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48-533: Stripped Classicism (or "Starved Classicism" or "Grecian Moderne") 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

96-655: A 'new beginning' under New Dealism (which was fighting to ameliorate the ramifications of the Great Depression ), and concomitantly, archetypal American genius. A discussion of the Roosevelt administration, its reinvention of the past (centred on Jeffersonianism ) and its uses of architecture in the 1930s can be found in Patterson's 'Problem-Solvers' thesis. Classical architecture The term classical architecture also applies to any mode of architecture that has evolved to

144-535: A breakthrough that led to many war memorials, civic buildings, court houses, and other solid, official structures. His work through the 1920s was firmly in the Beaux-Arts tradition, but with the radically simplified classical form of the Folger Shakespeare Library , built between 1929 and 1932, he flexibly adopted and applied monumental classical traditions to modernist innovations. Some of Cret's work

192-774: A design studio in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania . Born in Lyon , France, Cret was educated at that city's École des Beaux-Arts , then in Paris, where he studied at the atelier of Jean-Louis Pascal . In 1903, Cret came to the United States to teach at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia . After having settled in the U.S., Cret was visiting France when World War I broke out. He enlisted and remained in

240-501: A desire for an architecture based on clear rules and rationality. Claude Perrault , Marc-Antoine Laugier and Carlo Lodoli were among the first theorists of Neoclassicism, while Étienne-Louis Boullée , Claude Nicolas Ledoux , Friedrich Gilly and John Soane were among the more radical and influential. Neoclassical architecture held a particularly strong position on the architectural scene c.  1750 –1850. The competing neo-Gothic style however rose to popularity during

288-421: A highly refined state, such as classical Chinese architecture, or classical Mayan architecture. It can also refer to any architecture that employs classical aesthetic philosophy. The term might be used differently from "traditional" or " vernacular architecture " although it can share underlying axioms with it. For contemporary buildings following authentic classical principles, the term New Classical architecture

336-462: A simple delineation of the scope of classical architecture is difficult to make. The more or less defining characteristic can still be said to be a reference to ancient Greek or Roman architecture, and the architectural rules or theories that derived from that architecture. In the grammar of architecture, the word petrification is often used when discussing the development of sacred structures such as temples, mainly with reference to developments in

384-478: Is often posed), can also incorporate classical elements and details but do not to the same degree reflect a conscious effort to draw upon the architectural traditions of antiquity; for example, they do not observe the idea of a systematic order of proportions for columns . In general, therefore, they are not considered classical architectural styles in a strict sense. During the Italian Renaissance and with

432-419: Is remarkably streamlined and forward thinking, and includes collaborations with sculptors such as Alfred Bottiau and Leon Hermant . In the late 1920s, he was brought in as design consultant on Fellheimer and Wagner's, which is the present-day Cincinnati Union Terminal , built between 1929 and 1933 during Art Deco 's peak of popularity in architectural style in the U.S. In 1927, Cret became a U.S. citizen. Cret

480-558: Is sometimes used. Classical architecture is derived from the architecture of ancient Greece and ancient Rome. With the collapse of the western part of the Roman empire , the architectural traditions of the Roman empire ceased to be practised in large parts of western Europe. In the Byzantine Empire , the ancient ways of building lived on but relatively soon developed into a distinct Byzantine style . The first conscious efforts to bring back

528-399: Is streamlined, as much multi-functional as it is fit for the multi-faceted modern future vis-a-vis high-speed travel, technologically advanced means of communication, hydraulic engineering etc... "all in time for the most mechanised war in history", as Samuel Patterson writes. The Stripped Classical style was also embraced by Franklin D. Roosevelt , who yearned for an architecture symbolising

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576-600: The Athenaeum of Philadelphia in 2011. An exhibit of his train designs, All Aboard! Paul P. Cret's Train Designs , was displayed at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia from July 5, 2012 to August 24, 2012. With a collection of 17,000 drawings and more than 3,000 photographs, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia has the largest archive of Cret's work. After years of limited activity, Cret died in Philadelphia of heart disease on September 8, 1945. He

624-664: The Battle of Gettysburg , President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Cret's Eternal Light Peace Memorial (1938). For the Pennsylvania Historical Commission, the predecessor of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), Cret designed plaques that would mark places and buildings in Pennsylvania where historical events had transpired. Following Cret's death in 1945, his four partners assumed

