How Alberti, Palladio, and Perrault Changed the Face of Architecture

¶ … Architecture Leon Battista Alberti and Claude Perrault viewed the beauty and order of architectural in different terms. Alberti's perspective represented the High Renaissance's love of classicism and mathematical precision. Thus, Alberti viewed architectural order and beauty as being rooted in mathematical symmetry and harmony. Perrault, on the other hand, represented a worldview that came two hundred years later, after Europe had already been split apart by the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and now embarked upon the Age of Enlightenment (which would lead directly into the Romantic Era).

Perrault's perspective was shaped less by the order and mathematical discipline that Alberti associated with architectural order and more by the perception of beauty and the impression of spatial dimension and order. Perrault understand how the Greeks played tricks on the eyes by adhering not to a formulaic structure but rather to a consideration for the viewer, placing columns, for instance, in just the right place to please the eye. In this sense, one sees that while both architects regard classicism fondly, each approached it uniquely and with different results.

This paper will examine the works of these two architects and show how each brought beauty and order to their method of construction. It will also examine the Palais du Louvre, whose eastern facade was designed by Perrault, and Palladio's Basilica, the structure of which is inspired by Alberti's method. Alberti drew upon the instruction of Marcus Vitruvius, the ancient Roman architect of the 1st century BC, who asserted that the basis of proportionality and architectural beauty was to be found in the form of the human body.

Alberti wrote in On the Art of Building that sound architectural achievements should be rooted in Vitruvius's sense of fundamentals (Watkin, 2011, p. 216). Alberti emphasized that a building's aesthetic value lay in its ornamental beauty based on mathematical formulations and certainties. Alberti stressed that true beauty was a result of objective and skillful calculation, of harmony based on symmetrical alignment rather than on subjective whimsy, and in Ten Books on Architecture, he made this claim apparent (Alberti, Rykwert, 1955).

It was Alberti's view that classicism held all the instruction a modern architect could possibly want (Wittkower, 1971). Thus, Alberti took the lessons of the classicists and extrapolated them for his contemporaries, writing many books and treatises on how to achieve harmony and order in architecture based on the classical wisdom of the ancients.

According to historian Paul Johnson, Alberti achieved even what Vitruvius himself failed to do: he put into orderly and coherent writing a theory and practical approach for architecture: "To be honest, Vitruvius's book, though important historically and endlessly referred to, is a fairly hopeless undertaking, and not of much practical use. By contrast, Alberti's is well written, orderly and systematic, clear about theory and helpful about practice" (Johnson, 2003, p. 214). Alberti took the academic principles and theories of the classicists and distilled them for his own generation.

Alberti's sense of order was directly associated with his sense of purpose and structure as well. He viewed the column as the most important ornament in architectural design and used it in the facade of his works even when structurally it served no purpose. Alberti wrote about the proportionality of arches and columns, where supports went, the difference between the Greek and Roman style, etc.

More importantly, Alberti expressed a theoretical association through architecture -- namely that construction should represent one's worldview, which in his day and age was decidedly Christian. Thus, in his architectural concept can be seen the hierarchical standards of the Renaissance and a firm belief in discipline, dignity, and purity. Alberti believed, however, that sacred and secular architecture achieves separate aims, the former is for the purpose of worshipping God, the latter is for the purpose of achieving human aims such as business, etc.

Therefore, the two should not look the same, aesthetically speaking. The former (sacred) should be more dignified and ornamental, while the latter need not be as so, though they should still retain some dignity and ornament -- just not as much (Alberti, 1980). Alberti commented on many aspects of architecture, as he wrote much in the 15th century on the subject. For example, he discusses how the portico of a theater should be constructed and why.

He understood how sound waves traveled and why circular construction in theaters, which was achieved by the ancient Greeks, as their theater remains still show, produced the best acoustics. Alberti's contributions to architectural literature in the Renaissance proved to be a great resource for future architects. Palladio used Alberti's instruction in his own work and this can be seen in Palladio's Basilica. Palladio saw art and architecture as being integrated and whole, in terms of form and function.

His sense of architectural order was arrived at by adhering to Alberti's sense of classicism, which saw beauty as a result of the ordered arrangement of lines and ratios (Kristeller, 1980). Like Alberti, Palladio was also a writer. He published The Four Books of Architecture, which served as an expose so to speak of classical Roman buildings.

Palladio viewed all the parts of construction as being harmonious and congruent to the whole, each part serving the other so that there was nothing extemporaneous and nothing made that did not contribute to the overall effect, whether structurally or aesthetically. In this manner, Palladio followed in the footsteps of Alberti. Just as the Greeks-based music on harmonious ratios, Palladio based his architecture on visual harmonies that had a spatial ratio like that of music (Kostof, 2002). Palladio designed the facade of Vicenza's Basilica in the middle of the 16th century.

He modeled it on the buildings of antiquity like those found in Rome because of his great love and respect for classicism. Just as the ancient Roman buildings stood at ground level, so too did Palladio's, who admired the Roman architecture of antiquity because the buildings stood with legs "firmly on the ground" (Palladio, 1997, p. 203). Modern basilicas, however, had places of business on the ground floor and stood above these on the second floor.

Palladio's problem was to fuse the two styles together, integrating the old with the new while staying true to the form of order and beauty that Alberti had extolled in his numerous writings. Palladio adjusted the ancient method so as to meet the parameters of the modern construct. For that he had to invent a new device, which later people called the Palladian motif.

