Stripped Classicism (or "Starved Classicism" or "Grecian Moderne")[1] is primarily a 20th-century classicistarchitectural style stripped of most or all ornamentation, frequently employed by governments while designing official buildings. It was adopted by both totalitarian and democratic regimes.[upper-alpha 1] The style embraces a "simplified but recognizable" classicism in its overall massing and scale while eliminating traditional decorative detailing.[3][4][5][6] The orders of architecture are only hinted at or are indirectly implicated in the form and structure.[upper-alpha 2]
Despite its etymological similarity, Stripped Classicism is sometimes distinguished from "Starved Classicism", the latter "displaying little feeling for rules, proportions, details, and finesse, and lacking all verve and élan".[5][7] At other times the terms "stripped" and "starved" are used interchangeably.[8][9]
Stripped Classicism was a materialistic manifestation of 'political' modernism. Recent historiography has explicitly linked this architectural style – and its relationship with modernist thinking – to political projects arising in the 1920–1930s, which utilised artistic dexterity to articulate – in built form – a powerful political ethos orientated towards the future.[10]
Other writers have noted the need to read the impact of avant-garde movements such as the Italian Futurists, who extolled the innumerable possibilities of the modern world, on this unique style (and the futurism it espoused).[11] It was popularised by the French-born Paul Philippe Cret, among others, and employed in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union and New Deal America.
Between the World Wars, a stripped-down classicism became the de facto standard for many monumental and institutional governmental buildings all over the world.[2] Governments used this architectural méthode to straddle modernism and classicism, an ideal political response to a modernizing world.[12] In part, this movement was said to have origins in the need to save money in governmental works by eschewing the expense of hand-worked classical detail.[6]
In Europe, examples as early as the Embassy of Germany, Saint Petersburg, designed by Peter Behrens and completed in 1912, "established models for the classical purity aspired to by high modernists like Mies van der Rohe but also for the oversized, Stripped Classicism of Hitler's, Stalin's and Ulbricht's architects and perhaps of American, British and French official buildings in the 1930s as well".[13] The style later found adherents in the Fascist regimes of Germany[14] and Italy as well as in the Soviet Union during Stalin's regime.[15]Albert Speer's Zeppelinfeld and other parts of the Nazi party rally grounds complex outside Nuremberg were perhaps the most famous examples in Germany, using classical elements such as columns and altars alongside modern technology such as spotlights. The Casa del Fascio in Como has also been aligned with the movement. In the USSR some of the proposals for the unbuilt Palace of the Soviets also had characteristics of the style.[2]
Despite its popularity with totalitarian regimes, it has been adapted by many English-speaking democratic governments, including during the New Deal in the United States.[2] In any event, presumed "fascist" underpinnings have hampered acceptance into mainstream architectural thought.[2] There is no evidence that architects who favored this style had a particular right-wing political disposition. Nevertheless, both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were fans.[21][22] On the other hand, Stripped Classicism was favored by Joseph Stalin and various regional Communist regimes.[15]
The use of culture and 'myth' was a shared peculiarity of totalitarian political programmes during the 1920–30s, including Nazism in Germany and Soviet Communism in Russia. Cultural incentives launched by these states, and all their various intricacies, evoked currents of modernist thought.
Through architecture, they strove to invoke the power of modernity in their physical landscapes (especially in their capital cities) and, simultaneously, reinvent the past (as symbolised by Stripped Classicism's restrained classical features) by ransacking its archetypal 'healthy' elements to inaugurate a reforged, rejuvenated, futural, open-ended and monumental future.
It is this curious dichotomy between old and new, an inexorable feature of Stripped Classicism, which historian Roger Griffin has encapsulated in his conceptual framework of 'rooted modernism' (which he discusses in relation to fascist buildings).[24]
The modernism in Stripped Classical buildings can be seen through their stylistic components (mute apertures, blank walls and the absence of ornament) and through their pure functionality. Adolf Loos, an Austrian theorist of modern architecture, and his essay "Ornament and Crime" can be seen as just one of the many philosophers/theorists/architects who foreshadowed some of the stylistic elements of Stripped Classicism.
