June 2011
Design Culture and Environment
Assessment Item 2: Essay (40%)
Madeleine Steele
The relationship between structure and ornament is a critical theme of architecture in the Western
tradition. How is the relationship portrayed in the Renaissance (by Alberti) and in the Rococo
(generally)? In what ways can we describe the relationship (in both instances) as problematic? Use
buildings and interiors from each of the periods to explain your argument.
From the Classical to the contemporary, the distinguishing forms of each architectural period are a
physical response to the ideologies of the time. The relationship between structure and ornament
is one important illustration of this, and by looking at this theme and investigating the driving
theories, one can compare each style. For architects during the Renaissance and the Rococo
however, this relationship was hardly a simple one, and as architects from each period reflected on
the roles of structure and ornament in architecture, they drew some startlingly different solutions.
Renaissance architect and scholar, Leon Battista Alberti, reflected on the theories of classical
Roman architecture, in particular, those of Vitruvius and his declaration that good architecture is a
combination of three qualities, Utilitas, Firmita and Venustas (function, structure and beauty)1. This
idea and the others that followed in his De re architectura epitomise Italian Renaissance thinking2.
To Alberti, the idea of beauty was a critical one, labelling it as “the noblest and most necessary” 3,
and his discussions of ornament and structure reflect this. He believed beauty was inherent in a
building4 and could be achieved through the application of the three systems of taxis, genera and
symmetry.
It is these three systems which affected structure and ornament. Relating to number, proportion
and arrangement respectively, the systems were a way to apply the classical theory of the body and
its divine origins to architecture. To Alberti; form, structure and ornament applied following these
systems was the path to creating beauty - “the harmony of all the members, so that nothing can be
taken away or added or changed but for the worse”5. The principal member to which this applied
was the orders, which importantly Alberti placed in the category of ornament 6. Only being exposed
to Roman classical architecture, not Greek, he was unaware that the origins of the orders were in
fact as structural members. For the most part, he saw ornament, and therefore the orders, as
purely an enhancement of beauty, as decoration and embellishment. At times however, Alberti
contradicts himself, acknowledging that structural qualities are inherent in the nature of a column
when describing the column’s role in a passage “as a certain strengthened part of the wall” 7. This
struggle of Alberti’s with his definition of the column as structure and ornament is illustrative of
how he found the relationship itself as problematic. In the analysis of two buildings that he
designed, it is possible to see how this theoretical issue affected his work.
San Francesco in Rimini was the first of five church facades for which Alberti was commissioned to
develop a new façade, in this case, a shell over the top of the previous gothic one. While never fully
1
David Watkin, A History of Western architecture, 3rd ed. (London: Lawrence King, 1982).
Edward R. de Zurko, "Alberti's Theory of Form and Function," The Art Bulletin 39, no. 2 (1957).
3
Leon Battista Alberti, in On the Art of Building in Ten Books (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988 (first
published as De re Aedifictoria, 1450)).
4
Rudolf Wittkower, "Part II: Alberti’s Approach to Antiquity in Architecture," in Architectural Principles in the Age of
Humanism (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1971 (first published 1949) ).
5
Watkin, A History of Western architecture.
6
Wittkower, "Part II: Alberti’s Approach to Antiquity in Architecture."
7
Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books [De re Aedifictoria], trans. Rykwert, Leach, and Tavernor
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988 (first published as De re Aedifictoria, 1450)).
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June 2011
Design Culture and Environment
Assessment Item 2: Essay (40%)
Madeleine Steele
completed, illustrations give a picture of what was intended. Using his three systems, Alberti had
his first attempt at applying his classical roman-inspired theories to create “concinnitas”8 or a “welladjusted whole”9. The design of the church’s façade was dictated to by the three-aisle plan but
Alberti, drawing inspiration from classical Roman architecture, found a suitable solution in the
triumphal arch10, which like gothic churches the motif had a three-part layout. It was less successful
in elevation, as triumphal arches were only single storey and San Francesco was a two storey
building.
It is here that Alberti’s theoretical problems with the application of the orders are exposed. On the
front of the building he used four half columns on the first storey, two on each side of the entrance
arch. For the second storey he continued the two central half columns, starting the base of two
pilasters at the top of their entablatures. Seeing them as ornamental rather than structural, he was
unable to harmonise the half columns with the structure of the wall, and this led to a façade that
lacked flow between the base and two storeys.
