and its ground plan respectively. The villa was completed around 1560, in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Figure 2. Plan of the Villa Barbaro4 This villa depicts a more developed stage of Palladio’s ideas for creating an elegant country residence. He introduced into the design the main features of a typical farmyard of the region, the dovecot placed in elegant pavilions at the two ends of the construction, and the barchessa in the form of serene arcades flanking the block. However, the “dwelling block is distinguished by a splendid stuccoed Roman temple-front”5 that does not reflect any of the characteristics of the farmyard. The Villa Rotonda (Fig.3) below displays the juxtaposition of geometric elements in the form of classical motifs, in compliance with well-defined rules of symmetry. According to Ackerman, the site at the top of a hill suggested the design consisting of a highly unorthodox construction of temple-fronts projecting from a cube, crowned by a fully visible hemispherical dome. Paradoxically, nature is reflected in a refined form “combining the Renaissance absorption with the classical past and the millennial Christian-sacral associations of the cupola”6. Figure 3. The Villa Rotonda7 Fig.4. depicts Andrea Palladio’s plan of the Villa Rotonda. Geometric relationships between the three dimensions of 30, 26 and 15 are evident within the five primary rooms of the Villa Rotonda, as specified in the architect’s fourth book (Wassell: 125). Figure 4. Plan of the Villa Rotonda8 Palladio’s greatest contribution to the Villa as a residential building was that he replaced the earlier use of refurbished castles or haphazard collection of buildings unsuitable to contemporary tastes. The Palladian villa was a new kind of agricultural and residential complex that suited the needs of his sixteenth century Venetian patrons. Remarkably, they also proved to be exactly suitable for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English nobles and Southern American planters. The concept of Palladianism has elevated Palladio’s villas beyond Venetian architecture to an international style9. Regulating Principles Used in Palladian Villa Architecture The architecture of Palladio’s villas reveals flexibility of style; and the invention of new formal solutions to suit individual requirements and site characteristics10. The architect did not employ any specific formula, although distinctive principles of architectural form, symmetry and proportion form the basis for his plans. One of the significant regulating principles is symmetry which contributes both functionally and aesthetically. Another commonly used feature is tripartite division, which is the division of the main body of the villa into three parts. This is in the facade of the villa where the central portion with the formal entrance may be composed of three arches, a serliana or a columned porch crowned with a triangular pediment, and flanked by symmetrical side components. As a skilled engineer, Palladio used the tripartite division to place load bearing walls for maximum structural soundness and optimal effect11. The mathematics of Palladio’s villas is universally acclaimed, and while various scholars differ in their approach to his use of proportion, there is complete consensus on Palladio’s brilliant use of geometric forms in two and three dimensions, and his skilled use of symmetry as a consistent design principle. Moreover, the sheer variety of designs found in his architecture has been considered as further evidence of his genius. Since Palladio used various aspects of mathematics as design tools, no mathematical formula would capture his design process. The distinctive feature of Palladio’s work is his ability to shape spaces, individually as well as in combination. This necessitated his conceptualization of designs in the four dimensions of spacetime, and a masterful articulation of those spaces using classical forms12. Palladio’s use of proportion is seen in his use of a hierarchy of spaces; alloting space for large, medium and small rooms around the main hall or salone of the villa. His interiors were orderly and harmonious, the height of the rooms designed in proportion to their width and length. Frequently, Palladio used his villas to test architectural concepts such as temple-fronts and domes, as he considered the country residences to offer more freedom to experiment than urban palaces13. Wittkower strongly asserts that Renaissance architects such as Palladio and Alberti used proportions derived from music in their architecture. Similar to harmonic proportions, it was believed that architectural proportions were part of a higher universal design, and hence equally beautiful to the eye. The author attributes the “evolution of this idea back to the Pythagoreans through Plato, who in his Timaeus explained that cosmic order and harmony are contained in certain numbers”14 (Wittkower: 105). Another of Palladio’s innovations was the use of continuous sequences of proportions between juxtaposed spaces. The proportions of individual rooms or area corresponds to the outline of the length, breadth and height of a single volume. Palladio was the first Renaissance artist to apply the Vitruvian concept of symmetry. “The systematic linking of one room to the other by harmonic proportions was the fundamental novelty of Palladio’s architecture” which influenced the planning of measurements. He integrated a whole structure using the proportional relationships used for the two dimensions of a façade or the three dimensions of a single room. Palladio recommends that the heights of rooms should be “either the harmonic, geometric or arithmetic means of the lengths and breadths”15. For example, for a double-square plan, the three dimensions can be either 6:8:12 as harmonic or 6:9:12 as arithmetic. A convenient numerical expression of the geometric average is not always possible, and is so only when the product of the length and breadth is a perfect square, with their geometric mean a square root of that product, for example 4:6:9. Palladio also used proportions derived from the irrational square roots of two and three expressed as measurable lengths through rational convergents. Some of Palladio’s buildings such as the Villa Sarego at Miega fit the scheme of these measures corresponding to the dimensions in Vicentine feet given in Palladio’s plans. Villas including the “the Godi at Lonedo, the Emo at Fanzolo, and the Tiene at Cicogna”16 are Pythagorean and do not contain five or its multiples. The typical Palladian ratios reveal that 17:12 is a rational convergent for 7:4 and 26:15. The ratio 15:11 which is the proportion of the smaller rooms at the Villa Rotonda is a close approximation to +1: 2. Because the proportion of the adjoining larger rooms is 26: 15 or :1, there is a direct relation between the two shapes. This is further strengthened by the central rotonda whose diameter is thirty and its radius fifteen feet. Hence, the side of an equilateral triangle inscribed within it would measure almost exactly twenty-six feet. The rectangle defined by the radius of the circle and the side of the inscribed triangle, 26 x 15, is identical in size and shape to the plan of the main rooms. Conversely, the diameter of the circle, thirty feet, equals the diagonal of the room plan. The Table below shows the key dimensions of the Rotonda printed in bold, in the context of the complete system to which they belong17. 1 3 4 11 15 2 5 7 19 26 3 9 12 33 45 Therefore, the evidence indicates that Palladio was successful in integrating each part of his building into the same system of mathematical ratios. Further, each villa may be based on a particular mathematical theme, and with a symbolic significance. Conclusion This paper has highlighted the work of Italian architect of the Renaissance, Andrea Palladio, in the creation of villas during the sixteenth century. Palladio was one of the most influential architects of the Renaissance, on the basis of his deep knowledge of design and proportion, and the extensive variety of his numerous works. It is evident that his work was brilliant; the foundations of which were classical architecture, mathematics and music. It is entirely justified that he has been the most imitated architect over the centuries, and Palladian designs continue to hold their own even in the contemporary world of architecture. Further, the architect’s use of mathematical ratios in his plans made the proportions of his buildings distinctive, combining the various components of the construction into a unified and harmonious composition. 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WASSELL, STEPHEN R, “The Mathematics of Palladio’s Villas: Workshop ’98”. Nexus Network Journal, 1 (1999), 121-129. WILLIAMS, KIM, GIACONI, GIOVANNI and PALLADIO, ANDREA, The Villas of Palladio (The United States of America: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003). WITTKOWER, RUDOLPH, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (London: Random House, 1965). Read More