672-834: The Delaware River between Philadelphia and South Jersey , and the Duke Ellington Bridge in Washington, D.C. Cret's students included Louis Kahn , who studied under him at the University of Pennsylvania and worked in Cret's architectural office in 1929 and 1930. Other notable architects who studied under Cret include Alfred Easton Poor , Charles I. Barber , William Ward Watkin , Edwin A. Keeble , Alfred Bendiner , and Chinese architect Lin Huiyin . Cret designed war memorials, including

720-678: The French Army for the duration of the war, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre and made an officer in the Legion of Honor . Cret's practice in the U.S. began in 1907. His first major commission, designed with Albert Kelsey , was the Pan American Union Building , (the headquarters of what is now the Organization of American States ), in Washington D.C. , which was built between 1908 and 1910,

768-971: The National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge National Historical Park (1914–17), the Pennsylvania Memorial at the Meuse-Argonne Battlefield in Varennes-en-Argonne, France (1927), the Chateau-Thierry American Monument in Aisne, France (1930), the American War Memorial at Gibraltar , and the Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial in Waregem, Belgium (1937). On the 75th anniversary of

816-701: The Tudor Revival library interior), the 1937 University of Texas at Austin's Main Tower , the 1937 Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C., and the 1939 Bethesda Naval Hospital tower. It is sometimes evident in buildings that were constructed by the Works Projects Administration during the Great Depression , albeit with a mix of Art Deco architecture or its elements. Related styles have been described as PWA Moderne and Greco Deco . The movement

864-680: The 1920–1930s, which utilised artistic dexterity to articulate – in built form – a powerful political ethos orientated towards the future. Other writers have noted the need to read the impact of avant-garde movements such as the Italian Futurists , who extolled the innumerable possibilities of the modern world, on this unique style (and the futurism it espoused). It was popularised by the French-born Paul Philippe Cret , among others, and employed in Nazi Germany , Fascist Italy ,

912-722: The 1930s as well". The style later found adherents in the Fascist regimes of Germany and Italy as well as in the Soviet Union during Stalin 's regime. Albert Speer 's Zeppelinfeld and other parts of the Nazi party rally grounds complex outside Nuremberg were perhaps the most famous examples in Germany, using classical elements such as columns and altars alongside modern technology such as spotlights . The Casa del Fascio in Como has also been aligned with

960-570: The Greek world. During the Archaic and early Classical periods (about the 6th and early 5th centuries BC), the architectural forms of the earliest temples had solidified and the Doric emerged as the predominant element. The most widely accepted theory in classical studies is that the earliest temple structures were of wood and the great forms, or elements of architectural style, were codified and rather permanent by

1008-846: The Renaissance. The Palladian architecture developed from the style of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) had a great influence long after his death, above all in Britain, where it was adopted for many of the grander buildings of the Georgian architecture of the 18th and early 19th century. As a reaction to late Baroque and Rococo forms, architectural theorists from c.  1750 through what became known as Neoclassicism again consciously and earnestly attempted to emulate antiquity, supported by recent developments in Classical archaeology and

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1056-512: The Soviet Union and New Deal America . Though the term is usually reserved for the more thorough style that forms part of 20th-century rational architecture , characteristics of Stripped Classicism are embodied in works of some progressive late 18th- and early 19th-century neoclassical architects , such as Étienne-Louis Boullée , Claude Nicolas Ledoux , Friedrich Gilly , Peter Speeth , Sir John Soane and Karl Friedrich Schinkel . Between

1104-430: The United States. In any event, presumed "fascist" underpinnings have hampered acceptance into mainstream architectural thought. There is no evidence that architects who favored this style had a particular right-wing political disposition. Nevertheless, both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were fans. On the other hand, Stripped Classicism was favored by Joseph Stalin and various regional Communist regimes. After

1152-616: The West for much of Modern history . Even so, because of liberal, personal or theoretically diverse interpretations of the antique heritage, classicism covers a broad range of styles, some even so to speak cross-referencing, like Neo-Palladian architecture , which draws its inspiration from the works of Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio , who himself drew inspiration from ancient Roman architecture. Furthermore, it can be argued that styles of architecture not typically considered classical, like Gothic, can contain classical elements. Therefore,

