The design and construction of buildings in ever-evolving classical styles continued throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, even as modernist and other non-classical theories broke with the classical language of architecture. The new classical movement is also connected to a surge in new traditional architecture, that is crafted according to local building traditions and materials.[7]
In Great Britain during the 1950s and 1960s, a handful of architects continued to design buildings in a neoclassical style, contrary to the prevailing fashion for Modern architecture. Donald McMorran (1904–1965), a partner in the firm McMorran & Whitby, who once described the Modernist movement as "a dictatorship of taste", designed several noteworthy neoclassical buildings such as Cripps Hall at the University of Nottingham (completed 1959); the extension to the Old Bailey (completed 1972); and numerous civic buildings and housing estates.[8][9] Another noteworthy British architect, Raymond Erith (1904–1973), designed classical buildings from the establishment of his practice in 1946 until his death in 1973. He is best known for his restoration work at London's Downing Street (completed 1963), and for having mentored the New Classical architect Quinlan Terry (born 1937), Erith's pupil and employee, then partner, and finally successor to his practice.
French architect François Spoerry also continued to create classical designs from the 1960s onwards, later culminating in the European Urban Renaissance. In the late 1970s several young architects in Europe began challenging modernist proposals in architecture and planning. To broadcast them, Leon Krier and Maurice Culot[fr] founded the Archives d'Architecture Moderne in Brussels and began publishing texts and counterprojects to modernist proposals in architecture and planning.[10] It received a boost from the sponsorship of King Charles III (then the Prince of Wales), especially with The Prince's Foundation for Building Community.[11]
In these years, postmodern architecture developed a critique of modernist architectural aesthetics.[12] Among them were certain influential postmodernist architects such as Charles Moore, Robert Venturi,[13] and Michael Graves, who used classical elements as ironic motifs in order to criticize modernism's sterility. A broad spectrum of more than two dozen architects, theorists, and historians presented other alternatives to modernism.[14] Among them were several serious New Classical architects who saw classicism as a legitimate mode of architectural expression, several of whom would later become Driehaus Prize Laureates, including some such as Thomas Beeby and Robert A.M. Stern, who practice both in postmodern as well as classical modes. Some postmodernist firms, such as Stern and Albert, Righter, & Tittman, fully moved from postmodern design to new interpretations of traditional architecture.[12] Thomas Gordon Smith, the 1979 Rome Prize laureate from the American Academy in Rome, was a devotee of Charles Moore. In 1988, Smith published "Classical Architecture: Rule and Invention", and, in 1989, was appointed to chair of the University of Notre Dame Department of Architecture, now the School of Architecture, that specialized in teaching classical and traditional building practices.[15] Today, other programs exist which teach in part New Classical Architecture at the University of Miami, Judson University, Andrews University and beginning in 2013,[16] the Center for Advanced Research in Traditional Architecture at the University of Colorado Denver.
Alongside these academic and scholarly developments, a populist and professional manifestation of new classicism has existed and continues to develop. The 1963 demolition of McKim, Mead & White's Pennsylvania Railroad Station in New York City provoked the formation of Classical America and its regional chapters, led by Henry Hope Reed, Jr.[17] Classical America advocated the appreciation of classically inspired buildings and for the practice of contemporary classical and traditional design by teaching architects to draw the classical orders, hosting walking tours, educational events, conferences and publishing The Classical America Series in Art and Architecture.[18]
In 2002, the then-named Institute of Classical Architecture merged with Classical America to form the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America (now the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art). The ICAA currently supports and is supported by regional chapters across the United States, almost all of which host awards programs [19] which recognize significant accomplishments in new classical and traditional design and construction. The ICAA publishes The Classicist,[20] a peer-reviewed journal exclusively dedicated to the theory and practice of contemporary classicism in architecture, urbanism, and the allied arts. The ICAA offers educational programs to architecture and design professionals, many of which follow the methodologies of the École des Beaux-Arts. The ICAA also teaches courses to educate the general public,[21] and has created programs such as the Beaux Arts Atelier, the Advanced Program in Residential Design for the American Institute of Building Designers, and many other unique programs.