This was a lintel-arch-lintel method which allowed Palladio to hide the spatial defects of his Basilica and give the facade the appearance of consistency through alterations of piers and columns (Varriano, 2004). Essentially, Palladio crafted a brand new style of portico, which used symmetry and harmony to revitalize the ancient concepts of antiquity for a new era of architecture. The goal was to harmonize the structure with its surroundings so that there was no inconsistency or incongruity between it and its natural landscape (Copplestone, 1963).

This same sense of harmony could be seen in Perrault's work, however, in a slightly different manifestation. Perrault's most famous work is the eastern facade of the Louvre. But like Alberti he was a writer who translated Vitruvius. However, unlike Alberti, Perrault parted with Vitruvius and the assertion of antiquity that proportionality and architectural harmony should be like that found in the body. Perrault believed that beauty was in the eye of the beholder and that thus was not bound to any one formula or set of rules.

In this sense, order and balance could be invented on a work by work basis. This is what Perrault did, though his main basis of construction was rooted in classicism. In ornamenting, Perrault looked for the building's grace or soul and attempted to bring this to the fore so as to do what Palladio did, which is to make it one with its natural surroundings.

Perrault did not see the sense of using columns in his designs just because that is what the ancients used, but, as his brother stated, the columns should be used in order to produce graceful-looking works (Allais, 2005). Furthermore, if the mathematical formulas and ratios used by the ancients were imperceptible to the human eye then there was no point in using them, because the eye was what was there to be pleased.

Perrault thus encouraged visual harmony and a proportionality that was perceptible to the eye and pleasing to it rather than to the rigorous standards of a mathematical mind (Perrault, 1993). Perrault understood that Vitruvius emphasized ordonnance based on the building and its purpose and parts. For Perrault, ordonnance was something different from what Vitruvius saw it as. Perrault did not see it as simply the mathematical ratio of the columns, but everything around the columns as well, including the empty space between columns.

In this manner, Perrault viewed the entire whole and all its parts in the same sweeping glance. Everything was one, not a composite of parts, but rather a single entity whose harmony and balance flowed from part to part in an uninterrupted order of homogeneity. From this basis, size, scale, proportionality, etc., could be determined as every aspect of the dimensions merged and met with the whole. To emphasize this relationship, Perrault put forward a new consideration, which merged the ancient with the modern. His new idea was called doubling.

He combined the narrow spaces between columns (the design of the ancients) with the wider spaces between columns (the design of the moderns) to effect a facade that was both modern and old, wide-spaced and narrow-spaced. He placed two columns together but situated the groups far apart so that there was some of both worlds in his work. Perrault viewed the order of architecture in two ways: first as positive, then as arbitrary.

In this sense, the ancients proposed an arbitrary way of constructing when they insisted that, for example, columns be placed at specific intervals, etc. Perrault was more inclined to promote the positive order or beauty, which he saw as inspiring and uplifting the viewer's own nature and response. He viewed architecture as capable, in a sense, of producing a cathartic effect, like a work of literature or drama.

His idea was to make a visceral connection with the viewer of the building and connect to and promote the viewer's own sense of soul. Perrault saw this way of connection as being rooted in the natural instinct of man. Perrault, in this sense, could be called a kind of naturalist architect (Kruft, 1994).

Not only did Perrault argue that by adhering solely to the ancient formula one stifled one's creativity and ability to make a more human connection but he also argued that the ancient formula actually led to proportional failure in the modern era. This makes sense considering that Perrault is coming out of a Naturalistic Age, when natural sciences are beginning to be studied more and more and an emphasis on nature and natural instinct is becoming popular in the 17th century.

Thus, for Perrault to emphasize these ideas is not surprising when one considers the time and place in which he is writing his arguments -- and what he argues for is a kind of natural beauty, grace, order, harmony and perfection that the ancients did not comprehend because they were more rooted in their science of mathematics and ratios than they were in the human condition, spirit, and natural instinct.

Thus, there is a certain amount of impulsiveness in Perrault's architectural perspective that makes his work more unique than that of other classical architects. Perrault also had a sense of the lifetime of buildings and so he built with this in mind, knowing that there was one order of architecture that would appear to contemporary persons but another order that should appeal to posterity.

In this way Perrault understood that tastes and fashions change and that while one might be innovative and new to impress and please a contemporary audience, one should not totally deviate from traditional norms or practices because they are standards for all time and thus can be admired by every generation. Perrault's eastern facade of the Louvre is a good example of his method and ideas in practice. This building does not have its "feet on the ground" as those of Alberti and Palladio were said to have.

This one has at ground level a layer of foundational support. The middle level is where one finds the columns so beloved of the classicist architects. And the top level is where one finds the parapet and eaves. Perrault's idea of doubling is found in the middle level where the columns are essentially doubled-up, up and down the colonnade, giving the optical illusion of symmetry and order and at the same time doing something new and different.

The facade has its own individual flair and nuance that makes it particularly special and unique. And considering its purpose as an art gallery of national treasures, this uniqueness is appropriate and fitting. There are five sections to the facade with three levels that are parallel to one another, giving the facade an overall look of symmetry and order, even though the order is a departure from the traditional classical design. There is still a center or focus to the facade, a pilaster on either side of over 20 meters.

The columns are spaced at intervals that are half their height, so that the positive and arbitrary order or beauty that Perrault extolled can be found here. There is symmetry and order yet it there is also a distinctively natural and graceful appearance to it (Ching, Jarzombek, Prakash, 2011).

So while Perrault follows to an extent the order proposed by the ancient Vitruvius and seconded by Alberti, he invents his own nuance, his own strategy or technique which has been called doubling and is seen in the way he doubles his columns, or groups them into pairs to be produce a more pleasing effect on the eye. Likewise, the colonnade or peristyle of the eastern facade of the Louvre brings the viewers to.