The theatrical component is also evident in the interiors of the churches designed by Palladio in Venice. As Magagnato points out, "we can see an effect almost of stage design in his insertion of space within space: certainly, the fruit of his loving study of late Roman architecture." He continues that in the Redentore and San Giorgio churches "we have the most striking illustration of his use of these ample spaces seen through great colonnades that have the effect of walls.  But Palladio is not trying to give the effect of a wall pierced by openings. He is seeking an effect of light and freedom: to set his structures in zones of space and light that are, however, defined and firmly tied down into the composition by the linking of the structures that lie behind".34 The colonnade, or *perystilium,*  through which we can perceive the intimate space of the choir, also works as a backdrop for the ritual of the mass, celebrated in front of the spectators, sitting in the nave. This spatial arrangement, very similar to Palladio's proposal for the Olympic Theater (the backdrop for the theatrical play that frames the space behind it), is clearly discernible [fig. 8].

8

Andrea Palladio, the Redentore Church, Venice. The façade as stratification of planes anticipates the interior theatrical transparencies. Drawing by the author.

Palladio's lesson in the context of theater design (as Scamozzi's theater in Sabbioneta or the Farnese Theater in Parma, where a fragment of Palladio's Basilica defines the auditorium) is still relevant in contemporary times. The most remarkable example with respect to this is certainly the Half Moon Theater in London, completed in 1986 and designed by Florian Beigel and the Architecture Bureau.

The overall intervention is conceived as a sequence of spatial experiences and spaces starting from the entrance and leading to an open-air courtyard defined on the sides by galleries—enclosed by façades that mimic residential buildings—and eventually the covered theater. These "negative" open spaces are "carved out" from the urban fabric, creating a series of squares (covered and uncovered), that blend one into the other, as in the map of Rome drawn by Giambattista Nolli in 1748. "The space of the building is conceived as a void", notes Beigel, "the void is the figure, […] the void space is for us the essence of space."35 Analogously to the open courtyard, and with a strong intellectual relationship with Renaissance models, the theater is conceived as public open space, a square, surrounded by buildings, or, better, by three-story façades with galleries behind and covered with a roof. Porticoes and doors open to the piazza on the ground floor, where people can freely sit and movable seating devices can be arranged in flexible configurations. Elizabeth B. Hatz defines all these elements and spatial sequences "as a Borges-like collection of labyrinthine spaces that alternate in being the 'outside' of one another, making spatial relations theatrically ambiguous."36 It is certainly evident, like already anticipated, that this project is, conceptually, "also a return to the street theater of the past or the play space in the market square where actors and audience mingled freely"37, where the act of performance is contiguous with the everyday life of the street. All of these aspects (architectural and phenomenological), inserted within a building, transform the architectural interior in an urban microcosm, and thus in a fluid intersection of scales, between interior and exterior, morphology and typology; and transform Rossi's "architecture of the city" into Beigel's "architecture as city"38 [fig. 9].

9

Florian Beigel and the Architecture Bureau, Half Moon Theater, London. Drawings and montage by the author.

The work and design principles of the Renaissance masters and the theme of theatricality are an active presence in Aldo Rossi's theoretical speculation and design explorations.39 The idea of shifting a fragment of the city inside an interior space is evident in his projects such as *Little Scientific Theater* (1976), *Theater of the World* (1979), *Interior with a Theater* (1982), and *Domestic Theater* (1986). However, Palladio literally comes into play in Rossi's project for the reconstruction and renovation of the La Fenice Theater in Venice, which had been partially destroyed by arson in 1996. In the context of this very complex intervention, he designed a small rehearsal room (the "Rossi Room") where one of the interior elevations is a reproduction in wood of a fragment of the façade of Palladio's Basilica in Vicenza. Similar to Renaissance masters' practice and the realization of the Baroque Farnese Theater in Parma, a façade is set up inside the building. This interior façade and "fixed stage" of the interior of the room (which resembles and functions as a tiny theater) defines a piazza (Piazza dei Signori in Vicenza). Thus, like Palladio, Rossi reproduces the city inside the architectural interior, using the façade as a deliberate and tangible device. Rossi chose the façade of the Basilica "not only because it is beautiful, but also because it is an attempt to recreate inside the building that specific Venetian world, between history and invention" [fig. 10].

The Renaissance theatrical interpretation of the world also informed Andrea Palladio's design for the villas for Venetian aristocrats, which were complex buildings that kept together the functions of agricultural production, territorial control, and the need to affirm and communicate the elevated social standings of their inhabitants. The villas had to serve these aims not only in the exteriors, as architectural backdrops in the Venetian landscape, but also in their interiors. One can find evidence in Palladio's writings in which he describes the core space of the villa as an actual theatrical apparatus for acting and seeing what is represented and performed: "The halls serve for feasts, entertainments and decorations, for comedies, weddings, and such like recreations; and therefore these places ought to be much larger than the others, and to have the most capacious form, to the end

10

Aldo Rossi, Rossi Room at La Fenice Theater, Venice. Like in the Renaissance theaters, a façade (the Basilica in Vicenza) is recreated inside the building and becomes the "fixed stage" of the interior. Drawings and montage by the author.

that many persons may be therein commodiously placed, and see whatever is done there."41 The hall becomes a square, a *piazza,*  an opportunity to ideally set up inside the house a Venetian *campo,* for the Venetian patrons, residing temporarily in the countryside. Not by accident, in the Villa Pisani in Bagnolo, the central hall is defined by interior façades designed with rectangular and thermal windows, even if they do not look out. In this interior "hall-as-*piazza*/*campo*" receptions and celebrations occur. There people can see and be seen, like in a public urban space [fig. 11, 11 a].

Similarly, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, theatricality was not limited to theater and stage design, but was also an important component of residential architecture in the work of British architects like John Soane. His houses can be seen as theatrical representations of his architectural universe, with façades playing a role similar to the prologue of a theatrical piece or even as theaters themselves.42 In the Great Hall of the Audley End House in Saffron Walden (Essex, England) designed in the mid-1700s by John Vanbrugh—who was also a playwright—a

11 and 11 a Villa Pisani, Bagnolo, Lonigo.

Fig. 12 John Vanbrugh, Great Hall of the Audley End House in Saffron Walden, Essex.

remarkable example of the theatrical insertion of an urban façade into a domestic interior space is well represented.43 In the Great Hall, the architect removed an existing wall to enlarge the room. Furthermore, he added a grand staircase. He needed a supporting element for structural reasons, so he inserted a two-story screen made of stone, designed as a building façade, with pilasters and very wide arches. This allows transparency that reminds us of Palladio's theater and churches, or even his villas, performed "in the manner of a Veronese set piece in architectural style", as Fred Scott points out.44 This design strategy amplifies the space alluding to what is beyond the screen (in this case the staircase that crosses the stone threshold leading to the mezzanine from where—through the screen—one looks down to the Great Hall), but also acts as a theatrical backdrop to the activities performed in the Great Hall [fig. 12].

More recently, the work of American architect George Ranalli exemplifies this strategy. In his project for the First of August Boutique in New York (1975–1976), the layered façade alludes to a transparent inhabitable thickness that extends the interior towards the street.  Similarly remarkable is the renovation of the Callender School in Newport (Rhode Island, USA), transformed in 1979–1981 into a residential building with six houses intricately and carefully inserted into the existing two-story National Register Landmark Building from the late nineteenth -century. Inside, the architect set up a core element that crosses through the entire structure and contains the new apartments' kitchens, bathrooms, stairs, and more private rooms. The living rooms have double and triple heights strongly defined by this inhabited core that takes the shape of an interior façade with openings, balconies, windows, and portals. It is a house inside the house, an urban fragment facing the public space of the living rooms. As Anthony Vidler argues, "the apartments take on the form of abandoned palaces whose balconies overlook the deserted piazza below or out, outwards the empty countryside."45 Ranalli, in the suburban American fabric that lacks collective public spaces, recreates the idea of an interior *piazza*, defined by interior façades which emphasize the theatricality of the domestic interior through "a magnificence of scale" and "a brilliant piece of scenography"46 [fig. 14]. It is evident on the one hand the intention of blurring interior and exterior while almost de-materializing the brick envelope of the existing former school; and on the other to re-invent within the building the concept of public collective space, as a response to its absence in the urban fabric of the American suburbs.

### 13

George Ranalli, First of August Boutique, New York. Elevation oblique of the front façade, the existing building and the new interior.

# **Conclusion**

#### 14

George Ranalli, Callender School Renovation, Newport. East West Section of the south side of the building.