Avant-garde movements such as Futurism also foreshadowed a form of building which is as much extravagant as it is streamlined, as much multi-functional as it is fit for the multi-faceted modern future vis-a-vis high-speed travel, technologically advanced means of communication, hydraulic engineering etc... "all in time for the most mechanised war in history", as Samuel Patterson writes.[25]
The Stripped Classical style was also embraced by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who yearned for an architecture symbolising a 'new beginning' under New Dealism (which was fighting to ameliorate the ramifications of the Great Depression), and concomitantly, archetypal American genius. A discussion of the Roosevelt administration, its reinvention of the past (centred on Jeffersonianism) and its uses of architecture in the 1930s can be found in Patterson's 'Problem-Solvers' thesis.[25]
Walter Bunning, in association with T.E. O’Mahoney
1968
"... modern derivation in the spirit of ancient Greco-Roman architecture. It is unequivocally a twentieth century building, in the architectural style that is called Late Twentieth Century Stripped Classical".[29]
↑ "Stripped Classicism was a widely popular, international style of architecture during the inter-war period. It is best defined as a pared down version of classicism that blended the classical vocabulary with the ever-growing desire for abstraction... Due to its strong associations with totalitarian governments, it is often excluded from the canonic historical narrative of the modern movement. Recently a growing number of scholars have begun to question the traditional definition of modern architecture. If the discussion on modernism is expanding beyond the traditional canonical definition, a greater understanding of Stripped Classicism's place amongst the modern movement can be achieved."[2]
↑ Thus, for example, cuts might be substituted for moldings.[5]
↑ Cf, Curl, James Stevens (2000). "Starved Classicism". A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved December 6, 2014.
↑ Applewhite, E. J. (1993). Washington Itself: An Informal Guide to the Capital of the United States. Lanham, Md: Madison Books. p.165. ISBN1568330081.
↑ Prosser, Daniel (1992). The New Deal Builds: Government Architecture during the New Deal. Vol.9. pp.40–54.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
↑ Irving, Robert; Powell, Ron; Irving, Noel (2014). Sydney's hard rock story: the cultural heritage of trachyte. Leura, N.S.W.: Heritage Publishing. p.137. ISBN9781875891160.
Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and controls the public sphere and the private sphere of society. In the field of political science, totalitarianism is the extreme form of authoritarianism, wherein all socio-political power is held by a dictator, who also controls the national politics and the peoples of the nation with continual propaganda campaigns that are broadcast by state-controlled and by friendly private mass communications media.
Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was born in Rome, largely due to the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann during the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Its popularity expanded throughout Europe as a generation of European art students finished their Grand Tour and returned from Italy to their home countries with newly rediscovered Greco-Roman ideals. The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, eventually competing with Romanticism. In architecture, the style endured throughout the 19th, 20th, and into the 21st century.
Modern architecture, also called modernist architecture, was an architectural movement and style that was prominent in the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco and later postmodern movements. Modern architecture was based upon new and innovative technologies of construction ; the principle functionalism ; an embrace of minimalism; and a rejection of ornament.
Postmodern architecture is a style or movement which emerged in the late 1950s as a reaction against the austerity, formality, and lack of variety of modern architecture, particularly in the international style advocated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock. The movement was introduced by the architect and urban planner Denise Scott Brown and architectural theorist Robert Venturi in their 1972 book Learning from Las Vegas. The style flourished from the 1980s through the 1990s, particularly in the work of Scott Brown & Venturi, Philip Johnson, Charles Moore and Michael Graves. In the late 1990s, it divided into a multitude of new tendencies, including high-tech architecture, neo-futurism, new classical architecture, and deconstructivism. However, some buildings built after this period are still considered postmodern.
Giuseppe Terragni was an Italian architect who worked primarily under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and pioneered the Italian modern movement under the rubric of Rationalism. His most famous work is the Casa del Fascio built in Como, northern Italy, which was begun in 1932 and completed in 1936; it was built in accordance with the International Style of architecture and frescoed by abstract artist Mario Radice. In 1938, at the behest of Mussolini's fascist government, Terragni designed the Danteum, an unbuilt monument to the Italian poet Dante Alighieri structured around the formal divisions of his greatest work, the Divine Comedy.
Paul Philippe Cret was a French-born Philadelphian architect and industrial designer. For more than thirty years, he taught at a design studio in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
Stalinist architecture, mostly known in the former Eastern Bloc as Stalinist style or Socialist Classicism, is the architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, between 1933 and 1955. Stalinist architecture is associated with the Socialist realism school of art and architecture.
The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building houses the main offices of the Board of Governors of the United States' Federal Reserve System. It is located at the intersection of 20th Street and Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. The building, designed in the Stripped Classicism style, was designed by Paul Philippe Cret and completed in 1937. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the building on October 20, 1937.
