world architecture

Brighton England
The Royal Pavilion, Brighton (1817 1822), a grand oriental fantasy with Indian domes and minarets and Chinese interiors, is a fascinating example of the diverse architectural styles allowed in the Regency period, which was otherwise dominated by refined neoclassical architecture. Two elements were necessary for its realization: an esthetically adaptable architect in this case, John Nash (1752 1835) and a client powerful enough to get what he wanted the Prince Regent (later King George IV, 1762 1830), More importantly, it is probably the first attempt by any architect, freed from classical and Gothic precedents, to use cast iron to make legitimate architecture. George, Prince of Wales, first visited the coastal resort of Brighton (then Brighthelmstone) in 1783. He was already deep in gambling debts, a heavy drinker, and a notorious womanizer. In 1784 he again visited Brighton and in the same year fell in love with the twice-widowed Maria Fitzherbert. When she refused to become his mistress he agreed to marry her, but secretly, because English law prohibited royalty from marrying Catholics. Two years later his comptroller, Louis Weltje, obtained from Thomas Kemp, Member of Parliament for Lewes, a three-year lease with an option to purchase on a timber house facing the sea at Brighton. He relet it to the prince, undertaking to rebuild it. Between May and July 1787 the architect Henry Holland enlarged and converted the modest but respectable farmhouse to the Marine Pavilion, a double-fronted Palladian affair with a domed Ionic rotunda. Maria was provided with a nearby villa. In 1795, attempting to persuade Parliament to pay his accrued debts of

Barcelona, Spain
The 328-foot-tall (100-meter) spires of the Church of the Sagrada Familia dominate the skyline of Barcelona, the chief city of Catalonia, in northeastern Spain. This unique church, which, in the tradition of the medieval cathedrals of Europe, remains unfinished more than a century after it was started, is one of the great pieces of world architecture. Its fantastic forms defy our vocabulary and confound any attempt at stylistic classification. It marks the fin de siecle rejection of historical revivalism perhaps it is the last true Gothic church but unlike the willful forms of the contemporary Art Nouveau (a category to which some historians have consigned it), it is respectful of the past in its local context and the broader sphere. To repeat, it is unique. Around 1874, Jose Mar

Paris, France
St. Chapelle, at 6 boulevard du Palais, is now surrounded by the Palace of Justice on the Ile de la Cite, Paris, near Notre Dame. It was built as a palatine chapel for King Louis IX of France (known as St. Louis, reigned 1226 1270) between 1242 and 1247, and consecrated on 26 April 1248. During Louis IXs reign, Gothic architecture in France entered the rayonnant phase, its name derived from the radiating spokes of the large rose windows that characterized the style. Refining the stone-framed architecture of the age, architects further reduced the amount of solid wall in favor of expansive traceried stained-glass windows. The masonry that remained was in the form of narrow but very thick buttresses that dealt with the thrusts imposed by vaulted stone ceilings. St. Chapelle, with its luminous glass curtains, represents the highest degree of this structural refinement and is probably the most beautiful surviving example of the French Gothic of any phase. In 1239 Louis IX purchased (at extravagant cost) a number of relics of the crucifixion of Christ from his bankrupt cousin, Jean de Brienne, the Emperor of Constantinople. The most important of them was the crown of thorns; there was also a piece of iron from the lance used by the soldiers and the sponge on which Jesus was offered sour wine. From de Briennes successor, Baudouin II, Louis bought a piece of the true cross. To purchase them and fashion a reliquary a bejeweled chest that was destroyed during the French Revolution it is said that Louis spent two and a half times what it cost to build St. Chapelle. Soon after acquiring the relics, he commissioned a private chapel within the royal palace on the Ile de la Cite to hold them. There is some debate about the identity of the architect; many sources identify Pierre de Montreuil, who had worked on Notre Dame, Paris, and St. Denis, but St. Chapelle may have been the work of Robert de Luzarches or Thomas de Cormont.The building in fact houses two chapels. The lower, entered from the courtyard, was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and was for the use of servants of the royal household. It is relatively low its vaults are 22 feet (6.6 meters) high and rather dimly lit. Two small spiral staircases within the walls connect it to the upper chapel, for which it may have been designed as a foil; certainly, there is a breathtaking contrast in the quality of the respective spaces. The official access to the upper chapel, which was dedicated to the Holy Crown and the Holy Cross and reserved for the use of the sovereign, was by a gallery directly linking it with the royal apartments. Entering through a sculpture-enriched double portal, the visitor is greeted by an explosion of color and light. Fifteen lofty stained-glass windows, rising 65 feet (20 meters) from just above floor level to the gilded arches of the vaults, fill the entire area between the buttresses in total, 6,600 square feet (620 square meters) to create a space that has been described as Gothic architecture at its most daring and successful