The relationship between inside and outside has always been a fundamental component in the construction of architectural and urban space. The façade is the most important element that can define this link and the variable degrees of openness between the two worlds. Palladio's façades can be read as an architectural canvas that represents the literal or technical manifestation of internal arrangements projected onto the external surface—in a sort of anticipation, from the outside, of the experience of interior space. As in Palazzo Chiericati, the façade might also be a thick and inhabitable threshold that becomes an interior space deeply connected with the urban realm. Another design strategy that

intertwines the interior to the outside draws from the theater, or better, from a theatrical idea of the world and the city, perfectly represented by the Olympic Theater. Here an imaginary city (that metaphorically represents Vicenza) is assembled on the stage and the auditorium, and transforms the interior space of the theater into an open space, a street, a square, and a courtyard, surrounded by buildings (and their façades).

In a contemporary global context, where façades are often designed as technological skins aimed at ensuring interior comfort, the exterior appearance tends to defy any relationship between the inside and outside, as well as any expression of the building's character and its connection to the surrounding environment. Despite this trend, there are architects from both modern and contemporary times who continue to explore the Chiericati archetype and the concept of an inhabited façade that transforms into an intermediate space, blurring the boundaries between the interior and the city, while celebrating the experience of both the building and its urban context. Inspired by the Olympic Theater, some architects have revisited Renaissance stage design, incorporating interior urban fragments into their work. This approach can also be applied to domestic spaces, where montage techniques—combined with a renewed focus on metaphor, symbolism, allegory, and analogy—enable designers to compose interiors that resemble urban scenes. The concept of the interior as a reinvention of a theatrical stage emerges, with the interior façade serving as a backdrop for the inhabitant's life, activities, and performances.

# Endnotes

If not indicated otherwise, all translations are by the author of this paper.

Sören Fischer

# **Architecture within Architecture** Strategies of Spatial Design in Andrea Palladio's Villas

# **Introduction**

This article will pay special attention to a phenomenon that plays a key role in many of Palladio's villas and that seems crucial in understanding Palladio's sophisticated concept of space and architecture [fig. 1]. It will focus on the interplay between real and painted architecture, the extension and enhancement of Palladio's architecture through murals, and the conceptual merging of architecture and painting, the two fundamental space-creating principles.

1

Paolo Veronese and workshop (most likely in collaboration with Andrea Palladio), Sala dell'Olimpo, Villa Barbaro, Maser, 1560/61.

In many of Palladio's villas, painted architecture is one of the most important elements of decoration.1 Not only does it provide the rooms with a distinct structure, it creates a unique self-sufficient form of decoration so that painted architecture can be considered a leitmotif within the villas.2 Aside from its pure framing function, painted architecture plays a crucial role in shaping and manipulating space. Completely covering the surfaces of a villa's walls, painters combined architecture with landscapes and historical figures to open the rooms onto illusionistic worlds. By doing this, the murals provoked a substantial effect on the observer's perception of the interior. But there is more. Implementing a fictitious space into a real one creates illusionistic rooms, which seem, at first glance, to be in conflict with the building in which the illusion is taking place.

Andrea Palladio was a master of spatial design. Unlike any architect before him, he understood how to design the various levels of space. Particularly with regard to his extraordinary villas, the following can be formulated: Palladio did not consider the courtyard in isolation from the façade, the façade not isolated from the staircase leading into the building, the loggia not detached from the exterior and interior space, the *salone* not independent of its views and vistas of the surrounding landscape. As Palladio postulated in his book *I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura*, published in 1570, the parts have to be in harmony with the whole, and the whole has to be in harmony with its parts.3

This paper investigates the assumption that the architect applied this consistency also to the interior decorations of his villas and that he understood the murals as important protagonists of an overall design when placing a painted architecture within real architecture. This examination is intended to reflect on Palladio's spatial concepts, the perception of space within his villas as well as the emotional-sensual evocation of interior space.

The key thesis is this: In Palladio's villas space is not built, it is designed, and that principle can be observed very clearly in areas where architecture and wall painting meet and are set in relation to each other. At these spots, illusions are made plausible to the viewer; at these seams, painting and architecture are transformed into an image that opens up to the observer's space.

Although illusionistic fresco painting was explored by Italian artists and patrons since the early 14th century—one may refer to Giotto's fresco cycle in Assisi (Upper Church, S. Francesco, c. 1300) and the *Last Supper* fresco in the Florentine Church San Apollonia by Andrea del Castagno (1447)—very little is known about the theory and critical perception of that kind of decoration. However, in 1537, the architect and author Sebastiano Serlio released his *Libro Quarto*, which deals with domestic decorations, including painted architecture and its potential to create optical illusions. As a key example, Serlio referred to the *Sala delle Prospettive*, painted by Baldassare Peruzzi in the Roman Villa Farnesina for the banker Agostino Chigi shortly before 1519.4 In this room, the walls seem to open towards deep loggias, which are difficult to identify as paintings. Serlio highlighted this illusionistic masterpiece as an example of a perfect deception: "And if the painter then wishes to elongate a hall or other room by using the art of perspective, he will be able to make that part that faces the entrance seem much longer than in reality by rendering some architectural orders. And this Baldassare [Peruzzi] did, so gifted in this [kind of] art [...]."5 As Serlio clearly stated, painted architecture has the potential to change a room's visual appearance.

Reflecting on ideas of mimesis and illusion, the following examination will focus on the mural decorations of the Villa Godi, the Villa Barbaro, and the Villa Emo. By choosing these Palladian buildings of the Venetian terraferma, which were decorated between c. 1540 and 1570 by the painters Gualtiero Padovano, Paolo Veronese, and Giovanni Battista Zelotti, it is the aim of the essay to highlight the various forms of painted architecture and to investigate Palladio's attitude towards the illusionistic wall decoration.

# **Villa Godi**

Although almost all of Palladio's villas feature opulent wall paintings and make-believe architecture that manipulates the interior, very little is known about what Palladio thought about this kind of decoration. Unfortunately, he never commented on the subject of illusionistic painting.6 In his book *I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura*, he mentions and praises some painters but he never reflects on painting in terms of art theory. For Palladio laying down generally applicable rules for interior decoration made very little sense because he obviously knew from many years of experience that the wishes of clients and fellow painters usually led to very individual solutions. By implementing strict rules, he would have restricted this creative freedom.

So far, only one drawing is known that Palladio probably made in preparation for a mural painting. Whether it is an original or a contemporary copy is still disputed.7 This drawing was identified by Douglas Lewis as a draft for the Salone of the Villa Godi. In addition, we also know of payment records to Palladio, which suggest that the architect was paid for wall-painting designs at Villa Godi. One question is at the center of this controversy:8 Did Palladio consider wall painting merely as an additional supplement to his buildings or did he see it as an important extension of interior space?

The Villa Godi is considered Palladio's first villa conceived and built by him between 1537 and 1542 for the Vicentine nobleman Girolamo Godi and his family.9 The architect was only 30 years old at the time. Here, the main themes of Palladio's architecture were formulated for the first time, such as the connection of the elevated villa with lateral buildings, the prestigious emphasis of the central axis by stairs and loggia, the opening of the country house to the landscape, nature, and rural fields, the intended staging of framed views and vistas by windows and doors, the symmetrical room layout and the central *salone*, which, in accordance with Venetian tradition, runs across the entire floor. As Andrea Palladio tells in his *Quattro Libri*, the piano nobile of

Gualtiero Padovano, Stanza dei Cesari, Villa Godi, Lugo di Vicenza, 1548/50.

Villa Godi was painted, among others, by Gualtiero Padovano. In his treatise, he praises the frescoes, executed around 1548 and 1550, as "the most beautiful paintings".10

Almost every room on the piano nobile was decorated with frescoes. Characteristic of the early stage of the Palladian villa is the fact that for each room an individual decoration was applied, not unlike the rich interior mural paintings in the Villa Imperiale in the vicinity of Pesaro (1530–1537; painted by Girolamo Genga and his workshop).11 Diversity and variety apparently were considered more important than the concept of an overall unifying design.