The international character of the New Classical movement was propelled by the creation in 2001 of the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU),[22] an international organization dedicated on supporting traditional building and the maintenance of local character.[23] INTBAU spans more than 40 countries with its local chapters.[24] This network was created under the patronage of Charles, Prince of Wales himself an important figure in the New Classical movement.[25]
Since 2014, a movement of people in Sweden called "Arkitekturupprororet" or "Architectural Uprising" has challenged new developments in favour of traditional designs.[33] Started as a Facebook group, the movement has spread to other Nordic countries and the rest of the world.[34] It has achieved moderate success in encouraging the development of new traditional designs.[33] The main aim of the movement is "to make architecture available to everyone",[33] which it does through social media posts and annual awards to the best and worst new buildings in Sweden.
In 2021, more efforts to reintroduce new classical architecture in city planning were established in the United States of America. A founding member of the Washington Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the ICAA and director of the Anacostia River Plan, which envisioned future urban growth and Parisian-like riverfronts and quays at Washington, D.C.[35], architect Nir Buras founded the Classic Planning Institute (CPI). Based in Washington, D.C., the CPI engages in practice, research and education on how New Classical Architecture, applied in a holistic manner, can enhance contemporary urban planning. Additionally, since 2021, the CPI hosts the Traditional Architecture Gathering (TAG)[36] international conference, that attracts hundreds of architects and enthusiasts to discuss multiple subjects related to New Classical Architecture worldwide.
New Classical professionals tend to work under the assumption that there is no such thing as purely original creation, and that innovation unavoidably occurs in an environment laden with suggestions, influences, a precedent of problems solved and, perhaps more importantly, mistakes to be avoided.[37]
Many New Classical architects believe in the importance of sustainability, and aim to create long-lasting, well-crafted buildings of great quality, adapted to the context and with an efficient use of natural resources.[38]
Educational institutions
While most universities worldwide teach modernist design principles, some institutions teach (solely, mainly, or partly) the principles of traditional and classical architecture and urban planning. Some of these are:[39]
Unit 6 of the Kingston School of Art's Master of Architecture program,[44] the only postgraduate unit in the United Kingdom to teach classical design. Previously, this was taught in the undergraduate program.
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.
Robert Arthur Morton Stern is a New York City–based architect, educator, and author. He is the founding partner of the architecture firm, Robert A. M. Stern Architects, also known as RAMSA. From 1998 to 2016, he was the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture.
Léon Krier CVO is a Luxembourgish architect, architectural theorist, and urban planner, a prominent critic of modernist architecture and advocate of New Classical architecture and New Urbanism. Krier combines an international architecture and planning practice with writing and teaching. He is well known for his master plan for Poundbury, in Dorset, England. He is the younger brother of architect Rob Krier.
John Quinlan Terry CBE is a British architect. He was educated at Bryanston School and the Architectural Association School of Architecture. He was a pupil of architect Raymond Erith, with whom he formed the partnership Erith & Terry.
Alireza Sagharchi RIBA FRSA is a British-Iranian architect. He is an internationally renowned and leading practitioner of contemporary classical architecture and traditional urban design. During his professional career, he has been responsible for major master planning and building projects in the UK, Europe, North America and the Middle East.
Richard Herman Driehaus was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder, chief investment officer, and chairman of the hedge fund, Driehaus Capital Management LLC, based in Chicago.
The University of Notre Dame School of Architecture was the first Catholic university in America to offer a degree in architecture, beginning in 1898. The School offers undergraduate and post-graduate architecture programs.
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.
The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA) is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the appreciation and practice of traditional architecture and its allied arts by engaging with educators, professionals, students, and enthusiasts. It does so through education, publication, awards, and advocacy. The institute was formed in 2002 with the merger of two nonprofit organizations: The Institute of Classical Architecture, and Classical America.
Peter Morgan Pennoyer FAIA is an American architect and the principal of Peter Pennoyer Architects, an architecture firm based in New York City. Pennoyer, his four partners and his fifty associates have an international practice in traditional and classical architecture, or New Classical Architecture. Many of the firm's institutional and commercial projects involve historic buildings, and the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art has stated that the firm's strength is in "deftly fusing history and creative invention into timeless contemporary designs."
