ARCH 354 CULTURE OF CITIES

1. ARCH 354CULTURE OF CITIES LECTURE 6 Baroque Cities 15th to 18th Centuries Prof. Dr. NaciyeDoratlI

2. BACKGROUND The monastery, the guild and the church served as formative elements of the medieval town. More effective than were Cos, Delphi and Olympia- Greek Civilization as they shaped every quarter and molded a common life. Voluntary co-operation Contractual obligations Reciprocal duties partly replaced Blind obedience & one-sided pressure

3. BACKGROUND Red Sienna Black & White Genoa Gray Paris all archetypal medieval cities Colorful Florence At the end of the Middle Ages, one city in Europe stood out above every other because of its beauty and wealth.

4. BACKGROUND Florence was above all (13th – 16th centuries): A hub of art and intellectual life.

5. BACKGROUND Venice: • A diagrammatic form • The ideal composition of a medieval urban structure.

6. BACKGROUND Venice was a creation of a group of refugees from Padua during the fifth century. At the core of Venice: Piazza San Marco

7. BACKGROUND Piazza San Marco • An open space in front of its ancient Byzantine Church. • In 976, close to where the CAMPANILE (the bell tower) was first built in the 12th century, a lodging house for pilgrims to the Holly Land was established. • This was the beginning of the later hotel quarter. • As early as 12th century: A piazza-filled with market stalls (1172 it was widened.)

8. BACKGROUND The plan of Venice was not a STATIC DESIGN. Arbitrarily ruled out the possibilities of growth, re-adaptation, and change. Unity has emerged from a complex order. It should be noted that the pattern of St. Mark’s is repeated on a smaller scale in each of the parishes of Venice. Each has its campo & square (often trapezoidal shape, with its fountain, church, school, guildhall). City divided into six neighborhood (one of the six guilds in each). There are 177 canals.

9. BACKGROUND MEDIEVAL SURVIVALS AND MUTATIONS • In the 16th and 17th centuries certain fresh URBAN FORMS came to existence: • They characterized neither the diminishing Middle Ages; nor the ongoing mercantile economy and absolutist government. • These new urban forms were not TRANSITIONAL, since they led to their own direction, towards their further goal.

10. BACKGROUND Towards the end of the medieval period, the power of the Church and the medieval city has declined. After the 16th century, the medieval town tended to become a SHELL. The better the shell was preserved, the less life was left in it. (Carcassonne)

11. BACKGROUND Pressure of population New economic measures altered EXTERNAL FORM

12. BACKGROUND • Sometimes the old town mirrored the new life through the adaptation of the facades of the buildings: (A change of the facade) - brick faces of the old burgher houses –coated with plaster; - enlargement of windows/ classical decoration for cornice, lintel or doorway. (ie. Elegant quarter of Bruges)

13. BACKGROUND From the 16th century on the trade activities (monopolies) became dominant. The growing importance of international commerce, took the advantage of the WEAKNESS of the craft guild and the walled town. Weakness: local

14. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • Some medieval institutions renewed themselves in the 16th century by adopting the style of their time: • Monasticism took on a new life by reorganization on military lines. • Architectural Content: No real break between gothic building and neo-gothic building.

15. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER Between the 15th – 18th centuries, a new complex of cultural qualities took shape in Europe. FORM & CONTENT of urban life had radically changed. New Ideological form: derived from mechanistic physics. New political framework: centralized despotism/oligarchy (embodied in a NATION STATE) New economy: Mercantilist Capitalism New pattern of Existence

16. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • Until the 17th century, all these changes were: • confused and tentative; • restricted to a minority; • effective only in patches • In the 17th century the focus sharpened. • Medieval order began to break up and religion, trade and politics went their own way separately.

17. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER Post medieval town: Before directly focusing on Baroque, one must first remember Renaissance as a movement towards FREEDOM AND THE REESTABLISHMENT OF HUMAN DIGNITY. For the real Renaissance of European Culture, the great age of city building and intellectual triumph, was that which began in the 12th century. Between that revival and the Classical Revival of 15th century a great natural disaster had taken place: Black Death of 14th century – loss of 1/3 or 1/2 population– social disorganization. POWER came into the hands of those controlling the army, trade routes and great accumulation of capital.

18. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER (For 4-5 centuries) From To Medieval universality ……………………………….. Baroque Uniformity Medieval localism ………………………….. ….. Baroque centralism Absolutism of God & Holy Cath. Church………. Absolutism of the temporal sovereign & National state

19. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER Openness & Clarification Renaissance : Re-birth Aside from planned walled cities during the late Renaissance period, there is no Renaissance city. There are patches of Renaissance order, opening and clarifications (modification of medieval city). The theme itself remained medieval; but new instruments were added to the orchestra and both tempo and the tonal color of the city were changed.

20. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • Symbols of this new movement (Renaissance): • STRAIGHT STREETS • UNBROKEN HORIZONTAL ROOF LINE • ROUND ARCH • REPETITION OF UNIFORM ELEMENTS: cornice, lintel, window, column etc. • However, in the beginning the pattern of the old city was not substantially altered. • Most of the palaces in Florence were erected on narrow Roman and medieval streets.

21. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER New planners of the 16th century was limited and modest in terms of ambition. Since there were many old buildings still standing, the new buildings created a rich, complex order (more satisfying aesthetically than the uniform compositions of the later period.) In small measures the new order of renaissance design added to the beauty of the medieval city.

22. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • In 17th century: • Strict rules of composition • Endless avenues • Uniform legal regulations • Concept of Baroque, as is shaped in 17th century, holds two contradictory elements of the age: • Abstract mathematical and methodological side: expressed to perfection in— . its accurate street plans, . its formal city layouts . its geometrically ordered gardens and landscape design • In the paintings and sculpture of the period: Rebellious, extravagant, anticlassical expressions in cloths etc.

23. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER Between 16th and 19th centuries these two elements existed side by side. Early renaissance forms can be regarded in its PURITY as proto-baroque. NEO-CLASSIC FORMS (VERSAILLES, ST. PETERSBURG: Late- baroque. (We have to think that baroque is not a single moment in the development of architectural style.)

24. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • In terms of CITY: • THE RENAISSANE FORMS are the mutants • THE BAROQUE FORMS are dominants • Neo-classic forms are the persistents in this cultural transformation.

25. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER TERRITORY AND CITY • From the beginning of the Middle Ages two powers struggled for leadership: • Royal • Municipal • When royal power was strong (England, Austria): Kingdom • When royal power was weak (Italy): City fully independent as a political entity.

26. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER During the 14. Century in great monarchies (England and France): • As population and territory increased in size, direct personal supervision became impossible: Impersonal Administration and delegated authority became necessary. • Thus, the modern state began to shape itself in the 14th century. Reflected as: • Permanent bureaucracy • Permanent court of justice • Permanent archives and records • Permanent buildings (mostly centrally located) • When the power was consolidated in the political capital, the smaller centers lost power and initiative.

27. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER As the great states of the modern world took shape, population of the capital cities increased. During the 18th century, Cities reached population of 200 000, 100 000 etc. In contrast to the medieval regime, power and population were no longer scattered and decentralized. City building was no longer for a rising class of small craftsmen and merchants, but a means of consolidating political power in a single national center directly under the royal eye.

28. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER INSTRUMENTS OF COERCION (BASKI REJIMI) • In the growth of state, capitalism and techniques and warfare play an important role. • How did the modern doctrines of absolute political power arise? • Why did political despot emerge so easily out of the concentrations of economic capital and political authority that took place in the 14th century Italian city? • Gun power had played an important role.

29. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER WAR AS CITY BUILDER The development of the art of fortification shifted the emphasis in building from architecture to engineering (from aesthetic design to material calculations) Alternation of the urban picture from the short range world of the medieval city (walking distance, closed vistas, patchwork spaces) to long range world of baroque (long distance gunfire and wheeled traffic.

30. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER THE IDEOLOGY OF POWER The two arms of the new system are the army and the bureaucracy: they are temporal and spiritual support of a centralized despotism. The change from the goods economy to a money economy greatly widened the resources of the state. To increase the boundaries of the state was to increase the taxable population: to increase the population of the capital city was to increase the rent of the land.

31. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER Capitalism in its turn became militaristic: it relied on the arms of the state when it could no longer bargain to advantage without them: the foundation of colonial exploitation and imperialism. The new merchant and banking classes emphasized method, order, routine power mobility, all habits that tended to increase effective practical command. Behind the immediate interests of new capitalism, with its abstract love of money and power, a change in the entire conceptual framework took place.

32. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER A new conception of space • It was one of the great triumphs of the baroque mind to organize space, make it continuous, reduce it to measure and order, and to extend the limits of magnitude, to associate space with motion and time. • These changes were first formulated by the painters and architects, beginning with Alberti, Brunelleschi, Uccello and Serlio.

33. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER The distance was not correlated with intensity of color and quality of light, but with the movement of bodies through the projected third dimension. This putting together of unrelated lines and solids within the regular baroque frame (much different than medieval painting), was contemporary with the political consolidation of territory into a coherent frame of the state. In line with the aesthetic preference of Baroque, grand avenues have been designed, which at most have an obelisk, an arch, or a single building to terminate the converging rays of the cornice lines.

34. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER The long approach and the vista into unbounded space (those typical for the baroque plan) were first discovered by the painters. The social mode of baroque time is fashion, which changes every year. Its practical instrument was the newspaper, which deals with scattered events from day to day. The abstraction of money, spatial perspective, and mechanical time provided the enclosing frame of the new life.

35. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER THE NEW FORMS • In Art: PERSPECTIVE AND ANATOMY • In Architecture: AXIAL SYMMETRY, FORMALISTIC REPETITION, THE FIXED PROPORTIONS OF THE FIVE ORDERS • In City Planning: the ELABORATE GEOMETRICAL PLAN

36. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER In Art: PERSPECTIVE AND ANATOMY

37. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER In Architecture: AXIAL SYMMETRY, FORMALISTIC REPETITION, THE FIXED PROPORTIONS OF THE FIVE ORDERS

38. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER In City Planning: the ELABORATE GEOMETRICAL PLAN

39. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • During Baroque period, power politics and power economics reinforced each other. • Cities grew; customers multiplied; rents rose; taxes increased. • Law, order, uniformity were products of the baroque capital: • Law exists to confirm the status and secure the position of the privileged class; • The Order is a mechanical order: It didn’t base upon blood or neighborhood, but upon the subjection to the ruling Prince; • Uniformity: Uniformity of bureaucrat with his numerous devices for regulating and systematizing the collection of taxes.

40. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • The external means of enforcing this pattern of life lies in: • The army; • Mercantile capitalist policy (economic arm). • The most typical institutions: • The standing army; • The Bourse; • The bureaucracy; • The court.

41. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER MOVEMENT & THE AVENUE The avenue is the most important symbol and the main fact about the baroque city. It was not possible always to design a whole city (the city as a whole) in the baroque mode. But in the layout of half a dozen new avenues, or in a new quarter, its character could be re-defined.

42. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • In the linear evolution of the city plan, the movement of wheeled vehicle played a critical part. • The general geometrizing of space (characterizing the period): • facilitating the movement of traffic and transport. • An expression of the dominant sense of life. • During the 16th century: The use of carts and wagons became usual within the city. However at the beginning there were reactions and protests against this.

43. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER The other face of the avenues:  They were needed for military movement as well. Straight streets were important for military movement. The new town planners had always considered the needs of the army. (Alberti, then Palladio, later Hausmann’s boulevards). The uniform oversized streets in the new cities had purely a military basis. Think about Paris: Napoleon III ordered the demolition of narrow streets and cul-de-sacs to open boulevards to prevent revolution.

44. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER

45. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER

46. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER In the medieval city people from upper and lower classes used the streets in the same way without any difference. But during baroque, and especially on wide avenues, the rich drive and the poor walk. The daily parade of the powerful becomes one of the principal dramas of the baroque city.

47. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • POSITION OF THE PALACE • Baroque city building was an embodiment of the prevalent drama and ritual. • The palace faced two ways: • From the urban side came rent, tribute, taxes, command of the army, and the control of the state; • From the rural side came the well-built, well exercised men and women who formed the body of the court.

48. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER • INFLUENCE OF THE PALACE ON THE CITY • The baroque court (SALTANAT) had a direct influence upon the town in every aspect of the life. • One must not think of the dominance of the palace in terms of a single building with its courtly functions: • The palatial style of life spread everywhere. Palatial, in baroque terms, stands for spaciousness and self-sufficient power. • (Before it was vertical). From 15th century onwards, horizontal spaciousness was emphasized: power spread itself.

49. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER The theater has taken its form during this period. The new baroque spatial perspective first manifested itself, not in the actual city, but in a painted street scene in the theater (Serlio). The new city was an essay in formal scenic design: a backdrop for absolute power. Pleasure and recreation of theatrical display and showmanship were all the result of the influence of the palace. During the nineteenth century the older baroque elegance disappeared. However, pleasure was an essential part of the urban culture. As part of these culture, Museums, Art Galleries etc. became an indispensable part of the urban life.

50. THE STRUCTURE OF BAROQUE POWER Extension of the broad landscape park in the heart of the city was perhaps the most felicitous contribution of the palace to urban life.