In the rectangular *Stanza dei Cesari*, the viewer finds himself in the middle of a painted loggia [fig. 2]. Four vistas, framed by marble columns, offer a panoramic view.12 The three real windows blend in with the painted architecture so that the room opens up to landscapes through a total of seven vistas. Already Vitruvius demanded a high degree of realism from such kind of painted architecture.13

In the midst of this *stanza*, an entertaining interplay of painting and architecture opens up a life-like loggia, known at the time, for example, from the Villa Imperiale.14 The observer enjoys the endless landscapes and their idealized depictions of *Santa Agricoltura* and *Paradiso terrestre*, key topoi to the Italian villa culture in that period of time.15 The framed views out into fertile nature—created by the artist's hands—and the high credibility of the illusionistic architecture increase the illusion of living in a perfect environment, surrounded by green plains, sheep, blue rivers, and Roman ruins.16

Still today, the surprise is enormous. Having just seen the modest façade of the villa, the viewer unexpectedly is confronted with an opulent, roman-like architecture of colored marble and gilding. The Villa Godi was inspired by central Italian archetypes such as the *Sala di Costantino* (1520; Vatican) by Raphael and Giulio Romano, or the *Sala Paolina* (1545–47; Rome, Castel S. Angelo) by Perino del Vaga. In this sense the columns and walls are shown in a monumental manner, enabling them to carry the room's ceiling. By focusing on the mimetic potential of painting, the illusion evokes a classical order that seems touchable and, at the same time, is close to contemporary architecture like Sansovino's Libreria in Venetian's Piazzetta di S. Marco or Falconetto's Loggia Cornaro in Padua.

In the *Sala dei Cesari* we meet an important leitmotif of Palladio's villas: the combination of real architecture and wall painting, creating an artistically generated experience of space. The wall decoration seems to proclaim: Space is not only designed by architecture. It is shaped by the combination of the arts. Blurring the real framework of the architecture, architecture itself transforms into an expanded image—and the image transforms into architecture. In short, in the *Sala dei Cesari*, illusionistic mural decoration is seen through the eyes of an architect.

3 Andrea Palladio, Villa Godi, Lugo di Vicenza, 1537/42.

The fact that the magnificently painted architecture had no counterpart in the non-classical façade obviously was no problem, neither for Palladio, nor for the painters [fig. 3]. Evidently, they separated the decorative potential of external (real) architecture and that of the mural paintings, accepting the two in a harmonious relationship. Extending the eleven real views through the windows and the loggia, the murals in the southern rooms of the Villa Godi add twelve illusionistic vistas to the villa. Particularly interesting is the fact that the painted views are very often set in direct interplay with the Villa's windows. That interplay is visible impressively in the *Stanza di Bacco e Proserpina*, a small room in the rear part of the building used most likely as bedroom [fig. 4, 5].

Gualtiero Padovano, Stanza di Bacco e Proserpina, Villa Godi, Lugo di Vicenza, 1548/50.

Andrea Palladio, Villa Godi, Lugo di Vicenza, 1537/42, detail of the window and its benches.

Andrea Palladio had equipped some of the villa's real windows with benches. Certainly, a reminiscence of traditional palace architecture, but above all, a reference to the importance of the topos of windows and views within the villa culture. In his famous book *Gli Asolani*, published in 1505 in Venice, the humanist Pietro Bembo, for example, had already praised the window benches as the ideal place to enjoy the landscape.17 With great attention to detail, Palladio designed these benches in the Villa Godi—and with equal attention to detail, Gualtiero Padovano cited and transferred them into his make-believe architecture.

Thus, the painting in the *Stanza di Bacco e Proserpina* repeats the real window while providing an exquisite illusion18: a little boy—most likely the young Bacchus—sits on the bench, looking directly at the viewer outside the image.19 The child is eating grapes, and simultaneously, he seems to invite the observer to take a seat on the painted bench, to join him in his joyful pictorial world of prosperity and peace.

The interplay between painting and architecture is remarkable, and it seems no coincidence that the frescoes in other rooms of Villa Godi also repeat forms that Palladio used in various buildings at the same time. The southern room next to the Loggia (*Stanza dei Sacrifici*), for example, features a Doric frieze of the kind Palladio used for the façades on Palazzo Chiericati (Vicenza) and Villa Pisani (Montagnana) between c. 1550 and 1552 [fig. 6, 7].

The murals in the *Stanza di Bacco e Proserpina* have a tremendous effect on the observer's perception of interior space: Palladio's architecture becomes part of an illusion that fundamentally expands the real room into a deeper imagined space. Even the clouds of the divine sphere penetrate the view behind the painted frame. The imitation of light and shadow enhances the mimetic effect of this impressive spatial play, in which the body of the visitor as well as his movements play a part. What would this room look like without its painted architecture? Would it not be small and boring? In any case, it would be much less spectacular, much less sensical, and much less entertaining.

# **Villa Barbaro**

Speaking of the entertaining potential of illusionistic wall paintings within Palladio's secular buildings, we must shift our attention to Villa Barbaro, one of his most famous country houses, constructed in a village called Maser at the Terraferma. The villa of Daniele and Marcantonio Barbaro, brothers and noblemen from Venice, was painted by Paolo Veronese and his workshop around 1560/61. Influenced by detailed villa descriptions from the Roman politician and author Pliny the Younger, Palladio designed the central body as an elongated building that looks out over the landscape on all three sides.20

Fifteen windows frame the landscape so that nature becomes an essential visual aspect of the interior. These real vistas are enriched by eloquent, most impressive interior wall paintings that decorate the five living rooms of the *piano nobile* as well as

Gualtiero Padovano, Stanza dei Sacrifici, Villa Godi, Lugo di Vicenza, 1548/50.

### 7

Andrea Palladio, Villa Pisani, Montagnana, 1553/55, detail of the façade.

its central cross-shaped *salone*. 21 A total of twenty-six painted views open the walls, showing picturesque scenes of landscapes, ruins, rivers, green trees, and rural buildings—even the Villa Barbaro itself is depicted in a self-portrait. By implementing a magnificent unifying decoration system made of painted Ionic and Corinthian columns, marbled windows, and illusionary doors, the Piano nobile transforms to a belvedere with forty-one real and painted vistas. This transparent (or diaphanic) quality literally negates and obscures the solidity of Palladio's primary architectural concept.

Particularly the murals in the so-called *Stanza del Tribunale d'Amore* and *Stanza di Bacco* manipulate the perception of interior space with great power [fig. 8].22 On the north and south walls, illusionistic architecture depicts deep loggias, adding life-like pictorial spaces to the villa. The complex fictitious architecture, that most likely was designed in situ with the help of pre-drawings (*cartoni*) in the scale of 1:1, presents itself in a Palladian-like elegance and solemnity *all'antica*. 23 Inspired by prototypes from Central Italy, like the *Sala delle Prospettive* made by Baldassare Peruzzi in the Roman Villa Farnesina some decades earlier and following the principles of the art of perspective and optical illusion, the painted architecture in Villa Barbaro no longer serves as a limit between the space of the observer and the pictorial space.

Paolo Veronese was, in fact, a master of painted architecture. He designed and executed it, unlike any other Venetian artist, in an outstanding "theatrical magnificence"24. Be it in paintings, be it in fresco, Veronese many times used painted architecture to arrange his narrative scenes and to evoke an ambiance *all'antica*. In none of his other projects, however, painted architecture had such a strong impact as in Villa Barbaro. He most likely was advised by Palladio, as well as by Daniele Barbaro, commentator of Vitruvius' architectural treatise *Dieci libri dell'architettura di M. Vitruvio* (first edition from 1556). As the astounding interior decoration indicates, Daniele Barbaro as well as Veronese and Palladio must have been very interested in exploring the transitory potential of the wall's surface.25

8

Paolo Veronese and workshop (most likely in collaboration with Andrea Palladio), Stanza di Bacco, Villa Barbaro, Maser, 1560/61.

In his article, *Andrea Palladio e le architetture dipinte di Veronese*, Howard Burns stated that the quality of the decoration of Villa Barbaro indicates mutual cooperation between painter, architect, and patron26: "The realization of Maser's decorations required, at the programmatic and design level, the talent and science of the patrons especially Daniele, Palladio, and Veronese. Without Palladio and Barbaro, it would not have been possible to plan a reconstruction of the appearance of ancient Roman interiors, starting from the text of Vitruvius and Palladio's knowledge (and restitutions) of Roman temple environments, later published in the *Quattro Libri*."27 The assumption that Daniele had a deep influence on the interior decoration is also supported by the fact that, shortly after the completion of Villa Barbaro, he occupied himself intensively with the art of perspective—the basis for painted architecture: In 1569 Daniele published his results in the book *La Pratica della Prospettiva*.

