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2 - Historicismo — Transcript · YTtoTranscript

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2 - Historicismo

H2ABOY · 2,587 words · 13 min read · EN

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Below is the complete, readable transcript of 2 - Historicismo by H2ABOY on YouTube. Read the full text, copy any part you need, or generate a transcript for any video with our free tool.

Well, if we recap the introduction, we would have, in principle, two major ideas that seem to be developing separately. On the one hand, we discussed, not in a linear and progressive way, how Enlightenment thought rediscovered the rules of classical architecture, giving rise to Neoclassicism. This rediscovery also extended to other past architectural styles, and then we have

Historicism. On the other hand, we saw how this Enlightenment thought culminated in the French Revolution, and this French Revolution was the gateway to, or enabled by, Romanticism, which would become the great artistic movement of the first half of the 19th century. How do we unite these two issues? Well, we'll simply see that

Historicist architecture, or Historicism, is the architectural manifestation of this Romantic spirit. Obviously, saying it isn't enough; we also have to demonstrate it in some way. And for that, we're going to use this book by Collins, *The Ideals of Modern Architecture*. Notice that the cover is already pixelated; the book is a rare find. But the

first thing we have... What's noticeable is that, uh, it's modern architecture, the period it covers is 1750 to 1950, yes. So this again proposes a great bet on continuity between here we already have, if we take this periodization, neoclassicism, historicism, and also the beginning of what is properly known as modern architecture from the 1920s or 30s in

the 20th century. Collins divides his book into two parts where we see the bridge between the first, which is called Romanticism, and the second, which is called historicism, and what he proposes is to question the narrative that exists about these breaks between neoclassicism and theoreticism and modern architecture. He says that before 1750,

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architecture was a simple matter of building according to established principles, but after that moment, that's how history tells it, and that's where, well, it's not him giving his opinion, but rather he's bringing up the generalized opinion of historiography. And particularly throughout the 19th century, architects were no longer content to build in this

way. direct and preferred to waste their energies designing historical ornaments that reduced architecture to little more than the elaboration of ornamental silhouettes and facades. We will see that this pejorative image of historicism is not only found towards the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century, but that same production will also be contemporary.

Now, what Colins points out is that the specific characteristic of 19th-century historicism, compared to previous renaissances, is that it revived several types of architecture at the same time without any of them having enough authority to unseat its competitors or to surpass the architecture that had been built previously. And we will see that this is

also a sign of the times of the first half of the 19th century, of which that moment will be fully aware in his book, Historicist Architecture in the 19th Century. This bridge becomes clearer between Romanticism and historicism. Rafael Iglesia argues that if the Romantic has the freedom to choose any style in the past with

which he feels a personal affinity, it is because he does not have his own style with which to substantiate himself. And he points out that Romanticism is the end of style. If we take the previous quote Collins's work, where the specificity of historicism is that the different currents of the past compete or

coexist or live together without any one predominating. That is, if here instead of " romantic" and "Romanticism" we put " historicist" and "historicism" we are almost talking about the same situation. In fact, the painting that accompanies this slide also belongs to our period of study, "The Architect's Dream." What does the architect's dream consist of? In a place, not a

surface, that condenses and concentrates all the styles of the past. We have that on the left, that Gothic church, a temple, a Greek temple, a circular pavilion. In the background, we begin to see an Egyptian architecture, some pyramids, further in the background, blended with the landscape. That idea of blending with the landscape is also characteristic of the Romantic style

in painting. But again, in the second paragraph, we have our famous suspicions or complexification, where it speaks of Romantic Neoclassicism, and it says that Neoclassicism is also included within the great flow of the Romantic current. That is to say, that idea, which is, for example... Benevolent separated Neoclassicism and Historicism. Here we see that it could

actually form as part of the same great thing, which is the Romantic movement that also absorbs Neoclassicism. And indeed, from the beginning of the late 17th century, if we look at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on the left, from the late 17th century, we will have a multitude of architectural works during this

