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AN

OUTLINEOFEUROPEANARCHITECTURE

NikolausPevsner

A R C H I T E C T U R E

OLAUS PEVSNER(19021983) was con-

e the most influential writer on the his-

itecture in the first half of t he twentieth

his obituary, TheTimes wrote:He had a

ity for getting down to essentials in any

and for distinguishing between what was

n the circumstances and what was likely to

as a passing fashion. His judgments were

hingly unconventional for the simple rea-

y were consistent.

many, he was educated at Leipzig and

ively connected with the universities of

unich, Berlin and Frankfurt.While lectur-

ngen University between 1929 and 1933,

ed in the history of art in Great Britain. In

oved to England to escape the Nazis, later

sh citizenship in 1946. From 1949 to

as Slade Professor of FineArt and a Fel-

hns College, Cambridge. In 1959, he be-

ssor of History ofArt at Birkbeck

ndon, where he remained until his retire-

69.

ablished his reputation with An Outline of

hitecture (1942) and Pioneers of Modern De-

recently updated and reissued byYale

Press, though he is probably best known

brated series of guides, The Buildings of

blished in 46 volumes between 1951

He was also founding editor, in 1953, of

History of Art and Architecture, the most

ive history of art ever published in English.

FORSYTH B.A. (hons) B.Arch. (hons) Ph.D

ect and academic, and is a Director of

he University of Bath. He has lectured and

any universities in the United Kingdom

ted States and his award-winning first

ings for Music:The Architect,the Musician, and

from the Seventeenth Century to the Present

became a classic in its field.

ntly written Bath:Pevsner Architectural

ale University Press (2003).

e, Salisbury Cathedral, UK

esy Arcaid/Corbis.com

e, St Peters, Rome, Italy

esy Kevin Jordan/Corbis.com

or over sixty years Sir study of European archregarded as a seminal w

spired countless students ofupdated large format edition

cessible design,an extra dimthrough the integration of o

photographs and new plans.the good architect requires

painters modes of visionisthis glorious volume.

Pevsner believed that the hi

was primarily a history of mWith this as his starting poin

most beautiful and dramaticsent the styles and cultures o

fourth century onwards.Hismanesque basilicas,Gothic c

sance villas and Baroque chudefinesthe changing spirits

In later chapters he considerdieval forms in the age of RoArts and Crafts Movement t

and unsparing geometry of tModernism.His survey con

years and the start of the reddevastated cityscapes and in

illuminating postscript the aMichael Forsyth brings the r

present day.In a consideratiin Europe by modern maste

ling, Norman Foster and Frafies a natural evolution of ar

achievement.

Through such a perceptive uheritage of past civilisations

of the buildings that continuthe greatest symbols of artis

continues to be as stimulatin

F

A definitive and personal o

ings that make European ciare, written by one of the g

century.Sir JohnTusa The Guardian

812 x 11 inches

Hardcover

256 Pages

200 Color Photos

ANOUTLINEOFEUROPEAN

ARCHITECTURE

ANOUTLINEOFEUROPEAN

ARCHITECTURE

Nikolaus Pevsner

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Preface 6

Foreword 8

Introduction 10

Twilight and Dawn 12From the fourth to the tenth century

The Romanesque Style 30c. 1000c. 1200

The Early and Classic Gothic Style 50c.1150c.1250

The Late Gothic Style 72c.1250 c.1500

Renaissance and Mannerism 96c.1420 c.1600

The Baroque in the Roman Catholic Countries 129c.1600 c.1760

Britain and France from the Sixteenth to the 152

the Eighteenth Century

The Romantic Movement, Historicism, and 186

the Beginning of the Modern Movement17601914

From the End of the First World War 216

to the Present Day

Footnotes 240

Bibliography 244

Some Technical Terms Explained 246

Index 248

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

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TWILIGHT AND

HE GREEK TEMPLE is the most perfect example ever achieved of architecture fin

its fulfilment in bodily beauty. Its interior mattered infinitely less than its exte

The colonnade all round conceals where the entrance lies. The faithful did not ente

spend hours of communication with the Divine in it, as they do in a church. Our We

conception of space would have been just as unintelligible to a man of Pericless age a

religion. It is the plastic shape of the temple that tells, placed before us with a physical pre

more intense, more alive than that of any later building. The isolation of the Parthenon otemples of Paestum, clearly disconnected from the ground on which they stand, the columns

their resilient curves, strong enough to carry without too much visible effort the weight o

architraves, the sculptured friezes and sculptured pediments there is something consumm

human in all this, life in the brightest lights of nature and mind: nothing harrowing, no

problematic and obscure, nothing blurred.