Using the art of perspective, the walls of Villa Barbaro appear, in reference to Gerd Blum's studies, as as *finestre aperte*, or open windows, and are therefore committed to the fundamental Renaissance notion of painting as window, as Leon Battista Alberti wrote in his art theory *Della Pittura* around 1435–36.28 The optical enlargement of the *Stanza di Bacco* and the *Stanza del Tribunale d'Amore* changes the entire perception of the rooms. The painting adds elegant, almost free-standing, marble-white belvederes to Palladio's architecture. Even the real light of the window becomes part of the illusion as the painted columns cast shadows [fig. 9]. The space seems to be walkable and to be part of the room. Probably real architecture and painted architecture, real space and illusionary space, have never before entered into such a convincing union. The perspective quality of the illusion is outstanding. The viewer is surprised, confused, and at the same time delighted, unmasking the illusion.

Paolo Veronese and workshop (most likely in collaboration with Andrea Palladio), Stanza del Tribunale

d'Amore, Villa Barbaro, Maser, 1560/61, interplay between the real window and the painted architecture.

When planning the villa, Palladio must have already had the future murals in mind. It is likely that he designed the sculptural frieze zone in the rooms in preparation for the painting that was yet to be done. The architect laid the foundations, the framework, in which Veronese and his assistants could credibly embed their illusion. The painting, in turn, quoted the Ionic columns that also adorned the façade—in this way, the interior and exterior design were closely intertwined. As Erik Forssmann explained about 50 years ago, a Palladian elegance can be noted for the painted architecture29: The rhythmic sequence "pillar—round niche with sculptures—pillar—rectangular window—pillar—round niche pillar", that was used to organize the walls in the *Stanza del Tribunale d'Amore* and in the *Stanza di Bacco* is also found in a remarkably similar design in Palladio's illustrations of the so-called Egyptian Hall (*La Sala Egizia*) and Corinthian Hall (*La Sala Corinthia*), published less than ten years after the completion of the frescoes in Villa Barbaro [fig. 10]. As formulated by Burns: "It cannot be argued that the false 'opening' of the wall is alien to Palladio's principles or taste, since a similar approach is also observed in the frescoes of Villa Emo and Villa Poiana."30

The Villa Barbaro presents itself as an example for the "ideale congenialità"31 between Veronese and Palladio, between the painter and the architect and, in general, between painting and architecture in the 16th century.32 The Villa Barbaro finally shows impressively that architecture and mural decorations were conceived by the painters, the patrons and their architect as an overall concept.33

# **Villa Emo**

The painters who, next to Paolo Veronese, chiefly inspired the way of using illusionistic mural decoration in Venetian villas were Giovanni Antonio Fasolo and Giovanni Battista Zelotti. In their work, they successfully combined monumental orders of architecture with well narrated-historical scenes. Painted architecture created space for human actors and transformed

10

Andrea Palladio, La Sala Corinthia, woodcut from the book *I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura*, in: Palladio 1570, II 39 (Cap. IX).

closed walls into an open stage-like area in which Roman history was told. The interplay between architecture and wall painting in Palladio's villas can only be fully understood by examining Villa Emo, decorated by Zelotti around 1565 in the rural village of Fanzolo.34 It is a project in which the interplay of real and painted architecture reaches a climax. This villa illustrates impressively the methods Palladio and his fellow painters followed in shaping interior space merging the physical world with the world of imagination.

As a mediator between inside and outside, between landscape and architecture, the loggia of Villa Emo occupies a prominent position in Palladio's understanding of architecture and its surrounding space. As in many others of his country houses, the loggia of Villa Emo is conceived as a space of transition [Schwellenraum] that gives the architecture a nearly transparent quality. Using monumental doric columns that unmistakably define the entrance area of the villa, the loggia has a highly communicative quality. The dignified design of the open façade literally draws the guest into the architecture. Once in the loggia, this place presents itself as a protected area between inside and outside, offering a sublime view of the surrounding lands.

The importance of painting in designing interior space is underlined on the loggia's three walls that were ornamented with elaborate decoration [fig. 11]. The murals are intended to transform the entrance area into a space that stages painted figural scenes as seemingly real vistas. Beyond two painted rectangular frames, the observer witnesses two scenes of ancient mythology, partly inspired by Ovid's book *The Metamorphoses*: *Jupiter seducing Callisto in the form of Diana* (left painting) and *Juno beating Callisto whose hands have already changed into bear paws* (right painting). Above the central door, in the form of a woman, lies the *Allegory of Agriculture.*

In the loggia, real and painted architecture merge into a symbiosis which is on par with Villa Barbaro. Here in Villa Emo, as in Villa Barbaro, the detailed repetition of Palladio's architecture is

# 11

Giovanni Battista Zelotti (most likely in collaboration with Andrea Palladio), Loggia, Villa Emo, Fanzolo, c. 1565.

12 Giovanni Battista Zelotti (most likely in collaboration with Andrea Palladio), Loggia, Villa Emo, Fanzolo, c. 1565, detail of the painted Attic base.

remarkable. The paintings create deceptive copies of Doric columns and imitations of Attic bases using the classical sequence "torus trochilus—torus" [fig. 12]. In the tradition of *paragone*—i.e., the artistic competition between architecture and illusionist painting—real and painted columns stand side by side, each claiming to be the true sister of the other. The vivid dialog of painting and architecture is also revealed in the loggia's ceiling and its monumental beams. There, the painted columns give the impression that they support the heavy ceiling [fig. 13]. This illustrates an observation already described above at Villa Godi and Villa Barbaro: painted architecture is almost never purely decorative or additive in nature; rather, the illusory architecture in the loggia of Villa Emo reveals itself to be an integral part of a plausible overall architectural construction.

Noticeable is also the unique illusionary wooden pergola in the vestibule of the villa. Previously, painted pergolas, as in the famous Odeo Cornaro (Padua), designed by the landowner and author Alvise Cornaro around 1540, or in the Villa Barbaro, consisted of delicate branches and leaves of vines [fig. 14].

Andrea Palladio, Villa Emo, Fanzolo, 1559/65, interplay between the Loggia's ceiling and painted architecture.

## 14

Giovanni Battista Zelotti (most likely in collaboration with Andrea Palladio), Vestibule, Villa Emo, Fanzolo, c. 1565, detail. The wood structure in Villa Emo, instead, is characterized by its thick wooden boards and correct construction. Even in detail, the painting mimics a wooden structure that could be built. Considering that Palladio occupied himself on several occasions with wooden buildings—for example at the Ponte Vecchio in Bassano del Grappa from 156935—the architect's participation in the decoration of Villa Emo becomes much more convincing.

The assumption that Zelotti's painted architecture took part of an overall design becomes particularly obvious in the central *salone* [fig. 15]: there, comparable to the loggia, Palladio designed a coffered ceiling with wide and heavy beams. Since a ceiling of this kind cannot hang freely above the viewer and real columns were not executed—as for example, in the *salone* of the Villa Cornaro in Piombino Dese—we have to assume that it was Palladio, who, together with the painter (and probably motivated by the Venetian Emo family)36, planned the elaborate illusionary architecture. The heavy beamed ceiling really seems to rest on columns. A detailed look at the decoration system reveals that the paintings and the architecture match perfectly. This constructive coherence can also be observed in other rooms of Villa Emo. There, too, the beams rest on painted columns [fig. 16].

The fact that the real wooden architrave in the *salone* was not covered with plaster but instead remained visible and was decorated with paintings, thus becoming a part of the fictitious architecture, confirms the assumption that Palladio prepared his architecture in advance for his fellow colleague Zelotti.

The illusionistic effect is impressive. As already observed by Wolfram Prinz, the room seems to be divided by four (painted) columns—similar to the ancient *Sala di Quattro Colonne*, meaning the Vitruvian hall with four free-standing columns.37 Supporting the heavy coffered ceiling, the added columns give credibility to the painted spaces: art begins where architecture ends, and vice versa. The architect himself was very fond of the *Sala di Quattro Colonne*, a motif that he used on several occasions and that was also described in detail in his *Quattro Libri*. 38 He particularly appreciated this type of room since it ensured more stability to the construction. Moreover, four free-standing columns provide a harmonious proportion in the interior.39 Consequently, he argues both as a structural engineer and an artistic designer.

Giovanni Battista Zelotti (most likely in collaboration with Andrea Palladio), Salone, Villa Emo, Fanzolo, c. 1565.

We do not know why Palladio has chosen not to use real columns in the Villa's *salone*. Perhaps the space seemed too small to erect columns; perhaps columns were a luxury that the client did not want to pay for. One thing is certain, though: fictitious architecture always has been a smart way to save money and to express a certain kind of modesty at the same time. Regarding motifs, the illusionary architecture in Villa Emo appears with the highest claims (Corinthian order) but is executed with comparatively inexpensive materials (painting).40 That concept follows Palladio's pragmatic belief that the design (the form) always must be considered more important than the materials it is made from.