1200-458: The World Wars, a stripped-down classicism became the de facto standard for many monumental and institutional governmental buildings all over the world. Governments used this architectural méthode to straddle modernism and classicism , an ideal political response to a modernizing world. In part, this movement was said to have origins in the need to save money in governmental works by eschewing

1248-415: The absence of ornament) and through their pure functionality. Adolf Loos , an Austrian theorist of modern architecture, and his essay " Ornament and Crime " can be seen as just one of the many philosophers/theorists/architects who foreshadowed some of the stylistic elements of Stripped Classicism. Avant-garde movements such as Futurism also foreshadowed a form of building which is as much extravagant as it

1296-418: The advent of Modernism during the early 20th century, classical architecture arguably almost ceased to be practised. As noted above, classical styles of architecture dominated Western architecture for a long time, roughly from the Renaissance until the advent of Modernism. That is to say, that classical antiquity at least in theory was considered the prime source of inspiration for architectural endeavours in

1344-698: The article "Animals in Christian Art" for the Catholic Encyclopedia . Cret won the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects in 1938. Ill health forced his resignation from teaching in 1937. He served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1940 to 1945. Cret's work was displayed in the exhibit, From the Bastille to Broad Street: The Influence of France on Philadelphia Architecture , at

1392-512: The classical architecture of the Renaissance from the outset represents a highly specific interpretation of the classical ideas. In a building like the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi , one of the earliest Renaissance buildings (built 1419–1445), the treatment of the columns for example has no direct antecedent in ancient Roman architecture . During this time period,

1440-855: The defeat of Nazi Germany and end of World War II , the style fell out of favor. However, it was somewhat revived in designs in the 1960s. Included was Philip Johnson 's New York Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts , evidencing "a revival in the Stripped Classical style". Likewise, Canberra, Australia saw the Law Courts of the Australian Capital Territory (1961) and the National Library of Australia (1968) resurrect grand Stripped Classical designs. See Australian non-residential architectural styles . The use of culture and 'myth'

1488-498: The demise of Gothic style, major efforts were made by architects such as Leon Battista Alberti , Sebastiano Serlio and Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola to revive the language of architecture of first and foremost ancient Rome. This was done in part through the study of the ancient Roman architectural treatise De architectura by Vitruvius , and to some extent by studying the actual remains of ancient Roman buildings in Italy. Nonetheless,

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1536-681: The disused language of form of classical antiquity into Western architecture can be traced to the Carolingian Renaissance of the late 8th and 9th centuries. The gatehouse of Lorsch Abbey ( c.  800 ), in present-day Germany thus displays a system of alternating attached columns and arches which could be an almost direct paraphrase of e.g., that of the Colosseum in Rome. Byzantine architecture , just as Romanesque and even to some extent Gothic architecture (with which classical architecture

1584-550: The early 1800s, and the later part the 19th century was characterised by a variety of styles, some of them only slightly or not at all related to classicism (such as Art Nouveau ), and Eclecticism . Although classical architecture continued to play an important role and for periods of time at least locally dominated the architectural scene, as exemplified by the Nordic Classicism during the 1920s, classical architecture in its stricter form never regained its former dominance. With

1632-486: The expense of hand-worked classical detail. In Europe, examples as early as the Embassy of Germany, Saint Petersburg , designed by Peter Behrens and completed in 1912, "established models for the classical purity aspired to by high modernists like Mies van der Rohe but also for the oversized, Stripped Classicism of Hitler's, Stalin's and Ulbricht 's architects and perhaps of American, British and French official buildings in

1680-565: The form and structure. Despite its etymological similarity, Stripped Classicism is sometimes distinguished from "Starved Classicism", the latter "displaying little feeling for rules, proportions, details, and finesse, and lacking all verve and élan". At other times the terms "stripped" and "starved" are used interchangeably. Stripped Classicism was a materialistic manifestation of 'political' modernism . Recent historiography has explicitly linked this architectural style – and its relationship with modernist thinking – to political projects arising in

1728-543: The movement. In the USSR some of the proposals for the unbuilt Palace of the Soviets also had characteristics of the style. Among American architects, the work of Paul Philippe Cret exemplifies the style. His Château-Thierry American Monument built in 1928 has been identified as an early example. Among his other works identified with the style are the exterior of the 1933 Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. (though not