T

TWILIGHT

ANDDAWN

From the fourth to the tenth century

1

Right: Ravenna, S. Vitale, capital

Opposite: Athens, the Parthenon, begun 447 BC

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churches had a womens gallery above the aisles, for instance

St Demetrius at Saloniki (c. 410). Occasionally, in North

Africa, a second apse was added at the west end (Orleansville

325 and 475). Apses could be round or polygonal, the latter

an Eastern preference. In many churches, on the pattern of

Syria, it seems, the east apse was flanked by two separate

rooms, the diaconicon or vestry and the prothesis in which

gifts were received. Instead of the two rooms the aisles could

be given apses (Kalat Seman, Syria, c. 48090). Very rarely,

and only in one part of Asia Minor, whole churches were

tunnel-vaulted (Binbirkilisse, South-east Asia Minor, fifth

century). That must have changed the character of the build-

ing more than any of the other variations on the basilican

theme. Even so, it is true to say that the main theme remained

the same everywhere, the monotonous mesmerizing rhythm

of the progress between the arcades towards the altar. There

isno articulationin thatlongcolonnadeto arrest oureyes,nor

in the long row of window after window up in the clerestory,

and at Ravenna the solemn and silent figures of martyrs and

holy virgins, with their motionless faces and stiff garments,

march with us. They are not painted but made of mosaic,

innumerable small squares of glass. Their aesthetic function is

patent. Fresco painting as well as Roman stone mosaic of the

tessellated pavements creates an opaque surface and thereby

confirms the closedness and solidity of the walls, glass

with its ever-changing reflections seems immaterial. It

the wall though it faces it. It was thus ideally suited to

the surfaces of buildings which were meant to serve th

and not the bod y.

And Roman, not Early Christian, is also the basil

typein usefor sacredbuildings.The namebasilicais te

is a Roman name and it was used for public halls. The w

Greek and means royal. So it may have come to Rom

Hellenistic regal pomp. But Roman basilicas are in no

ing form the immediate predecessors of the Early Ch

church building. They usually have colonnades no

between nave and aisles, but also on the narrow sid

is, a complete ambulatory, like a Greek temple turned

out or rather outside in. Apses were not uncommo

two apses are found; but they are as a rule cut off fr

main body by the colonnades. Thus as a general ter

large-aisled hall the word basilica may have been tran

from Pagan to Christian, but hardly the building t

such. Other guesses have been made: the scholae,

private halls in large houses and palaces (for instanc

of the Flavian emperors on the Palatine), smaller

rooms, which may indeed have been used for private w

by Christians.

The Basilica of Maxentius is even more overpowering,

because it is more compact an oblong hall, 265 feet (81

metres) long and 120 feet (36.5 metres) high, vaulted by three

bold groin-vaults and buttressed by six tunnel-vaulted side

bays, three on each side. Each of the bays spans 76 feet (23

metres). The whole was heavily decorated, as the deep coffer-

ing of the surviving side bays still shows. Groin-vaults had

appeared in Rome already in the first century before Christ,

and tunnel-vaulting in the Parthian palace of Hatra in Persia

about the time of the birth of Christ. In the Colosseum both

were used competently, though not yet on so daring a scale.

Constantine completed the basilica several years after he

haddefeatedMaxentiusatthe MilvianBridgeandrecognized

Christianity as the official religion of the Empire (Edict of

Milan 313). Constantine built many large churches, but none

of them survive in their original form, although we know a

good deal about them. The church of the Holy Sepulchre in

Jerusalem was amongst them and the church of the Nativity

at Bethlehem, the original St Irene, St Sophia, and Holy

Apostles in the newly created capital of Byzantium or

Constantinople, and St Peters, St Pauls (S. Paolo fuori le

Mura), and St John Lateran in Rome. Not one of these

churches was vaulted. That is significant. It means that Early

Christianity looked at the mighty vaults of the Romans as

something too earthly. A religion of the spirit did not want

anythingso physicallyover-whelming. Therewas,as faras we

cansee,muchvarietyinConstantines churches,but theirbasic

type was that known as the basilica. Once created we shall

have to see when it remained the standard Early Christian

church building in the Occident as well as in large parts of

the Orient.