The four white columns make the *salone* of Villa Emo an exceptional visual experience. The painted architecture and its two scenes of virtue, designed much more opulently than the sober exterior, opens up spaces for scenes from the long-gone Roman antiquity: *The Death of Virginia* and the *The Mercy of Scipio*. 41 Using two-meter high bases on each wall and an

### 16

Giovanni Battista Zelotti (most likely in collaboration with Andrea Palladio), Salone, Villa Emo, Fanzolo, c. 1565, interplay between ceiling and painted architecture.

architectural arrangement strikingly reminiscent of the façade of the church of San Francesco della Vigna (c. 1570) built by Palladio in Venice, both, painted architecture and historical figures form a plausible narrative space. The idea of the Vitruvian *Sala di Quattro Colonne* is transformed into an architecture that enriches the squared *salone*. It delights and educates the viewer through historical examples. In the very center of the Palladian villa, painted architecture unites and separates past and present, reality and ideas, truth and illusion.

Finally, the depiction of the *Allegory of Architecture* illustrates how much Zelotti reflected on the interplay between architecture and painting [fig. 17].42 The female figure presents the drawn floor plan of the villa and points precisely to the very room where she and the viewer, outside this programmatic depiction, find themselves.

#### 17

Giovanni Battista Zelotti, Stanza delle Arti, Villa Emo, Fanzolo, c. 1565, detail from the fresco *Allegory of Architecture*.

# **General Methods**

Evidently, painted architecture is one of the most important elements of decoration within Venetian villas. Even by provoking certain conflicts with the interior, even by adding new arrangements that change the plan, and even by putting magnificent wall paintings in contrast to a plain and clear Palladian form, it was the intention of painted architecture not to disturb but to create unique spaces. With the help of illusionism, the very character of many Venetian villas, that means the strong interaction and visual relationship between house and countryside, between framing architecture and distant landscape, as also described by Palladio himself, was translated into the genre of wall decoration. Thus, the frescoes reflected in a congenial manner the concept of transparent and open architecture that offered various perspectives. The fact that Palladio liked that kind of transparent quality and the idea of directing the eye through architecture—be it painted, be it real—is also supported by the artist himself. Talking about stairs and doors, he recommended architecture that shows the viewer the most beautiful areas of the building as soon as he looks through the main door.43 Changing one's views in a building leads to creating tension. At the same time, according to Palladio, this visual dramaturgy would make the building appear larger than it is.

According to the previous analyses, the following strategies (general methods) can be summarized as a working basis and impulses for continuing considerations.

# 1. *Strategy of coherence*

Many Palladian villas display an intense structural interaction, a harmonious interplay of real and painted architecture. Painted architecture hereby does not create disruptive arrangements in the villas but aims at a formal and spatial connection with the building's real dimensions. This observation confirms a proposition made by Lewis: "Palladio himself may thus be shown, through documents, drawings, and printed prototypes […] to have been unquestionably the inventor and supervisor

of the complete decorative cycles within his two most controversial interiors, those of the Villa Godi at Lonedo of 1549–1557, and the Villa Barbaro of 1558–1561."44

# 2. *Strategy of imitation*

Painted architecture imitates Palladio's architecture in detail, repeating it on opposite walls (like a mirror) and thus provoking a vivid interplay between reality and imitation, between fact and illusion, between the real space and the painted space.

# 3. *Strategy of spatial flexibility*

It becomes apparent that Palladio did not perceive the interior space as absolute. Interior space is not so much shaped by the actual architecture, rather it is shaped with the help of the added painted architecture. The art of painting was therefore used to simulate what could not be realized on-site, due to costs or to structural limitations. The following evolution can be observed: While in the early stage of the Palladian villa (Villa Godi), nearly each room was decorated with an individual system of painted architecture, in Villa Barbaro and Villa Emo, the artists aimed at a more unifying layout of the murals. This was a programmatic shift most likely stimulated by Palladio, for whom a harmonious appearance and a correspondence of all parts to each other always was of paramount importance.

## 4. *Strategy of dissolution*

In dialogue with real architecture, painted architecture establishes manipulative arrangements that blur the dimensions of elevations and plans. The walls are dissolved in their function as the picture's surface, questioning, thus, the very essence of the image. This dissolution provokes a perception of space and body, through which the narrowness of the rooms is annulled. The viewer is still in a sheltered interior, protected from the outside world and its potential negative influences (bad weather, political instabilities, social conflicts, economic challenges), but simulteaneosly can enjoy a vastness and openness that architecture cannot offer.45 It is well known that already Leon Battista Alberti had described the healing effect of landscape paintings. In strong

correlation with the Palladian architecture, the art of wall painting puts an idea on display which is key to understanding the Venetian villa culture: the painted vista—staged as an idealized image of landscape and domesticated nature—becomes a permanent, imperishable setting—a visual soundtrack, so to speak—for the exclusive life in the countryside.

# 5. *Dramaturgy of movement*

We observe a certain dramaturgy that progressively evolves in splendor as the visitor moves from the exterior to the interior (modesty at the exterior—Roman magnificence in the interior). As exemplified by Palladio and Zelotti in Villa Emo, the theme of magnificence [Magnificenzia] is found only inside the building. Already Kornelia Imesch noted that the Villa Emo's external sobriety (Tuscan order) contrasts with its interior splendor (Corinthian order), expressed primarily through painted architecture.46 A conceptual movement can thus be discerned, flowing from the modesty and ornamental restraint of the façades to the picturesque splendor of the interiors.

# 6. *Strategy of emotional design*

The unity of real and painted architecture generates feelings of surprise, astonishment, and overwhelmingness. It provokes feelings and moods, which the viewer's body consciously or subconsciously perceives.

# 7. *Strategy of immersive architecture*

Palladian architecture and images (paintings) stimulate and enhance each other. In this sense, an illusionary architectural framework provokes an immersive effect. Architecture becomes an expanded image. Interior space is not built; it is—by using the art of painting—designed. Therefore, the murals functioned as an extension of artistic, creative power.47 This immersive quality is, in the author's opinion, one of the foundations for Palladio's success and for his timelessness to this day.

When we see how gifted Palladio was in the field of interior design, and when we recognize how flexible and creative he was in the dialog with his fellow painters, we understand how innovative he was and how his methods and his ways of creating space and influencing the observer's perception resonate until today.

# Endnotes

If not indicated otherwise, all translations are by the author of this paper.

Renata Samperi

# **Corners and Design Process in Palladio's Architecture**

Corners, in architecture, are significant parts that often represent and reveal, in a kind of synecdoche, the character of the structural, formal, and spatial components of the entire work.1

In Palladio's work, as with every building involving architectural orders, corner solutions are closely related to the relationship between the orders and the overall building and, in the case of orders engaged to the wall, to the intense interplay between wall and column. This latter idea was a pivotal theme in Renaissance architectural culture, which implicates the relationship between very distinct, yet inevitably connected, fields of construction: support and adornment, structure and form, actual structure and represented structure.2

This essay will focus on some remarkable realized buildings, such as Palazzo Chiericati and the Venetian churches of San Francesco della Vigna and Redentore, and on some non-realized projects connected to them.

# **The Palazzo Chiericati**

Engaged orders were extensively employed by the most important architects of the early 16th century and, as we will see, their works—both realized or unrealized—were to have a great influence on Palladio's architecture. Architects like Bramante, Raffaello, and others used engaged orders to achieve a layering of the wall, which created a sense of spatial depth. In this process, half-, or counter-pilasters, placed behind and offset from

1

Elevation of the Belvedere Court, according to Bramante's project, London, Soane's Museum, Codex Coner, f. 42.

Rome, Castel Sant'Angelo, aedicule of the Chapel of Santi Cosma e Damiano.

a whole pilaster or a half-column, play a fundamental role. The half-pilaster, or counter-pilaster, is a modern lexical element that did not exist in Antiquity.3 Bramante used it in the Belvedere Court [fig. 1] and in the choir of St. Peter's, where he employed two half-pilasters set-back symmetrically next to a whole pilaster in order to form a group, as Raffaello did in the Palazzo Jacopo da Brescia. In the short side elevation of this same palazzo, Raffaello used the association of pilasters and half-pilasters to emphasize the aedicula where Leo X's coat of arms was located.4 In this case, one single half-pilaster was placed beside each edge of the aedicula in order to allow it to slightly project forward.