1776-589: The past (as symbolised by Stripped Classicism's restrained classical features) by ransacking its archetypal 'healthy' elements to inaugurate a reforged, rejuvenated, futural, open-ended and monumental future. It is this curious dichotomy between old and new, an inexorable feature of Stripped Classicism, which historian Roger Griffin has encapsulated in his conceptual framework of 'rooted modernism' (which he discusses in relation to fascist buildings). The modernism in Stripped Classical buildings can be seen through their stylistic components (mute apertures, blank walls and

1824-415: The practice under the partnership Harbeson, Hough, Livingston & Larson , which for years was referred to by staff members as H2L2. The firm officially adopted this nickname as its formal title in 1976. H2L2 celebrated 100 years in 2007. Witold Rybczynski has speculated that Cret is not better known today due to his influence on fascist and Nazi architecture , such as Albert Speer 's Zeppelinfeld at

1872-411: The study of ancient architecture developed into the architectural theory of classical architecture; somewhat over-simplified, that classical architecture in its variety of forms ever since have been interpretations and elaborations of the architectural rules set down during antiquity. Most of the styles originating in post- Renaissance Europe can be described as classical architecture. This broad use of

1920-578: The term is employed by Sir John Summerson in The Classical Language of Architecture . The elements of classical architecture have been applied in radically different architectural contexts than those for which they were developed, however. For example, Baroque or Rococo architecture are styles which, although classical at root, display an architectural language much in their own right. During these periods, architectural theory still referred to classical ideas but rather less sincerely than during

1968-533: The time the Archaic became emergent and established. It was during this period, at different times and places in the Greek world, that the use of dressed and polished stone replaced the wood in these early temples, but the forms and shapes of the old wooden styles were retained in a skeuomorphic fashion, just as if the wooden structures had turned to stone, thus the designation "petrification" or sometimes "petrified carpentry" for this process. This careful preservation of

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2016-528: The traditional wooden appearance in the stone fabric of the newer buildings was scrupulously observed and this suggests that it may have been dictated by religion rather than aesthetics, although the exact reasons are now lost in antiquity. Not everyone within the reach of Hellenic civilization made this transition. The Etruscans in Italy were, from their earliest period, greatly influenced by their contact with Greek culture and religion, but they retained their wooden temples (with some exceptions) until their culture

2064-481: Was a shared peculiarity of totalitarian political programmes during the 1920–30s, including Nazism in Germany and Soviet Communism in Russia. Cultural incentives launched by these states, and all their various intricacies, evoked currents of modernist thought. Through architecture, they strove to invoke the power of modernity in their physical landscapes (especially in their capital cities) and, simultaneously, reinvent

2112-537: Was completely absorbed into the Roman world, with the great wooden Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol in Rome itself being a good example. Nor was it the lack of knowledge of stone working on their part that prevented them from making the transition from timber to dressed stone. Paul Philippe Cret Paul Philippe Cret (October 23, 1876 – September 8, 1945) was a French-born Philadelphia architect and industrial designer . For more than thirty years, he taught at

2160-559: Was elected into the National Academy of Design as an associate member, and became a full academician in 1938. Cret's contributions to the railroad industry included designing the side fluting on Burlington 's Pioneer Zephyr , which debuted in 1934, and the Santa Fe 's Super Chief passenger cars , which were completed in 1936. He was a contributor to Architectural Record , American Architect , and The Craftsman . He wrote

2208-577: Was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1928. In 1931, the regents of the University of Texas at Austin commissioned Cret to design a master plan for the campus, and build the Beaux-Art Main Building , which was constructed between 1934 and 1937 and is the university's signature building structure. Cret went on to collaborate on about 20 additional buildings on the University of Texas at Austin campus. In 1935, he

2256-709: Was interred at The Woodlands in Philadelphia. Cret taught in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania for over 30 years, and designed the overall design for the Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial in Fairmount Park , the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia , the master plan for the University of Texas at Austin , the Benjamin Franklin Bridge , one of the primary bridges across

2304-524: Was widespread, and transcended national boundaries. Architects who at least notably experimented in Stripped Classicism included John James Burnet , Giorgio Grassi , Léon Krier , Aldo Rossi , Albert Speer , Robert A. M. Stern and Paul Troost . Despite its popularity with totalitarian regimes, it has been adapted by many English-speaking democratic governments, including during the New Deal in

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