Early19th-century architecture;

Two principal characteristics distinguish

•The use of a variety of historical styles

•The development of new materials and structural methods

The revivals of Greek, Gothic, and Renaissance designs were fused with contemporary
engineering methods and materials.
▪ The First –Continuity in the traditional styles of their predecessors.
Elements of these earlier styles were put together to give an air of authority to town halls,
railway stations, opera houses and legislatures.
▪ The Second -Characteristic emerged from the development of new materials as a result of
the new industrial needs.
▪ In building, new forms - factories, warehouses, railway terminals, administrative centres,
hospitals - were demanded.
 Gottfried Semper was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture, who designed
and built the Semper Opera House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841.
Leading exponent of Renaissance revival.

Semper wrote “THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE”- wrote extensively about the
origins of architecture.

▪ THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE:

▪ Published in 1851, it is an attempt to explain the origins of architecture through

the lens of anthropology. (Anthropology is the study of various aspects of humans within past
and present societies.)
▪ The book divides architecture into four distinct elements: the hearth, the roof, the enclosure
and the mound. The origins of each element can be found in the traditional crafts of ancient
'barbarians’:
▪ Semper described materials and their uses, investigating how design motifs appeared and how
those motifs were transferred from one material or context to others.
▪ Hearth – fire, ceramics
▪ Roof – carpentry
▪ Enclosure – weaving
▪ Mound – stonemasonry
The Four Elements of Architecture was not the classification of a specific typology but
rather was more universal in its attempt to offer a more general theory of architecture.”
Semper Opera House in Dresden
▪ Semper, stating that the hearth was the first element created: "around the hearth
the first groups assembled; around it the first alliances formed; around it the first
rude religious concepts were put into the customs of a cult.
▪ Enclosures (walls) were said to have their origins in weaving. Just as fences and
pens were woven sticks, the most basic form of a spatial divider still seen in use in
parts of the world today is the fabric screen.
▪ Only when additional functional requirements are placed on the enclosure (such as
structural weight-bearing needs) does the materiality of the wall change to
something beyond fabric.
▪ Architecture was always structure plus cladding – construction by its nature is
layered and not monolithic.
▪ The Four Elements of Architecture as an archeologically driven theory stressed
functionalism as a prerequisite to intentionality.
▪ Quatremère did not write a formal treatise; instead, he was commissioned
to write the first formal dictionary of architecture. Which was widely
used by scholars and professionals.
▪ Quatremère believed that architecture was imitative of nature in two ways:
▪ 1. In the details of nature – like the certain characteristics of an individual
▪ 2. In nature as a collective whole – like referring to a specific species
▪ Quatremère de Quincy’s dictionary is composed according to criteria of
historical, metaphysical, theoretical, elementary or didactic, practical
reference.
▪ Differential levels of theory:
▪ Didactic – instructs the architect about the rules and percepts of the
profession.
▪ Practical – informs the architect of all that has been achieved in
architecture in the past.
▪ Metaphysical – fundamental essence and spirit behind the architecture of
a period.
▪ • What does writing a dictionary accomplish?
▪ 1. A need for clarification and careful distinctions between meanings of words that had
overtime, accrued multiple ambiguous meanings and connotations.
▪ • In hopes of “satisfying all classes of readers by embracing the universality of knowledge
comprised by subject.”
▪ 2. For the first time, instead of writing for a patron or institutional privilege, Quatremère
writes for the public.
▪ 3. In an age of expanding readership and scholarly academic professionalism, the
dictionary was easily produced and equally a readily consumed object.
Quatremère Principles are considered to be simple truths from which many lesser
truths or rules are derived.
Quatremère’s four classes of rules (first two are based on nature and the second
two are based on conventions):
▪ 1. Reason or “the nature of things” - The theory of art in architecture – imitation,
invention, principles, rules
▪ 2. Constitution of the soul, mind, and senses - Beauty in architecture – symmetry,
eurythmy, proportion, ordonnance
▪ 3. Authority of precedents - Retrieval of traditional knowledge – antique,
restoration, restitution
▪ 4. Even habit and prejudice - Theoretical parameters influencing renewal within
tradition – indissociable couples imitation and invention, conventions and genius.
▪ Explain briefly the philosophy and work of :

▪ QUATRAMERE DE QUINCY (1765 – 1849)

▪ Gottfried Semper