There are some other examples of this solution, such as Leo X's aedicule in Castel Sant'Angelo, by Michelangelo [fig. 2], and the study, attributed to Giulio Romano, for the elevation of the back wall of the courtyard of palazzo Branconio. There an aedicula with half-columns, framing a niche, projects forward from the

3 Vicenza, Palazzo Thiene, detail of the façade.

pilasters, which in turn frame the wall. This composition creates a layering effect which emphasizes the niche.5 A similar solution appears again in Vicenza, with the slight projection of the corner bays of Palazzo Thiene—an idea that can be attributed to Giulio Romano [fig. 3]. We can find the same motif in projects for numerous church façades, such as a drawing for the façade of St. Peter's which is perhaps one of the first of Antonio da Sangallo's re-imagined versions of Raffaello's projects [fig. 4]. In this case, the combination of pilasters and half-pilasters strengthens the hierarchical dominance of the central pedimented section.6

A drawing for the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini is even more interesting in relation to Palladio's architecture. It is from the papacy of Leo X and was attributed to Giulio Romano by Manfredo Tafuri, who saw it as a possible re-formulation of

Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane, design for the façade of St. Peter's, Florence, Uffizi, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, 275Ar.

#### 5

Anonymous of the XVI century (G. Romano?), design for San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Munich, Stadtmuseum, 36/1928 b.

Raffaello's ideas7 [fig. 5]. According to the plan reconstructed by Tafuri, the façade was intended to have a real pronaos, projecting from the building with a pier at the edges and a half-pilaster on the wall.8 Following this, there would have been a switch from a multi-layered wall to a three-dimensional structure containing actual physical space. It is clear that in this case, the drawing in orthogonal projection may correspond to different solutions in the plan: the one just described but also one with an engaged pronaos, as seen in some of the preceding projects. In elevation, on paper, the column types are interchangeable: piers, round columns, square columns, half-columns, and pilasters.

The lesson learned from these examples appears to have been very appealing to Palladio, as a drawing—maybe from the end of the 1540s—demonstrates. It is about the elevation of a villa. Devoid of a corresponding plan, it has been identified by Guido Beltramini as villa Repeta at Campiglia dei Berici9 [fig. 6]. As suggested by the two flights of stairs at the sides of the loggia, the corresponding plan, reconstructed by Beltramini, features a central loggia projecting from the flanking wings. As in the

#### 6

Andrea Palladio, design for Villa Repeta at Campiglia, elevation, 1547/48, London, RIBA, XVII, 21r.

### 7

Andrea Palladio, design for Palazzo Chiericati, elevation, 1550, London, RIBA, Burlington Devonshire coll., VII, 11*r*.

preceding drawing, in correspondence to the loggia projection, there is a pier at the outside corner at the edge of the pronaos and a half-pilaster at the inside corner on the wall. However, apart from the stairs, the general design might also represent an engaged loggia, and the column types might be different, as the alternative proposal of a quarter of a column drawn at the inside corner on the right suggests.

This same kind of façade recurs in the first project for Palazzo Chiericati, from 1550. It features a huge central block projecting from the wings, crowned by a pediment and provided with an open loggia on the ground floor10 [fig. 7]. In the ambiguous representation in orthogonal projection, the steps that give access to the loggia on its short side are the clue for deducing the existence of the loggia itself in the central section. The entire façade is framed by two superimposed orders. Again, an element, interpretable as a half-pilaster, defines the passage between the wings and the central block. Based on this same elevation in orthogonal projection, different hypotheses for the plan are possible.

Vicenza, Palazzo Chiericati, Southern view of Eastern elevation, Detail,

#### 9

Vicenza, Palazzo Chiericati, view of the façade. Later, when the project was changed to provide a loggia on the ground floor along the whole façade and side loggias on the upper floor, the elevation of the façade remained the same in the drawing in orthogonal projection, except for the elimination of the pediment and some dimensional and proportional changes [fig. 8–9]. However, in the new volumetric layout, the orders, earlier engaged to the wings, were conceptually moved forward from the wall to extend the colonnades of the loggias along the entire lower story and the upper side wings. On both stories, the central five bays project forward through two interlocking free columns at each end of the central section. These columns originate from the organization of the orders in the first project: namely the association of the back-set half-pilaster on the corner between the lateral wing and the central block, and the round or square column in the foreground.

Vicenza, Palazzo Chiericati, detail of the plan of the ground floor. Left: simulation of the change of design.

Right: survey of the actual building; the dotted lines indicate the misalignment between columns and interior wall. Illustration by the author.

The change of design was not without consequences for the layout of the building and the relationship between the loggia and the interior.11 It is possible to simulate this change by assuming that—as in the executed building—in the first design, two free columns were placed at the outside edges of the central loggia. These two columns were to be planned in line with the interior wall. However, the forward displacement of the pilasters of the wings results in the interlocking of the columns as executed, but also causes an unsatisfactory and disorderly grouping of the shafts at the junction point between the central section and the sides of the loggia. To solve this problem, it would have been sufficient to move the two free columns laterally and recalibrate the distances between the different elements—columns and walls—

.

Marcantonio Palladio, plan of palazzo Chiericati, London, RIBA, XVII, 8*r*.

that define the space. [fig. 10]. These adjustments, moving the axis of the columns outward, would have resulted in their misalignment with the interior wall, which is what we can see in the actual building but not in the plan later drawn by Marcantonio, Palladio's nephew and collaborator12 [fig. 11], nor in the plan in the *Quattro Libri*. 13 Palladio preferred to amend these last plans from the imperfect correspondence between the vestibule and the central section of the loggia. This example confirms, on the one hand, the initial will of aligning the two structures and, on the other, that the design change occurred during construction, namely when the interior wall—or at least its foundations—was supposed to have already been laid.

The result of the design and execution process, thus reconstructed, is extremely innovative compared to the contemporary domestic façades. Its originality is based on restoring the load-bearing function of columns and is epitomized in the doubling of columns at the end of the projected section, creating a strongly expressive corner knot which, from a tectonic perspective, defines the architectural volumes and spaces [fig. 12–13]. Palladio motivated this choice for the corner solution in the *Quattro Libri* from a structural position by explaining that, as the *sala* on the upper floor protruded above the colonnade, it required double columns under the corners. 14

12

Vicenza, Palazzo Chiericati, view of the façade.

# 13

Vicenza, Palazzo Chiericati, view of the façade, detail.

14 Baldassarre Peruzzi, design for St. Peter's, plan, New York, American Academy in Rome.

Reconstructing the transition from the first to the final project clarifies that the interlocking columns, by acquiring a structural role, nevertheless preserve the memory of the wall which generated them. The slight projection that underscores the central section of the colonnade is obtained through a solution that derives from a conceptually completely different wall architecture and would have been inconceivable without it. Therefore, Palladio recalls the approach of the Roman Renaissance and then suddenly abandons it through an extension of meaning, which again upsets the tectonic sense of architectural orders in a reversal of roles between represented and actual structure.

For this kind of operation, Palladio may have been thinking of a further Roman example, which remained at project stage: a plan for St. Peter's by Baldassarre Peruzzi, stored in the New York office of the American Academy in Rome, which appears to be a very close precedent for the idea of a great façade with trabeated columns15 [fig. 14]. In the body of the façade, completely opened by colonnades, Peruzzi seems to have proceeded in a similar manner to Palladio's work in the Palazzo Chiericati, by translating the engaged wall order explored in the recent Roman architecture into free-standing vertical supports. The portico imagined by Peruzzi comprises five sections, delimited on the outside by double rows of columns. On the front and sides, in the outermost row, each section emerges from the columns behind it through a joint formed by two interlocking piers. This junction can be attributed the same function as the combination of half-pilasters with pilasters or half-columns in the wall order, transformed here by the use of free-standing piers. The affinity of the interlocking columns of Palazzo Chiericati with Peruzzi's piers—already noted by Arnaldo Bruschi16—encourages the hypothesis that Palladio reflected on the project for St. Peter's and then realized, in a simplified and reduced form, something conceptually similar in the portico of the Vicentine palace. The substitution of round columns for Peruzzi's square elements constitutes a further original development on Palladio's part.

The design process of the Chiericati façade, which can be reconstructed through archive documents and drawings, includes not only the aforementioned initial project but also different variants of the same overall design, which emphasize its inventive and experimental nature. With great interest is how Palladio responded to the patron's requests, elaborating and transfiguring input from different sources. In addition to the models cited, two other references must be kept in mind, as James Ackerman has pointed out: on the one hand, with regard to the prominence of the middle part of the façade, the Roman house described by Vitruvius and Alberti, which was preceded—according to Palladio's reconstruction—by a central section with a pediment on columns, similar to the forepart of the initial project of Palazzo Chiericati; and on the other hand with regard to the portico along the entire front, the ancient basilica as illustrated in the edition of Cosimo Bartoli's *De re aedificatoria*, published in 1550, the same year that construction of the palace began.17 These are two types of apparently alternative layouts, capable of being integrated. However, the fusion of columns allows the central part of the façade to emerge while maintaining the continuity of the portico.