St. Denis, France
The Abbey of St. Denis is situated in a small municipality (now a suburb) of the same name, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) north of Paris. Its thirty-sixth abbot, Suger (1081 1151), commissioned the present church from about 1140. It is a milestone in the history of architecture because, like Durham Cathedral in England, it has in it the seeds of a new way of building for Europe: the highly inventive structural system that we know as the Gothic. In particular, Sugers choir at St. Denis, the first application of pointed arches in a major building, marks one aspect of the transition from the Romanesque style, which was quite hobbled by the use of round-headed arches; that is, the transition from wall architecture to framed architecture. Denis, first bishop of Lutetia, and his missionary companions were martyred in 258, and buried at St. Denis. When the persecutions ended in the fourth century, a small chapel was built that became a popular shrine for pilgrims by the end of the sixth century. The Merovingian king Dagobert founded a Benedictine monastery there in 630, replacing the chapel with a large basilica and enriching the new royal abbey. He also bestowed many rights and privileges on the little town, not least the honor of building his tomb. Eventually, the abbey was to house seventy royal sepulchers. Charlemagne, king of the Franks, commissioned a new church in 750 and much of the earlier building was subsumed. Systemic reforms were introduced by Abbot Hilduin (815 830; ca. 831 840) during his second term of office, and the Abbey of St. Denis, because of the relics it held, grew in significance and prosperity. In about 1127 Suger assumed the position of abbot, to which he had been elected in Rome five years earlier. Between 1123 and 1127, as adviser to Louis VI (reigned 1108 1137), he was engrossed in affairs of state but soon after he set out to thoroughly reform his monastery, first of all establishing a more rigorous discipline for the monks and dealing with its financial problems. Then he turned to the building. The old abbey church had been completed in 775, and by the middle of the twelfth century it had become dilapidated; from 1135 Abbot Suger initiated an extensive renovation program. His motives have been widely discussed by historians; it is clear that he was moved by religious and esthetic sensibilities, but because St. Denis was the royal abbey (and thus a symbol of royal power), its renovation was also a political statement at a time of unrest in France. In fact, the only loyal region to Louis VI was the Ile-de-France, and it was in the kings interest to patronize the rebuilding of the church. Suger wrote an account of his renovation program titled A Little Book on the Consecration of the Church of Saint Denis. The first major phase was the reconstruction of the west facade and the narthex: dismantling a certain addition said to have been built by Charlemagne we

Paris, France
The St. Genevieve Library in the place du Pantheon, Paris, was designed in 1843 by Henri Labrouste (1801 1875) and built between 1844 and 1851. It is the first public building to have a frankly exposed structural iron frame. Wrought iron and cast iron, used to great structural and esthetic effect in engineering works since the late eighteenth century, were still widely regarded as unsuitable for legitimate architecture (except for decorative details like balustrades or ornamental hardware), simply because the classical and medieval styles that informed contemporary design provided no precedent for the manner of their use. That was despite their many advantages: they were incredibly strong in compression, noncombustible, and inexpensive; moreover, they could be prefabricated and mechanically fixed, thus avoiding wet work

