Renaissance Revival Architecture - Birth of The Neo-Renaissance

Birth of The Neo-Renaissance

When in the 19th century Renaissance style architecture came into vogue, it often materialized not just in its original form according to geography, but as a hybrid of all its earlier forms according to the whims of architects and patrons rather than geography and culture. If this were not confusing enough, the new Neo-Renaissance then frequently borrowed architectural elements from the succeeding Mannerist period, and in many cases the even later Baroque period. Mannerism and Baroque being two very opposing styles of architecture. Mannerism was exemplified by the Palazzo del Te and Baroque by the Wurzburg Residenz.

Thus Italian, French and Flemish Renaissance coupled with the amount of borrowing from these later periods can cause great difficulty and argument in correctly identifying various forms of 19th century architecture. Differentiating some forms of French Neo-Renaissance buildings from those of the Gothic revival can at times be especially difficult, as both styles were simultaneously popular during the 19th century.

John Ruskin's panegyrics to architectural wonders of Venice and Florence contributed to shifting "the attention of scholars and designers, with their awareness heightened by debate and restoration work" from Late Neoclassicism and Gothic Revival to the Italian Renaissance. As a consequence a self-consciously "Neo-Renaissance" manner first began to appear circa 1840. By 1890 this movement was already in decline. The Hague's Peace Palace completed in 1913, in a heavy French Neo-Renaissance manner was one of the last notable buildings in this style.

Charles Barry introduced the Neo-Renaissance to England with his design of the Travellers Club, Pall Mall (1829–32). Other early but typical, domestic examples of the Neo-Renaissance include Mentmore Towers and the Château de Ferrières, both designed in the 1850s by Joseph Paxton for members of the Rothschild banking family. The style is characterized by original Renaissance motifs, taken from such Quattrocento architects as Alberti. These motifs included rusticated masonry and quoins, windows framed by architraves and doors crowned by pediments and entablatures. If a building were of several floors the uppermost floor usually had small square windows representing the minor mezzanine floor of the original Renaissance designs. However, the Neo-renaissance style later came to incorporate Romanesque and Baroque features not found in the original Renaissance architecture which was often more severe in its design.

Like all architectural styles the Neo-Renaissance did not appear overnight fully formed but evolved slowly. One of the very first signs of its emergence was the Würzburg Women's Prison, which was erected in 1809 designed by Peter Speeth. It included a heavily rusticated ground floor, alleviated by one semicircular arch, with a curious Egyptian style miniature portico above, high above this were a sequence of six tall arched windows and above these just beneath the slightly projecting roof were the small windows of the upper floor. This building foreshadows similar effects in the work of the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson whose work in the Neo-Renaissance style was popular in the USA during the 1880s. Richardson's style at the end or the revival era was a severe mix of both Romanesque and Renaissance features. This was exemplified by his "Marshall Field Warehouse" in Chicago (completed in 1887, now demolished).

However, while the beginning of Neo-Renaissance period can be defined by its simplicity and severity, what came between was far more ornate in its design. This period can be defined by some of the great opera houses of the Europe, such as Gottfried Semper's Burgtheater in Vienna, and his Opera house in Dresden. This ornate form of the Neo-renaissance, originating from France is sometimes known as the "Second Empire" style, by now it also incorporated some Baroque elements. By 1875 it had become the accepted style in Europe for all public and bureaucratic buildings. In England where Sir George Gilbert Scott designed the London Foreign Office in this style between 1860 and 1875 it also incorporated certain Palladian features.

Starting with the orangery of Sanssouci (1851), "the Neo-Renaissance became the obligatory style for university and public buildings, for banks and financial institutions, and for the urban villas" in Germany. At Sanssouci in 1851, even the most established Roman idiom of the triumphal arch was abandoned and recast in a neo-Renaissance mode for Friedrich Wilhelm IV in erecting the Triumphtor in the hundred and sixth year, so its inscription states, since the founding of Sanssouci (illustration). Among the most accomplished examples of the style were Villa Meyer in Dresden, Villa Haas in Hesse, Palais Borsig in Berlin, Villa Meissner in Leipzig; the German version of Neo-Renaissance culminated in such turgid projects as the Town Hall in Hamburg (1886–97) and the Reichstag in Berlin (completed in 1894).

In Austria, it was pioneered by such illustrious names as Rudolf Eitelberger, the founder of the Viennese College of Arts and Crafts (today known as the University for Applied Arts). The style found particular favour in Vienna where whole streets and blocks were built in the so-called Neo-Renaissance style, in reality a classisizing conglomeration of elements liberally borrowed from different historical periods.

Neo-Renaissance was also the favourite style in Kingdom of Hungary in the 1870s and 1880s. In the fast growing capital, Budapest many monumental public buildings were built in Neo-Renaissance style like Saint Stephen's Basilica and the Hungarian State Opera House. Andrássy Avenue is an outstanding ensemble of Neo-Renaissance townhouses from the last decades of the 19th century. The most famous Hungarian architect of the age, Miklós Ybl preferred Neo-Renaissance in his works.

In Russia, the style was pioneered by Auguste de Montferrand in the Demidov House (1835), the first in Saint Petersburg to take "a story-by-story approach to facade ornamentation, in contrast to the classical method, where the facade was conceived as a unit". Konstantin Thon, the most popular Russian architect of the time, used Italianate elements profusely for decorating some interiors of the Grand Kremlin Palace (1837–51). Another fashionable architect, Andrei Stackensneider, was responsible for Marie Palace (1839–44), with "the faceted rough-hewn stone of the first floor" reminiscent of 16th-century Italian palazzi.

The style was further elaborated by architects of the Vladimir Palace (1867–72) and culminated in the Stieglitz Museum (1885–1896). In Moscow, the Neo-Renaissance was less popular than in the Northern capital, although interiors of the neo-Muscovite City Duma (1890–92) were executed with emphasis on Florentine and Venetian décor. While the Neo-Renaissance is associated primarily with secular buildings, Princes Yusupov commissioned the interior of their palace church (1909–16) near Moscow to be decorated in strict imitataton of the 16th-century Venetian churches.

The style spread to North America where as in Europe it was a favourite domestic architectural style of the very wealthy, The Breakers in Rhode Island, a residence of the Vanderbilt family, designed by R M Hunt in 1870 being a prime example. During the latter half of the 19th century 5th Avenue in New York was lined with "Renaissance" French chateaux, and Italian palazzi all in one or the other of the Neo-Renaissance styles. Most of these have since been demolished.