## **San Francesco della Vigna and Il Redentore**

At this point, the essay will move on to a reflection on Venetian church façades, in which the theme of the intersection of orders of different sizes—already explored by Palladio in buildings like the Palazzo Valmarana and the Loggia del Capitaniato—appears to be central and is extended to the utilization of two complete temple fronts with pediments; a brilliant solution, anticipated in the early 16th century by proposals from Bramante, Peruzzi and Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane. This solution makes it possible to apply a façade based on the ancient model of the temple, which has a constant height, to the system of variable heights of the Christian church. Engaged to the façade wall, the intersection of two temple fronts aims to project the image of the spatial and volumetric organization of the interior to the exterior.18

After some unrealized projects, Palladio's invention was translated into real architecture for the first time in the façade of San Francesco della Vigna [fig. 15]. The new façade, constructed around 1566, is placed on the church, built from 1534 onwards, based on a design by Jacopo Sansovino. Above a single basement, Palladio intersected two temple fronts through a complex definition of the relationship between orders and masonry. The major order of half-columns extends with the pediment up to the roof of the nave. It is applied to a wall that emerges in the upper part on corners, separated from the half-columns and marked only by the entablature. This arrangement was already present in various façades of the 1540s and taken up again between the 1560s and 70s [fig. 16].

## 15

Venice, San Francesco della Vigna, view of the façade.

#### 16

Venice, San Francesco della Vigna, view of the façade, detail.

Copy of a project by Raffaello for St. Peter's, *Codex Mellon*, f. 71v, detail.

In this specific case, the choice may have been directly suggested by observing a similar corner solution in the central section of the façade of St. Peter's drawn in Raffaello's project, represented in the *Codex Mellon*19 [fig. 17]. In the Venetian church, Palladio proposed an ingenious replica of this solution. He introduced the downward continuation of the neutral band of wall of the upper corners. In this way he distanced the half-pediments of the minor order from the colossal half-columns. The minor order, with half-columns and piers on the corners, runs along the entire front but is only fully formed in the side bays and the center, where it frames the portal. In the smaller bays of the middle section only the entablature continues, placed in a recessed position and flattened like the one at Palazzo Valmarana, with the cornice reduced to a single band that is less prominent than the underlying pulvinated frieze. This same profile is extended to the short stretch of free wall at the ends of the central body, to soften the contact between the two orders, leaving the complete cornice to touch the colossal half-columns only with the protrusion of the cyma and the corona. The simplified and recessed entablature continues on the edges of the central bay where the complete minor order re-emerges to frame the portal. In the façade just described, the two intersecting temple fronts are clearly legible, but the gradual intensity of the forms of the entablature of the smaller front prevents the larger one from being cleanly cut horizontally, thus losing its correspondence with the full-height space of the nave. This horizontal cut, for example, can be seen on the façade of San Giorgio Maggiore, which was influenced but not designed by Palladio. There the lines of the entablature of the minor order run undifferentiated along the entire width of the front.

Palladio's experience with the theme of the façade with intersecting fronts culminates in the church of the Redentore, whose construction began in 1577 [fig. 18]. In this case, the façade and the body of the building belong to the same design and executive phase, and a more stringent coordination between the parts was therefore possible.

18 Venice, Il Redentore view of the façade.

Venice, Il Redentore view of the façade, detail.

The basic scheme is applied according to a new composition strategy, based on a definition through layers with rather limited depth, intended as a projection of the fundamental components of the complex structure of the building. While the precedent of San Francesco della Vigna is taken up in some aspects, different criteria govern the relationship between the parts, the interplay between orders and walls, and the treatment of the corners. The major temple front has a pediment placed lower than the roof of the nave and engaged to an attic, reminiscent of the Pantheon. This front sits on top of a flight of steps and has two half-columns in the center and piers at the corners. In the minor front, the half-pediments are replicated at the top in a simplified form using parts corresponding to the profile of the buttresses. The order, as in San Francesco della Vigna, develops along the entire façade and is formed completely in the outside bays and the center, while applying only the simplified and recessed entablature in the side bays of the major front. As in the previous example, the order frames the portal in the center [fig. 19].

Compared to San Francesco della Vigna, the definition of the outside bays is very different. It features a system of pilasters and half-pilasters placed on different layers, running around the corners and continuing along the sides of the building [fig. 20]. The treatment of the area in contact with the main front also changes, as it is closed off at the corners by protruding piers. Therefore, the wall band, that separates the two orders in San Francesco, is missing here. The minor order is joined to the corner piers of the major order by means of half-pilasters, while the half-pediments are juxtaposed without mediation at the level of the capitals.

20

Venice, Il Redentore view of the façade, detail.

The insertion of the half-pilasters in the transition between the wings and the central body recalls, as we have seen, Roman models already proposed as sources for the projects of Villa Repeta and Palazzo Chiericati. Palladio thus recovered particular solutions from Roman examples of the early sixteenth century. This included solutions that had already been exploited, reworked, and apparently superseded during the course of his career, but also solutions that had not been used in his work before, such as the association of pilaster and half-pilaster on the corner, or solutions which were only used in project drawings, such as the combination of half-pilasters with supports of different forms, aimed at coordinating protruding and recessed parts of the wall. For Palladio, the use of flattened pilasters and half pilasters, therefore, seemed to constitute a sort of return to the origins of his training. This took place within a completely innovative architecture, the most mature outcome of a long reflection on the theme of the façade with intersecting orders, but also the fulfilment of the task indicated by Bramante, aimed at representing three-dimensionality, thus evoking spatiality within the limits of an almost flat front. Palladio was able to realize this task based on his long experimentation with the ever-changing play of walls and columns in the envelope of his buildings.

The method of orthogonal projection, used almost constantly, also determines a particular way of using the models 'reduced' through this type of representation. As we have seen, an identical elevation can suggest different layouts in plan, multiplying the possible solutions offered by the same model and, as Howard Burns has pointed out, favoring its creative use20—a design process made up of small deviations and slight changes, but with unexpected and often innovative formal outcomes.

# Endnotes

If not indicated otherwise, all translations are by the author of this paper.

Martin Ebert

# **Fact and Fiction**

# **Palladio's Buildings: Just Images?**

Palladio's buildings are instantly recognisable. They create fascinating and highly memorable architectural images. The plans are simple and seemingly easy to read, and the façades display grandeur with great visual depth, without being overbearing.

Whilst the plans follow a straightforward, almost minimalist, symmetrical layout composed of squares and rectangles with traceable proportions, the elevations are much more elaborate and far more difficult to analyse and decode. The outline is simple, often a box with a gable roof, but the superimposed façades are created from intricate designs, conceived from complex, interwoven and layered compositions, sourced from a classic canon of architectural elements [fig. 1].

When looking at Palladio's designs, historic research tends to separate the analysis of the plan, or the structure, from the façade. In James Ackerman's seminal book on Palladio, chapter 5 on architectural principles mainly concerns itself with the horizontal layout.1 He discusses façades regarding their artistic merit, but not in terms of the architectural process, analysing proportional relationships and comparing façade compositions to their roman

1 View of Il Redentore, Venice, from across the lagoon.

originals and to the designs of other architects. Ackerman does, however, mention that Palladio's façades are the result of "[…] co-ordination of exterior and interior design by representing the interior organization on the façades […]."2

Ackerman's observation of a co-ordination between plan and façade is clearly important, but it is disappointing that he does not elaborate and explain how exactly this co-ordination is achieved. Manfredo Tafuri and Howard Burns take up the notion of "co-ordination"3 independently and explore it further. Tafuri observes how Palladio creates a "projective geometry made of transparencies and superimpositions"4 and Burns describes how "overall layout, structure and external appearance are inseparable elements of an organic unity".5 However, Burns also points out that Palladio used, what he called, an "extra touch, that slight bending of rules or improvisation in details, which give his buildings their individuality and beauty".6

This essay wants to examine this process of co-ordination further and explore if there is relevance in this for the architectural discourse today. The focus is hereby on the architectural methodology behind the designs and not on the intricacies of the actual artistic outcome.