first half of the 19th century, counting the last years of the 18th or the second half of the 17th century, that allude to or use resources from the classical Greek and Roman past. In this case, it is Greek. We will have it in Germany and England; we will also have it in France. We put it

second with the study of the Empire style of Napoleon. Yes, the famous Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées, the Madeleine Church, among other important works. But it will also cross European borders because, as we pointed out at the beginning, this double revolution, both the Industrial and the French, will have global impacts. And in the United States,

for example, which achieved its independence in 1776, but independence didn't mean the end of the War of Independence until finally, a certain prosperity and stability were achieved, a certain consolidation. When that happened, the new Federal state was going to generate its own architectural style that broke with English reminiscences or with resembling its

immediate past as the colonizing nation. And it was going to use the Federal style. So it was going to be based on the oldest known democracy, which is ancient Greece, for the construction of its public buildings, its banks, its museums, its state and federal government headquarters. Yes, precisely because it's called the Federal style, like the Congress building, which

is the image on the left, before it had the famous dome it has now, or the White House. And in Latin America, in all those senses, neoclassical architecture also emerged, for example, through the formation of the Royal Academy of San Carlos in New Spain. Towards the end of the 17th century, Ramón Gutiérrez

generated a catalog of neoclassical architecture across the entire continent. We can see it in Chile, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina. But as we said, historicism is the use of multiple styles from the past, and there were two main contenders. One, as we've already seen, is neoclassical architecture. The other is the Gothic Revival, or Neo-Gothic, which, although it

also transcended European borders, was perhaps less so in England, France, and other countries and territories. It was also associated with a reclaiming of the Romantic impulse. In this, a reclaiming of the national past, of what was our own in the Middle Ages, of our own history, over the history that came from outside, whether from

Rome or not, from distant times and places, from Rome and Greece, and Greek myths and so on, is very important. And Neo-Gothic operates, then, as a kind of rescue. I recover, uh, what is our own over what is foreign. Perhaps the work that falls within our most relevant Neo-Gothic period is the Houses of

Parliament in Westminster, London, which, as we see in the images on the left, which is like an engraving with many works, and the one above, prior to the fire it suffered in the first decades of 1830, and something prior to that fire, the building had a marked medievalist imprint, and precisely when it had to be

rebuilt, uh, first, part of the previous structure was still standing, therefore it was necessary to achieve a certain stylistic continuity between what was proposed and what already existed, but the objective of the project was precisely to validate, or revalidate, or ratify, the Gothic style as part of ratifying the history of the nation. These two will not be the only

styles to which we will resort; there will even be some more, uh, remote, more distant, more exotic ones, such as, for example, Chinese, which, from, uh, diplomatic relations, colonizations, voyages And so on, it becomes not as if these more distant, more exotic architectures are discovered for the first time or rediscovered, and they

will have the particular name of Orientalism. It is not the historicism of these architectural currents that earns them that label. Here we have an engraving, a book, sorry, I'm sure the cover, which you see on the left, was clearly made by some relative who needed money because you can't understand, you can't read

either the title or the author, or even that it's the third edition of " Architecture in China." Here there is one a little more polished in its presentation, by Chambers, an architect who made his original drawings not only of the architecture he recorded and observed but also of other aspects of cultural production: the clothing, the

customs, the rituals, some household utensils, the ships. It is quite an interesting book because of the illustrations it has, and notice that it will have its application in England, for example, with this great pagoda that was built in 1761. And here we go again to weaving that, isn't it, that difficulty of being so progressive and so

linear? Because if Neoclassicism emerges more or less from 1750, at that same time we already have Orientalism with a clear materialization of this gentleman, this same architect, William Chers, who travels, returns, and builds according to what he saw. So this idea that one current emerges first and then enables the others becomes more complicated to

sustain in favor of a more diffuse, more progressive, more simultaneous reading of architecture. Another example of Orientalism is the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. And then there is also a set of multiple styles: Neo- Mudéjar, Neo-Gypsy, which will be quite used, particularly in synagogues, or Neo-Romanesque. All these examples, I think, correspond, if I'm not mistaken, to

