Opus 8

The Renaissance and Baroque movements within history are strongly rooted in ancient design elements, but reinterpret their earlier ideals and express them in new and different ways. “Following a period when the emphasis was on strict instructional approaches, a new religious mood evolved characterized by its emotional, ebullient impact.” (Blakemore, p.152) The Renaissance looked to reorganize the rules and write them down – to bring design back to its rational roots – while the Baroque period began to stretch and break from these rules to enhance emotional expression through architecture. These [re]visions to classical design are about more than just altering the rules. They look back to the past as the building blocks of design and use these rules to work within the new ideals of society. The forms and buildings that result express the humanistic views of Renaissance society and holistic design ideals of the Baroque movement.

During the Baroque era, society becomes the audience of new building design as Baroque fluidity, largess, material, movement and light create theater on the landscape. This theater helps to organize the audience’s movement within and through the scenery created by architectural design. In addition to creating interior spaces in which to inhabit and organize society, the Baroque movement combines landscape arrangement and elements to create exterior spaces for habitation – places where people, the movement of people and occupation of people, enhance the theater of the space. “The autonomy of architecture is here eliminated, becoming now an armature for sculpture and painting meant to impress upon the viewer a mystical experience.” (Roth, p.403)

The architectural elements become as much a character within the space as the people that move throughout them. They stand tall and strong; unmoving in relation to physical motion, but moving in their physicality. “The curved entablatures and the surfaces packed with architectural and sculptural ornament prepare the visitor for the unorthodox interior.” (Roth, p.411) They are the ushers of the theater; directors of the play. They create movement within the space through the movement suggested on their facades and interiors. The formation of materials, curving components, suggestion of flowing fabrics and interaction with natural elements such as light and water guide people within the space and direct their movement about and through. The space is not simply inhabited, but experienced.

Transition between spaces may be a straight line, but it is not simply a straight line. Progression between interior and exterior spaces is blurred as shown at Versailles and the Hall of Mirrors. The exterior courtyards extend across the landscape, harnessing the sun and its reflection, directing it back to the palace. Site lines bring the occupant back to the king, reaffirming his importance on the landscape and to society as a whole. “Multiple axes converged on the bedroom of the king…symbolizing the centralized focus on the person and absolute power of the king.” (Roth, p.420) Within the Hall of Mirrors, the landscape is extended beyond the limits of the physical wall through reflection, doubling the interior space and positioning the palace on the center of the land. Multiple large openings match the mirrors of the opposite wall and create fluid interaction between interior and exterior spaces.

“Architecture has become but one constituent part in what was “a total work of art.”” (Roth, p.404) The building becomes a new, dynamic datum point. Its structure is used as an expression of art on the landscape. It is not simply a static element, but one that excites emotion and initiates movement. As horizontal expression on the landscape strengthens, nature becomes part of the architecture. Instead of creating a building that stakes it claims through reaching heavenward without regard of its surroundings, Baroque architecture imitates nature through movement and life. By breaking the rules of classical design, this new expression is able to create life within the stone and static elements that make up the structure. The new theater is life.

Baroque expression was opulent and excessive, but its inner qualities exist in design movements of today. As the world becomes over populated and pollution threatens today’s society to change or be changed, one design movement is to repurpose the past. Instead of creating waste by removing an unused building and then pushing industrial processes to build new, let’s take what is here but instill a sense of the environment within. Reconnect the building to the landscape and the current ideals that exist within our society. Let’s return to design ideals of the ancient world that are meant to stand for eternity and be relevant in that eternal world. Let’s create movement and theater within a space so that people want to return to these buildings and be entertained within and around them. Today we see building design cycling back to reducing largess while keeping the more important facets, natural elements and theater of space.