Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

What is this ‘English Palladian’ tradition? Well, it was inspired by Andrea Palladio, a 16th-century Italian architect, who not only designed buildings but also wrote about them. In 1570, he published four finely illustrated ‘books’ on architecture, and included woodcuts of his versions of Roman monuments, which were presented not in their ruined state but conjecturally restored so that they looked how Palladio thought they did when they were new. Along with these ancient buildings he included works that had been inspired by them, executed by modern architects such as Bramante and above all by Palladio himself. In gathering together this work, both archaeological and creative, he presented an authoritative compendium of knowledge about ancient Roman architecture and the principles that informed it, together with designs that showed how those principles and ancient authority could be adapted for use in modern buildings, in churches and impressive villas. The treatise was written towards the end of Palladio’s career, and he had a wealth of experience to draw on in saying the things he did. He had been a prolific architect, working particularly around Vicenza and Venice. Venice was prosperous mainly because of its trade with the East, on which it had a firm hold. The Venetian state controlled traffic through the eastern Mediterranean, and its empire was a string of fortified ports that protected and sustained their commerce so that goods could be brought from Constantinople and beyond without being lost to pirates on the way. The ruling class of Venice owned the palaces that lined the Grand Canal in Venice itself, and also had villas on their estates back on the mainland, that they would visit during the summer. The villas are more or less farmhouses, from which the estates were run, and which include in a single building rooms that served agricultural purposes (barn-like attics) and residential accommodation for farmers, farm and domestic servants, and the nobility, who would have a suite of grand rooms with a ceremonial character. Palladio very skilfully designed buildings that combined all these elements into graceful and dignified arrangements of classical forms, so that the whole unified mass of a substantial building took on a rather stately character.

One of his most celebrated villas departs from this pattern rather. The Villa Capra near Vicenza (Figure 15) is on top of a gentle hill, and was not a self-contained dwelling, as it was designed to be used in conjunction with the owner’s principal residence in Vicenza. Its principal purpose was for entertaining, and it was within reach of the town. Uniquely among Palladio’s designs, it had four identical façades, each with an entrance through a classical porch — a portico — with steps up to it, and Roman-style columns. There is a dome over the central space, and when the doors are open it is possible to see out into the countryside in all four directions, so it seems as if the villa is an extension and completion of the hill. The slope of the ground is continued in the flights of steps, and from the inside one seems to be on a solid raised platform, sheltered by a painted vault. Monticello is sited in the same way, on top of a hill, with just two entrances, likewise through porticoes with Romanstyle columns. The hill in Virginia is rather higher — ‘Monticello’ means small mountain in Italian — but there is a similar attitude to the placing of buildings in the landscape. Frank Lloyd Wright for example would never have positioned a building right at the top of a hill, and even Falling Water, which looks so dramatic when seen from below the waterfall (Figure 10) is tucked away in the forest, and approached from higher ground, so it seems to ingratiate itself into its surroundings, rather than command them. It is only once one is inside, or on the lower ground, that the building’s spatial drama unfolds.