Alberti was one to learn from his failures however, and the side elevations reflect this. Having had
no success using half columns and no longer constrained by the three aisles, he used a different
technique of pierced wall architecture. Alberti’s preference of the pillar and arch to the column and
arch combination due to the former being contained in one plane, the side elevations were a
stronger portrayal of structure, ornament and the three systems powerfully coming together.
In creating the façade of Santa Maria Novella, another gothic church, Alberti made further
progressions both theoretically and in practice. Unlike San Francesco, he was not to create a shell
over the top, but rather he had the more difficult task of preserving, incorporating and somehow
modernising the gothic members such as the tombs and pointed arches. The Santa Maria Novella
shows the successful use of pilasters and half-columns and in comparing the church with its
predecessor one key difference stands out immediately. The addition of an attic between the two
levels creates a visual division between the pilasters on the main storey and those above which
hold the classical pediment. As a result, while these classical orders are very much entwined with
the gothic features, they act well to bring the façade as a whole together.
Developing further from Santa Maria Novella, were the facades of S. Andrea and S. Sebastiano in
Mantua. For the first time Alberti did not use columns and this illustrates the large progression he
had made in his theories on ornament since De re architectura and his first works. He instead used
pilasters on both the facades, finally giving in to the structure of wall architecture. Throughout his
career he had battled with how to join column and wall offering numerous solutions in practice
before concluding the orders, his once primary ornament, had to be sacrificed.
It is this progression from S. Francesco, to Santa Maria Novella and finally to S. Andrea and S.
Sebastiano that is such a poignant illustration of the type of relationship Alberti believed structure
and ornament to have. Structural members could be ornamental and vice versa because
fundamentally Alberti understood beauty to be no more than the harmony and concord of all parts.
In comparison to the Renaissance, structure and ornament were more clearly thought of as
separate during the Rococo. Architects used decoration as their chief tool in creating beauty
8
Ibid.
Watkin, A History of Western architecture.
10
Phyllis Williams Lehmann, "Alberti and Antiquity: Additional Observations," The Art Bulletin Vol. 70, no. No. 3 (Sep.,
1988).
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June 2011
Design Culture and Environment
Assessment Item 2: Essay (40%)
Madeleine Steele
dramatically attenuating and detracting focus away from the building’s structure. Highly ornate
interiors were typical for the period in which no amount of decoration in architecture and design
was ever too much. Flourishing mostly in France and then Germany, Rococo architecture reflects
the affluent times in those countries and their desire to display their riches through architecture.
The style also took a hold in Italy in the 18th century particularly in the north and the oval space of
the grand salon in Stupinigi Palace near Turin, is an example of the dominance of ornament in the
period’s interior architecture. Designed by Filippo Juvarra (1678-1736), structural members, once
appreciated in the Renaissance and then in the Baroque for their innate beauty and ornamental
potential, became slender piers and walls merging into ceiling as ornament roamed every surface 11.
Alberti, Leon Battista. In On the Art of Building in Ten Books, Three Excerpts: (1) Bk 6, Ch 2, 155—57; (2) Ch
13, 83—88; (3) Bk 9, Ch 5, 301—05. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988 (first published as
De re Aedifictoria, 1450).
———. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Translated by Rykwert, Leach and Tavernor. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988 (first published as De re Aedifictoria, 1450).
Lehmann, Phyllis Williams. "Alberti and Antiquity: Additional Observations." The Art Bulletin Vol. 70, no. No.
3 (Sep., 1988): pp. 388-400.
Millon, Henry A. Baroque & Rococo Architecture. London : Studio Vista, 1968.
Watkin, David. A History of Western Architecture. 3rd ed. London: Lawrence King, 1982.
Wittkower, Rudolf. "Part Ii: Alberti’s Approach to Antiquity in Architecture." In Architectural Principles in the
Age of Humanism, 33—55. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1971 (first published 1949)
Zurko, Edward R. de. "Alberti's Theory of Form and Function." The Art Bulletin 39, no. 2 (1957): 142-45.
11
Henry A Millon, Baroque & rococo architecture (London : Studio Vista, 1968).
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