Henry Hope Reed Jr. was an American architecture critic known for his advocacy of classical architecture and his outspoken criticism of modernist architecture.
The Driehaus Architecture Prize, fully named The Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame, is a global award to honor a major contributor in the field of contemporary traditional and classical architecture. The Driehaus Prize was conceived as an alternative to the predominantly modernist Pritzker Prize.
Allan Greenberg is an American architect and one of the leading classical architects of the twenty-first century, also known as New Classical Architecture.
Richard Sammons is an architect, architectural theorist, visiting professor, and chief designer of Fairfax & Sammons Architects with offices in New York City, New York and Palm Beach, Florida. The firm has an international practice specializing in classical and traditional architecture, interior design and urban planning. Sammons was instrumental in the reemergence of classical design as a major movement in America through his designs as well as his work as an instructor at the Prince of Wales Institute in Britain in 1992-3 and as a founding member of the Institute of Classical Architecture in 1991. From 1996 to 2004, the Fairfax & Sammons office also served as the headquarters for the noted American architecture critic Henry Hope Reed Jr. (1915) and Classical America, the organization he founded in 1968. In 2013, Fairfax & Sammons received the Arthur Ross Award for Lifetime Achievement in Architecture, an award created to recognize and celebrate excellence in the classical tradition.
Thomas H. Beeby is an American architect who was a member of the "Chicago Seven" architects and has been Chairman Emeritus of Hammond, Beeby, Rupert, Ainge Architects (HBRA) for over thirty-nine years.
Pier Carlo Bontempi is an Italian architect.
Stripped Classicism is primarily a 20th-century classicist architectural style stripped of most or all ornamentation, frequently employed by governments while designing official buildings. It was adopted by both totalitarian and democratic regimes. The style embraces a "simplified but recognizable" classicism in its overall massing and scale while eliminating traditional decorative detailing. The orders of architecture are only hinted at or are indirectly implicated in the form and structure.
Robert Adam is a Driehaus Architecture Prize winning British architect, urban designer and author, known for championing classical and traditional styles. Adam is a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde and Design Council Expert.
Sergi Bastidas is a Spanish designer and auto didactical architect. He is known for the integrative handling of historical buildings and the preservation of their original building substance.
Nir Haim Buras is an Israeli-American architect, urban planner, author, educator, and endorser of the New Classical Architecture movement. He founded the Classic Planning Institute in Washington, D.C. after having published his book, "The Art of Classic Planning: Building Beautiful and Enduring Communities", with support from the Driehaus Foundation.
References
↑ Giuseppe Amoruso, ed. (2018). Putting tradition into practice: heritage, place and design: proceedings of 5th INTBAU International Annual Event. Cham: Springer. ISBN978-3-319-57937-5. OCLC1000578629.
↑ Curl, James Stevens (2006). A dictionary of architecture and landscape architecture (2nded.). Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-280630-7. OCLC64585874.
↑ "The Rieger Graham Prize". Institute of Classical Architecture & Art in New York. Archived from the original on 13 April 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
↑ INTBAUArchived 2015-07-28 at the Wayback Machine - A guide to academic institutions/universities teaching New Urbanism and traditional/classical design. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
↑ "MArch Architecture – Unit 6 – 2015/16". Archived from the original on 13 February 2017. Retrieved 13 February 2017. We will engage with the fundamental architectural considerations of scale and language, and the application of the order of classicism at the scale of the town, building, room and fitting.
↑ "Andrews University School of Architecture, Art & Design". Archived from the original on 16 June 2012. Retrieved 4 April 2014. Throughout the educational process, students are challenged to base architectural decisions on thoughtful and learned criteria, including the body of knowledge found within vernacular and classical traditions.
↑ Urban, Chad. "Welcome!". buildingartscollege.us. Archived from the original on 15 March 2015. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
Stroik, Duncan (2012). The Church Building as a Sacred Place: Beauty, Transcendence, and the Eternal. Liturgy Training Publications. ISBN978-1-59525-037-7.
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