Fascist architecture encompasses various stylistic trends in architecture developed by architects of fascist states, primarily in the early 20th century. Fascist architectural styles gained popularity in the late 1920s with the rise of modernism along with the ultranationalism associated with fascist governments in western Europe. Fascist styles often resemble that of ancient Rome, but can extend to modern aesthetics as well. Fascist-era buildings are frequently constructed with particular concern given to symmetry and simplicity.
Architectural sculpture is the use of sculptural techniques by an architect and/or sculptor in the design of a building, bridge, mausoleum or other such project. The sculpture is usually integrated with the structure, but freestanding works that are part of the original design are also considered to be architectural sculpture. The concept overlaps with, or is a subset of, monumental sculpture.
Nordic Classicism was a style of architecture that briefly blossomed in the Nordic countries between 1910 and 1930.
Hermann Henselmann was a German architect most famous for his buildings constructed in East Germany during the 1950s and 1960s.
In architecture, Rationalism is an architectural current which mostly developed from Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. Vitruvius had claimed in his work De architectura that architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally. The formulation was taken up and further developed in the architectural treatises of the Renaissance. Eighteenth-century progressive art theory opposed the Baroque use of illusionism with the classic beauty of truth and reason.
Federal modernism is an architectural style which emerged in the twentieth century encompassing various styles of modern architecture used in the design of federal buildings in the United States. Federal buildings in this style shunned ornamentation, focusing instead on functional efficiency and low costs. There is no universally accepted start date for federal modernism, with some early variants of modernism emerging as early as the 1920s, but the term is most often associated with the buildings built by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) in the 1950s through 1970s. Prominent architects associated with federal modernism include Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, and Victor Lundy. Federal modernism has been criticized by some architects and politicians such as Donald Trump, either because they believe it lacks "authority" or due to a perceived lack of beauty.
Architectural revivalism is the use of elements that echo the style of a previous architectural era that have or had fallen into disuse or abeyance between their heyday and period of revival. Revivalism, in a narrower sense, refers to the period of- and movement within- Western architectural history during which a succession of antecedent and remenescent styles were taken to by architects, roughly from the late 18th century, and which was itself succeeded by Modernism. Notable revival styles include Neoclassical architecture, and Gothic Revival. Revivalism is related to historicism.
Reactionary modernism is a term first coined by Jeffrey Herf in the 1980s to describe the mixture of "great enthusiasm for modern technology with a rejection of the Enlightenment and the values and institutions of liberal democracy" that was characteristic of the German Conservative Revolutionary movement and Nazism. In turn, this ideology of reactionary modernism was closely linked to the original, positive view of the Sonderweg, which saw Germany as the great Central European power, neither of the West nor of the East.
Totalitarian architecture is a term utilized to refer to the relationship between totalitarianism and architecture, often in the context of alleged "approved styles" of architecture within totalitarian regimes. Most commonly, the term is used to describe an observed fixation on Neo-Classicism and realism within specific regimes. Such fixations on neo-Classicism are not unique to totalitarian regimes, however, and manifest in other political and social systems historically and globally. Beyond Neo-Classicism, descriptions of the architecture of totalitarian regimes sometimes focus on brutalist architecture, often in the context of Le Corbusier and his associations with Benito Mussolini. In contrast to these views, several authors have upheld brutalism and socialist realism as modernist art forms which exist beyond simply being physical manifestations of totalitarian ideology.
New Classical architecture, New Classicism or Contemporary Classical architecture is a contemporary movement in architecture that continues the practice of Classical architecture. It is sometimes considered the modern continuation of Neoclassical architecture, even though other styles might be cited as well, such as Gothic, Baroque, Renaissance or even non-Western styles – often referenced and recreated from a postmodern perspective as opposed to being strict revival styles.
Nazi architecture is the architecture promoted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime from 1933 until its fall in 1945, connected with urban planning in Nazi Germany. It is characterized by three forms: a stripped neoclassicism, typified by the designs of Albert Speer; a vernacular style that drew inspiration from traditional rural architecture, especially alpine; and a utilitarian style followed for major infrastructure projects and industrial or military complexes. Nazi ideology took a pluralist attitude to architecture; however, Hitler himself believed that form follows function and wrote against "stupid imitations of the past".
Monumentalism defines the architectural tendencies that during the first half of the twentieth century had as their essential canon the inspiration and connection to classicism and neoclassicism. Critics divide this architecture into two streams: Neo-Baroque and Simplified Neoclassicism.
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