Architecture

Utopian Architecture by Geoff Harrison

It’s amazing what the human imagination is capable of when given full rein.  I was thinking of this whilst contemplating the Metropole Project of French architect Etienne-Louis Boullee (1728-1799).  He studied classical French architecture and specialised in the neoclassical style that evolved from the mid18th Century.  He designed a number of private houses from the 1760’s including the Hôtel de Brunoy (below - demolished in 1930).

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An idealist by nature, Boullee was a reluctant architect, his first passion was painting but he was driven to architecture by his practical father.  Later, Boullee became a teacher on the subject and wrote many essays. “He practised architecture with paper projects, beautifully rendered in pencil and wash, and only at the very end of his life, retiring to his country estate from the events of the Revolution, did he prepare them for publication.”  But they remained largely ignored and his essays unpublished until the 1950’s when his reputation as the “elder statesman of the radical Enlightenment in architecture” became established.

Later in his career, Boullee designed buildings of “majestic nobility” so enormous that they could hardly be constructed today, even if the funds were available.

Interior, Metropolitan Church. Those ‘ants’ at the bottom are people

Interior, Metropolitan Church. Those ‘ants’ at the bottom are people

“In his important theoretical designs for public monuments, Boullée sought to inspire lofty sentiments in the viewer by architectural forms suggesting the sublimity, immensity, and awesomeness of the natural world, as well as the divine intelligence underlying its creation.”

Bibliotheque Nationale

Bibliotheque Nationale

Boullée’s mature work combines abstraction of geometric forms with a suggestion of ancient works to create a new concept of monumental building that would possess the calm, (no doubt enhanced by the subtle use of light) and the beauty of classical architecture while also having considerable expressive power. Perhaps I’m being overly practical here, but issues of heating and lighting come to mind.

Metropole Project 1781

Metropole Project 1781


Commissioning the Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel to build your palace was perhaps not the greatest of ideas.  In 1838, he was asked to design a country retreat for Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I of Russia and it was to be perched on a precipice overlooking the Black Sea in Crimea.

Perspective of the Palace Complex in its Landscape Setting, Heinrich Mutzel, after Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Scottish National Gallery

Perspective of the Palace Complex in its Landscape Setting, Heinrich Mutzel, after Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Scottish National Gallery

Apparently, Schinkel’s plans were to blend classical and oriental designs. “Long colonnades, covered in mosaics and studded with precious gems, would be interwoven with gardens, culminating in an Ionic temple at the centre, beneath which would be housed a museum of local antiquities.”

Interior Perspective of the Great Hall, Looking Towards the Garden Court , Heinrich Asmus; after Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Scottish National Gallery

Interior Perspective of the Great Hall, Looking Towards the Garden Court , Heinrich Asmus; after Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Scottish National Gallery

An exhibition called “Visionary Palaces” was held in 2016 at the Scottish National Gallery which included reproductions of Schinkel’s designs.  I’m trying to imagine attending such an exhibition and losing myself in these fantastical designs, especially if the reproductions were large scale.  You may not be surprised to learn that Schinkel’s Crimea design was “politely declined”.

Crimean Museum, Beneath the Temple Pavillion in the Centre of the Palace Complex, Viewed Looking Towards the Grand Pool in the Imperial Garden Court, W. Loeillot; after Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Scottish National Gallery

Crimean Museum, Beneath the Temple Pavillion in the Centre of the Palace Complex, Viewed Looking Towards the Grand Pool in the Imperial Garden Court, W. Loeillot; after Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Scottish National Gallery


Fast forward to 1956 and the 89 yo. Frank Lloyd Wright unveils his 1.6 km (mile high) tower “The Illinois” proposed for a site in Chicago.  It was to consist of 528 floors and use nuclear powered lifts.  In the wake of the September 11 attacks, perhaps not such a great idea.  Was this a case of delusions of grandeur of which many older men are accused?  Or the final megalomaniacal statement in a remarkable (and some say egotistical) career?

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References;

The Lyncean Group of San Diego

Apollo – The International Arts Magazine

The Architectural Review

Art and Architecture In Perfect Harmony by Geoff Harrison

Perhaps it's too much to expect architects in Australia to exhibit such flair and imagination.  This is the Markthal in Rotterdam, completed in 2014.  It's an office and residential development with a fresh food market on the ground floor.

Artists Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam were engaged to produce a 11,000 m2 digital artwork adorning the interior.  The artwork consists of fruit, vegetables, seeds, fish, flowers and insects.

The title of the artwork is "Horn Of Plenty".

The title of the artwork is "Horn Of Plenty".

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Architecture Way Ahead Of Its Time by Geoff Harrison

This is the Barcelona Pavilion designed by Mies Van Der Rohe for the 1929 World Expo.  According to author Alain De Botton he was frustrated with the clutter and fussiness of domestic architecture.

Mies Van Der Rohe wanted something that was simple yet elegant.  It's difficult 86 year on to appreciate what an impact this architecture must have had on audiences at the time.

Intimate Interiors by Geoff Harrison

The understated, yet intimate paintings of Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi (1864-1916).  In an article published in the Guardian a few years ago, Julian Bell describes the artist as a master of demure conservatism who hit upon a modernist way of looking.  There is mystery, the viewer is being beckoned to enter these scenes, yet there is nothing to hold on to.

"Your curiosity is lured into that enclosed hall, yet your attention is held back - left dangling over the bare floorboards with their scuffed varnish, which is the nearest to an indicator of commonplace living and everyday usage that the picture is prepared to provide. A tantalising juggle with emptiness."

Author Alain De Botton argues that Hammershoi was selling an appreciation of the everyday.  Yet we are being "seduced by the nape of a lovely female neck, the delicate strands of unruly hair and the carefully calculated angle of the head, to get us to like a person and enter their imaginative world."

Hammershoi enjoyed great success with sellout shows in Berlin and London in the first decade of the 20th century.