London, England
Toward the end of the twentieth century, because of technological changes in world shipping, the St. Katharine Dock area near Londons Tower Bridge was forced to alter its function after more than a thousand years as a trade center. That adaptation of building use foreshadowed a universal trend in which former warehouses became (usually luxury) apartments. For that reason, and because of the model cargo handling and storage design that it represented in the nineteenth century, St. Katharine Dock is worthy of a place in any list of architectural achievements. The Saxon King Edgar (reigned 959 975) granted 13 acres (about 5 hectares) on the site to several knights. Because they were permitted to use the land for profit, that gift laid the foundation for foreign trade. In 1125 the property and its small dock passed to a convent and a hospital was established; twenty-five years later Queen Matilda endorsed the Royal Foundation of St. Katharine. Wharves were later built along the tidal inlet, and the area became known as St. Katharine Dock late in the sixteenth century. It was in the eighteenth century that the Thames was changed from a relatively quiet river into the major commercial thoroughfare into the heart of London, center of world trade. Some sources claim that up to 800 vessels at a time were moored in the Pool of London, and market forces generated the 8.5 square miles (22 square kilometers) of the citys Docklands. Made at great social cost, the transformation was empowered by legislation: the West India Dock Act of 1799 authorized the first enclosed docks; the London Dock Act followed, authorizing a dock at Wapping. Between 1802 and 1806, the West India, London, and East India Docks became operational. The St. Katharine Dock Act was passed in 1825, and the following year the St. Katharine Dock was opened between the London Dock and the Tower of London. The engineer Thomas Telford was commissioned to build the new dock and faced the constraint of a very small site. Assisted by Thomas Rhodes, he designed a unique system of two connected basins the East Dock and the West Dock that provided maximum wharf frontage. They were linked to the Thames through a 180-foot-long, 45-foot-wide (45-by-14-meter) lock with three gates, and steam engines maintained the dock water level above that of the river. One of the largest engineering projects ever seen in London, at times employing 2,500 men, St. Katharine Dock took two years to construct. The neoclassical dock offices and especially the six-story warehouses, designed by the architect Philip Hardwick, were also revolutionary. Constructed virtually at the wharfside, they enabled cargo to be unloaded directly from ship to storage, saving time and reducing pilfering. Because they backed on the access roads, the warehouses also did away with the need for a boundary wall around much of the dock. The West Dock warehouses were completed by 1828 and those around the East Dock a year later. The largest were 470 feet long and 140 feet deep (144 by 43 meters). In all of them, squat, cast-iron Doric ground-floor columns supported vaulted brick and iron floors and the superstructure; the walls were of gray London bricks. The window frames were also of cast iron. St. Katharine Dock was officially opened on 25 October 1828. Although it was celebrated as an engineering, architectural, and commercial triumph, not everyone would have agreed. The London Times reported that the acquisition and clearing of the land for this magnificent speculation

London, England
Built between 1863 and 1865 for the Midland Railway, St. Pancras Station has been described as the epitome of the railroad buildings that evolved following advances in iron technology in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was one of a number of London stations, including Victoria and Charing Cross, erected during the 1860s railroad boom, when national and international travel was becoming more popular. St. Pancras established Midlands footing in the capital; coming as it did after other companies had erected their London terminals, it was deliberately intended to impress by its scale and architectural style. Its substantial train shed, designed by company engineer William Henry Barlow (1812 1902) with R. M. Ordish, achieved the widest single-arch span then built. This daring engineering accomplishment was unrivaled. Several years later, a grand Victorian Gothic, Revival hotel and terminus building was added to the front of the shed. Named the Midland Grand, it was designed by the eminent Gothic Revival architect George Gilbert Scott (1811 1878) and constructed between 1868 and 1876. St. Pancras was built next to Kings Cross Station (1851 1852), the Great Northern Railways terminus designed by architect Lewis Cubitt. The dissimilar approach to the design of each station reveals a dilemma of the age the functional station building was celebrated as an engineering triumph and a demonstration of technological and structural progress but was not popularly, or professionally, accepted as real