England; the Egyptians, certainly. Now I have my doubts. But, well, it's part of different European nations that will use it. Finally, it's not that we have exhausted the possibilities. The currents of the neo-historicism are not the different branches of historicism, but the last one to be shown in this chapter is known as picturesqueness. We

saw that Neo-Gothic, in its romantic manifestation, had to do with revalidating national history, the local, and the medieval past, etc. Picturesqueness does the same with the countryside, with rural life. So we have these cabins, most of which we are seeing from the end of the 17th century, where the rudimentary, rustic aspect of the

architecture is emphasized. Although some, like the one we see below in the middle, also have a fairly marked medieval influence. And the interesting thing is that with this picturesque architecture, it wasn't

just about the architecture itself, but also about incorporating the garden or the natural environment. As we mentioned earlier, the consequences or the impact of historicism will be ambivalent and controversial within the period itself. We have this first one, which we can find in the appendix of Pateta, in the chapter on the 19th century. Reading it is recommended.

Because it allows us to glimpse how the architects, artists, and thinkers of the period saw and thought about it. There's a first point that, with a lot of irony, is that they didn't want to revive the authentic ancient style, the classical style, and they ended up doing... So, as we said at one point, the

innovators ended up spending a lot of money to live in rather uncomfortable conditions, not living as if their house were a temple, a Greek temple. Then they returned to another style, more indigenous, even... in our century of profound peace, at least security in internal culture, it was recommended to build fortified and walled castles

as if they were going to suffer a siege. We see how there is perhaps a critique of the housing we saw earlier, in the form of a castle. They sought their models among the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Moors; they gathered and piled together the elements of all styles without having any scruples regarding their use, their

original purpose. The following quote speaks of how, as we had already mentioned... The distinctive characteristic of historicism is that there is no style that does not have a peculiar beauty; we are wandering in a labyrinth of experiments. And this quote closes with the author of it harboring the hope that from this combination will

emerge the style proper to the 19th century, which is a rather latent idea among architects and thinkers of the time because here there is a long critique of a defense of eclecticism made by this Mr. Pillor. Already beginning the second half of the 19th century, where this defender of eclecticism says that it seems very

difficult to him, as if architecture were a particle accelerator, to mix elements of the past all together and not synthesize into a new, a new particular style of the 19th century that he would call composite architecture, which is also known as eclecticism. And with much sarcasm, that is, not even irony, the original author of this fragment says what a

seductive spectacle it should be to find in the same building the Gothic resting on the Corinthian, the Arab arch on the Doric of the Parthenon. Pinnacles of Cologne Cathedral above the curls of Guarini and Jarra, here instead there is a more direct defense of eclecticism, it says not only are all the old buildings restored to their

original state, it is not to say like that joy in recovering the styles of the past almost as if to do a kind of recreation, not like Disney, if you will, but we see the same architect building here a Renaissance church, there a Romanesque church, further on a town hall in the Lu 14 style, that is to say the

architect as a professional, without any kind of problem in building according to what they ask of him, of one style or another, and instead the last quote of the slide is quite critical of that strategy, it says: It is evident in them, not the eclectic buildings, the luxury of the new, and all except for some real

exceptions, it says in the end, without any purpose, there is no other guide for this period, for this era, for that eclectic style than the extravagant character of the owner or the charlatan genius of the We architects then made a sweep of historicist architecture, as we also said, it is not exhaustive but rather

complete, quite synthetic and superficial, and we close with the notion that the consequences of that procedure were not unequivocal. There are currents, voices very much against what was done, others in defense of it. Now what remains for us is to analyze the origin of this historicist current which, taking up what Beneo says, would be

found in that neoclassicism that begins in the second half of the 17th century.