A mature and exceptionally perfect basilica is S. Apollinare

Nuovo at Ravenna, built in the early sixth century by

Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths in Italy. However obscure

the origin of the Goths, however savage their early invasions,

Theodoric was a man of high culture, brought up at the court

of Constantinople, and given the title Consul thirteen years

after he had become King. A basilican church consists of a

naveandaislesseparatedby acolonnade.Atthe westendmay

be an anteroom, known as the narthex, or an open courtyard

with cloisters, k nown as the atrium, or b oth. There may also

very occasionally be two tower-like erections to the left and

right of the narthex. At the east end is an apse. No more is

necessary; a room for the faithful to gather, and then the holy

way to the altar. In some of Constantines churches, for

instance Old St Peters and S. Paolo fuori le Mura, the aisles

were doubled. In the same churches and several others a

transept was inserted as a halt between nave and apse. Other

TWILIGHT AND DAWN

4

0

0

150 feet

50 metres

Left and above: Rome, Basilica of Maxentius,c. 300

Opposite: Vicenza, Palazzo Chiericatii, by Palladio, begun 1550

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Such was the range of knowledge and experience of the

men who built the great Gothic cathedrals. They were invited

abroad as the bringers of the new Gothic style, and we have a

record of 1258 from Germany (Wimpfen) telling us of a prior

who called in a mason most experienced in the art of archi-

tecture and who had come recently from Paris (noviter de

villa Parisiensi venerat). He was told by the prior to build the

churchmoreFrancigenoof ashlarstone.Wecanbe surethat

such travelling masons kept their eyes open, and noted build-

ings, sculptures, and paintings with the same eagerness. They

knew as much of the carving of figures and ornaments as of

building construction, although their drawing technique was

still elementary.

St Denis must owe its novelty to a master-mason of this

calibre. And many a bishop and architect burned with ambi-

tion to emulate Suger and St Denis. Between 1140 and 1220

new cathedrals were begun on an ever-growing scale at Sens,

Noyon, Senlis, and then Paris (Notre Dame, c. 1163 seqq.),

Laon (c. 1170 seqq.), Chartres (c. 1195 seqq.), Rheims (1211

seqq.), Amiens (1220 seqq.), and Beauvais (1247 seqq.). These

are by no means all; there are many more all over France. We

must, however, here confine ourselves to a brief analysis of the

main development in the Ile de France and the surrounding

regions,whichjustthenbecamethecentreofa nationalFrench

kingdom. It is a development as consistent and as concise as

thatof theGreek temple.

Of St Denis we possess only the choir and, very restored,

the west front. This is of the two-tower type of Caen which

now became de rigueur for North French cathedrals, but,

against Caen, enriched by a still round-headed triple portal.

It is this that we have already referred to because of the

columnar figures which once adorned it. Chartres followed

StDenisatonce.Ofthecathedralof about1145onlythewest

portalsremain,the PortailRoyal,whose figureshave alsobeen

mentioned in the preceding chapter, gloriously vigorous,

tense, and alert. We can guess what the naves of St Denis and

Chartres werelikefrom remainingindications atSt Denisand

from the exactly contemporary cathedral of Sens. They had

galleries just like the Romanesque churches of Normandy

which must have been more inspiring to the earliest Gothic

masons of France than any others. The earliest Gothic eleva-

tionthenwas three-storeyed,of arcade,gallery,and clerestory;

and no doubt there were rib-vaults. At Noyon about fifteen

years later, an important innovation appeared. The walls are

enriched by a triforium, i.e., a low wall-passage, between

gallery and clerestory. This division of the wall into four zones

instead of three does away with much that had remained inert

before. The arcades have alternating supports, composite

piers as major and round ones as minor divisions. In accor-

dance with this the vaults are sexpartite, as they had been

about 111520 in the Romanesque abbey churches of Caen.

Thatmeansthat betweentwo transversearchesribs runacross

diagonally from composite to composite pier, while the shafts

on the round piers are followed up by subsidiary ribs parallel

with the transverse arches and meeting the diagonal ribs in

the centre of the whole bay. The effect is more lively than we

know in the Romanesque style.

However, the architects of the two cathedrals immediately

following must have felt that in the walls, piers, and vaults of

Noyon there was still too much left of Romanesque weight

and stability. The alternating supports and sexpartite vaults

especially produced square, that is, static, bays.

THE EARLY AND CLASSIC GOTHIC STYLE

6

0

0

50 feet

15 metres

Laon Cathedral, elevation of the nave

Opposite: Rome, St Peters, interior of dome,designed by Michelangelo, 155890

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Casa Batll,restored 19051907