London, England
St. Pauls Cathedral in the city of London, created by the astronomer, mathematician, and designer Sir Christopher Wren (1632 1723), is the crowning work in the large oeuvre of one of the greatest English architects of his time, perhaps of all time. With it, English architecture regained the tradition of construction that it had developed for 400 years, and that had been displaced temporarily by Italian theories of proportion and emphasis upon appearance. Although it clearly drew upon classical and Italian models, Wrens great church was primarily concerned with space and the structural systems that achieved it. The earliest church on the site was a wooden structure built in a.d. 604 by King Ethelbert of Kent for Mellitus, first bishop of the East Saxons. It burned down in 675 and was replaced by Bishop Erkenwald in 685, only to be destroyed by Viking raiders seven years later. Again rebuilt, it was again destroyed by fire in 1087. A new Norman church, now known as Old St. Pauls, was completed in 1240 after 150 years in the building. It was consecrated in 1300. A Gothic choir was added by 1313, and the following year a 489-foot (150-meter) spire was completed. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the cathedral had fallen into disrepair and disuse. In 1633 Inigo Jones, Surveyor of the Royal Works, was instructed to restore it. He had renovated the transepts and nave in the modern

Vatican City, Italy
St. Peters Basilica is the central place of the Roman Catholic Church. From its inception, it took 225 years to complete. No fewer than sixteen architects were responsible for it, under the patronage of twenty-two popes. Nevertheless, the great building presents a degree of integrity, of harmony (perhaps helped by the mellowing passage of the centuries) that might seem improbable given its heterogeneous and sometimes philosophically conflicting sources; that ultimate unity of form and detail is in itself no small architectural feat. In a.d 323, the first Christian Roman, emperor, Constantine the Great (died 337), commissioned a magnificent basilica on the Vatican Hill, south of the River Tiber. It was built with difficulty on the sloping site, its altar supposedly above the spot where St. Peter was believed to have been buried around a.d. 64, and dedicated to him. Twelve centuries passed from the building of Constantines basilica to the first phase of its demolition. Between 1309 and 1377, for political reasons, the papal residence was at Avignon, France. Rome became derelict; according to some sources, packs of wolves roamed the streets. Its churches were neglected, and the old St. Peters descended into decay, its walls leaning and its frescoes encrusted with dust and grime. With the popes again in residence, around the middle of the fifteenth century Rome succeeded Florence as the center of the Italian Renaissance, and in 1452 Pope Nicholas V (reigned 1447 1455) commissioned the architect Bernardo Rossellino (1409 1464) to build a new apse for St. Peters west of the old one. Rossellino, who had already restored the church of San Francesco, Assisi, and many other buildings in Italy, proposed to surround the choir and transept, continuing the elongated Latin-cross plan. But only the tribune and foundations had been built when Nicholas V died and work stopped. Pope Paul II (1464 1471) passed the project to Giuliano da Sangallo in 1470, but none of the subsequent three popes pursued it. Early in 1505 the warrior-pope Julius II (1505 1513) was considering what form his own tomb might take. The sculptor Michelangelo Buonarotti designed an imposing monument, but it called for an appropriate setting. Julius decided to rebuild St. Peters, and late in 1505, a competition was held for the design. The winner was Donato Bramante, who, inspired by the ancient Pantheon in Rome, proposed a Greek cross (all of the arms of which are equal), with towers at the corners and a central dome raised on a drum. Julius laid the foundation stone on 18 April 1506. Despite the theological and esthetic arguments for a centrally planned church, the Greek cross was impractical for the Roman liturgy and thus unacceptable to the clergy. Bramante lengthened one arm to form the traditional Latin cross. Much of Julius IIs money was diverted to wars with the French, and when his architect died in 1514, only the four main piers of St. Peters were completed. They determined all further developments. Juliuss successor, the Borgia Leo X (1513 1521), commissioned Rafaello da Urbino, assisted by Giuliano da Sangallo and Fra Giocondo da Verona. The latter two modified Bramantes plan to a slightly elongated central nave with three aisles on either side. They died in 1516 and 1515, respectively, and Rafaello simplified their plan, seemingly to little effect. After his death in 1520 the new architects, Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, Baldassarre Peruzzi, and Andrea Sansovino, without fixed plans and [attempting] all manner of experiments,

