Baroque Architecture

Lecture-based survey in a traditional historical vein of European architecture from 1600 to 1750, with the work of Michelangelo as prelude and Piranesi as closure. Aside from the major buildings and architects of the period, topics will include the growth of the architectural profession, transformations of antiquity, urban mapping (Rome, Paris, Madrid), ephemeral architecture and urban ritual, theaters and the theatrical, the library and other architectures of knowledge, monastic non-austerity, the urban palace and the ceremonial apartment, Versailles and the diffusion of the regal country residence, the Baroque square and street, cities at war, urban calamity (earthquake in the Val di Noto and Lisbon, conflagration in London), Europe in Asia (Goa), urban water, the rise of the academy, the influence of mathematics and natural philosophy, the development of architectural drawing, the architectural treatise and the illustrated book, and the historiography and influence of the Baroque in the twentieth-century.

 
Personalities receiving some coverage will include the protagonists of the Roman Baroque (Maderno, Borromini, Bernini, Cortona), the Turinese masters (Guarini, Juvarra and Vittone), the French classicists (Le Vau, Le Nôtre, François and Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Perrault), the English Palladian (Jones and Burlington) and Baroque masters (Wren, Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh), the Baroque in the Low Countries (Van Campen), Mitteleuropa (Fischer von Erlach, the Asam brothers, Dientzenhofer, Santini Aichel), in Scandinavia (the Tessins), in Naples and Sicily (Fanzago, Sanfelice, Vanvitelli, Gagliardi, Serpotta), and in St. Petersburg (Rastrelli).

 
Two one hour lectures, and one additional discussion section for graduate students.