Beauvais, France
Beauvais is capital of the French departement of Oise, north of Paris. It already was an important center in pre-Roman Gaul. The Romans called it Bellovacum, and tradition has it that Lucianus, Maxianus, and Julianus founded Christianity there at the cost of their lives in about a.d. 275. Beauvais became a countship in the ninth century. Power passed to the bishops in 1013, although the date of the foundation of the diocese is unknown. The first cathedral was built in the tenth century alongside the Romanesque church still known as the Basse Oeuvre, and dedicated to Peter, the patron, saint of Beauvais. That cathedral was damaged by fire in 1180 and again in 1225, and reconstruction was undertaken. The second cathedral, never finished, is regarded by many as the most ambitious structure in Gothic architecture, one of the wonders of medieval France. Because it is among the last Gothic churches, the architects of Beauvais Cathedral were able to draw widely on the experience of other builders. The High Gothic phase (1225 1232) a five-aisle church with wide transepts and towers was commissioned by Bishop Miles de Nanteuil. But little was built before his funds were exhausted. Changes were made when work resumed in 1238 for Bishop Robert de Cressonsac; although more modest than de Nanteuils project, his church (had it been completed) would have been much grander than most of its contemporaries. But more significant changes were yet to be made. The final phase was built for Bishop William de Grez from about 1247. In order to allow more light to enter the churches, the High Gothic mason-architects pushed the structural boundaries to the limit by increasing the height of the vaults. Their architecture is distinguished by its emphasis on verticality and the apparent slenderness of the structural elements. In the rayonnant style the name comes from the spokes of its characteristic rose windows which became popular during the reign of Louis IX (1226 1270), the emphasis on height was displaced by the refinement of the masonry frame; the consequently larger window area produced the same net effect as greater height: more light penetrated into the church. Beauvais Cathedral synthesizes the High Gothic and the rayonnant. The piers were more widely spaced, thus reducing masonry and gaining more stained glass. Moreover, by superimposing a tall clerestory on the already lofty arcade of the choir, Williams architects added more than 16 feet (5 meters) to the height of the building, whose soaring vaults then reached 157 feet (48 meters) about three and a half times their span. The choir was completed in 1272. Its vaulting collapsed only twelve years later. When it was rebuilt (to the same height) between 1337 and 1347, additional piers placed between the existing ones strengthened the structure and allowed the builders to replace the quadripartite vaults with a more conservative sexpartite system. The flying buttresses were reinforced at the same time, and iron tie rods were introduced for extra security. Transepts were added in 1500 1548, and in 1558 1568 a 495-foot-tall (151-meter) tower was built over the crossing. It collapsed in 1773 and was never rebuilt. Even today, Beauvais Cathedral is without a nave. Debate continues about the reasons for the collapse of the choir. One theory suggests that the vaulting system was underdesigned, with too widely spaced piers, while another blames uneven and too rapid settlement of the foundation soil beneath the highly concentrated loads that weakened the buttresses and superstructure. Yet another attributes the failure to interruptions to the work and changes to the plans when the building was partly completed. Current experience presents a plausible alternative: the buttresses swayed (as they still do) in the gale-force winds that come off the English Channel, affecting the overall stability of the church. It seems likely that the choir ceiling fell through the combined effect of all these factors. The town of Beauvais was heavily bombed in 1940, and after World War II it was reconstructed to the original plan. Although the cathedral escaped the bombing, its structural stability is still compromised, for all of the reasons stated. Some well-meaning efforts at preservation have only exacerbated the problem. Informed and urgent action is necessary to save the highest medieval church in Europe. Beauvais Cathedral was included on the World Monuments Watch 2000 List of 100 Most Endangered Sites; in June of that year a grant to meet the engineering costs related to a structural-modeling project was received from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.