Of particular interest is here whether Palladio's approach of *co-ordination*, clearly different from *matching*, *tracing* or *replicating*, implies a looseness and openness for interpretation that allows him freedom to create façades which cannot be completely rationally explained. Perhaps it is no surprise, and exactly the point, that plan and elevation are not a perfect match, and perhaps it is here where Palladio deviates from his mentor Barbaro who stipulated that the elevation "must also conform to the plan".7

Perhaps only in this way an architecture, or an image of architecture, with a higher meaning can emerge? Perhaps this openness is fundamental to artistic endeavour where fact and fiction are intrinsically linked?

2 Basilica of Sant'Abbondio, Como, south elevation.

3 Basilica of Sant'Abbondio, Como, corner detail.

# **Architectural Expression as a Symbolization of Structure and Space**

In his book, *Palladio, der Bildermacher* (Palladio, the Image Maker), Thorsten Bürklin also refers to Howard Burns and what Burns calls a "compositional kit"*.* 8 Bürklin goes on to describe how Palladio adds a second layer of classical ornamentation to otherwise simple box-shaped buildings.9 This second layer gives the buildings direction and outlook, and provides interest and architectural expression. A key example for this method is Palazzo Valmarana Braga in Vicenza which Guido Beltramini uses to explain Palladio's design method of orthogonal projection to create a composition of superimposed layers. 10 Even though the elevation cannot be fully appreciated head-on, as the building is located in a narrow medieval street, two expressive external "planes" have been added.11 The façade, although condensed to about 40 cm, adds an incredible visual depth to the building, suggesting a deep architectural space in front of the building's actual perimeter.

The device of adding a decorative plane, or layer, to an otherwise not-so-interesting stone volume was nothing new in 16th century architecture [fig. 2, 3]. What is interesting, however, about Palladio, is how he derives key elements of this external layer of classical expression from the building's internal structure. It is the way this layer is added to the outside and yet how it seems to grow from the inside, closely reflecting the internal arrangement and structure that make Palladio's buildings so captivating.

It is perhaps best demonstrated in Palazzo Valmarana Braga and Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza, as well as in Il Redentore in Venice and, predating these, in his wood cuts illustrating Vitruvius' comments on architecture.12 In an illustration of a roman temple, Palladio developed the idea of showing section and elevation of the building in the same image, suggesting that they are two aspects of the same idea; that one—the façade—cannot be conceived or comprehended without understanding the other the section [fig. 4]. Analyzing the façades of Il Redentore and Palazzo Chiercati highlights several key steps in Palladio's methodology [fig. 5–8]:

4

Daniele Barbaro and Andrea Palladio, representation of the Orthographia and Sciographia in Barbaro's commentary of Vitruvius from 1567.

5 Il Redentore, Venice, view of main elevation. Analysis by the author.

6Il Redentore, Venice, plan. Analysis by the author.

7 Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza. Analysis by the author.

#### 8

Palazzo Chiercati, Vicenza, plan Analysis by the author.

**A.** The façade is a separate layer or space. In particular in Il Redentore, the façade takes on its own allotted zone in plan and is superimposed to the front of the building.

**B.** As Tafuri suggests, the façade creates transparency.13 The artistic composition of verticals and horizontals, columns and architraves is, fundamentally, a reflection of the building's internal spatial arrangement, or its structure. According to Andrea Guerra, the Il Redentore elevation "enables us to reconstruct Palladio's design process, developed through the orthogonal projection of spaces and masses on the plane of the façade."14 Thus, the façade, the external image, reflects the internal workings of the building by projecting them onto the external elevation. Without the façade, the internal structure of the building would remain hidden behind its (masonry) external walls, and through this process the buildings become transparent and legible.

**C.** The façade is a dramatization. As it is not the structure itself (which is hidden from view), but an interpretation of it, this allows Palladio both a point of departure and artistic freedom at the same time. The structure becomes the skeleton of the image. It is a rough sketch which provides space to depart from slavishly *tracing* the structure onto the façade. The latter is particularly crucial when trying to understand why it is difficult to fully reconstruct Palladio's façade compositions, as he was able to make adjustments based on visual perception rather than structural or mathematical deduction.

This process of creating façades as images by layering and superimposing, interpreting and dramatizing structure and spatial arrangement can be summarized as creating images by means of symbolization of structure and space.

## **Thus: Image <=> Structure <=> Space.**

# **The Modernist Pursuit of Truth**

Modernism departs from this concept of interpreting and layering. Hendrik Berlage demands of modernism to adhere to "the principle of simple honest construction" and heavily criticizes other contemporary architects and in particular Henry van der Velde and the Art Nouveau movement for being "the opposite of this healthy principle".15

In the absence of decoration and ornament, modernism is fundamentally concerned with a notion of honesty and truth where the external expression of the building is de facto the building's inner spatial arrangement and structure without mediation or translation. *Image, structure and space become one.*

# **Thus: Image = Structure = Space.**

Architectural quality here relies almost entirely on the architect's artistic ability to create sculpturally coherent structures as there are no other means of artistic expression left. The more successful examples of modernist architecture are often private houses or public buildings in prominent locations where the building shape takes on iconic qualities such as Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, the Sydney Opera House by Jørn Utzon or Oscar Niemeyer's government buildings in Brasilia. En masse, celebrated masterpieces aside, this resulted in a somewhat contradictory situation. On one hand there was monotony and blandness as buildings started to look uniform and repetitive, and on the other, modernism created many ugly monstrosities due to the often-lacking sculptural and artistic abilities of the average architect.

One of the best, although lesser known and less celebrated, examples of modernist architecture is the National Theatre in London by Denys Lasdun from 1976.16 Situated on the South Bank of the river Thames, the building offers a series of publicly accessible terraces and spaces facing the river and overlooking the London skyline. The auditoria are buried deep inside the center of the building. The result is a highly complex arrangement of spaces which find their perfect expression in the building form showing the fly tower surrounded by projecting concrete decks on all sides. The building form is derived entirely from the internal arrangement of terraces and spaces. It is a fundamentally open structure, visually and physically accessible from all sides. Thus, it is more landscape than architecture and does not have a façade, building front or perimeter in a traditional sense. It is completely devoid of references of classical architecture and yet it is powerful, unique and completely convincing as a piece of publicly accessible sculpture. The view onto the building is less memorable than the spaces inside or the view from the building onto the London skyline [fig. 9].

9 Denys Lasdun, National Theatre, London, view from Waterloo Bridge.

Modernism enjoyed great success in northern Europe but also in areas with moderate and warm climate and limited requirements for thermal insulation. It is no accident that almost all iconic modernist buildings were built before the great energy crisis of the 1970s. Ever since, architecture has become increasingly concerned (although not sufficiently successful) with lowering energy consumption. Buildings in the northern hemisphere have started to acquire a thick coat of thermal insulation. This added insulation layer makes it more difficult to directly express a building's structure on the outside as piercing through the shell causes thermal breaks, associated heat loss and condensation.

10 Christian Kerez, Leutschenbach School, Zurich.

This has not stopped some contemporary architects, especially in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, to adhere to the modernist tradition of expressing the building's structure on the outside. Next to Richard Rogers' works in the UK, Christian Kerez's Leutschenbach School near Zurich17 and Miller & Maranta's apartment building at Schwarzpark in Basle18 are prime examples where the structure is visible "as is" on the outside of the building. In particular, Kerez's school is a stunningly beautiful building where the structure takes on a sublime sculptural quality that permeates all spaces and gives the building an unforgettable identity [fig. 10].

But this pursuit of truth comes at a price. Penetrating the building's thermal envelope with loadbearing columns and beams is only possible with highly sophisticated and thermally broken, yet structurally continuous, shear connectors. 19 These details are not only extremely difficult and expensive to build. They also require highly advanced thermal and structural modelling and cooperation of the local building inspectorate.

It is interesting to compare this type of "tour de force construction methodology" with Palladio's approach. Instead of using ever more complex and expensive means of construction, Palladio would have probably taken a much more pragmatic route. The author would suggest that Palladio instead would have accepted the insulation requirements of contemporary construction and added a further façade layer in front of the insulation rather than penetrate through it.

# **The Postmodern Disconnect**

Fed up with the numbing repetition of simplistic modernist architecture and under the banner "less is a bore" a group of postmodern architects decided in the 1960s to create a more flamboyant architecture where the building's image becomes more interesting and to a greater extent separated from the building's structure and spatial configuration.

# **As a formula: Image ≠ Structure ≠ Space.**

One of the prime examples of this departure from the modernist pursuit of truth is Philipp Johnson's design for the AT&T Tower in New York (now known as 550 Madison Avenue). Inside, the structural and spatial configuration is exactly the same as a typical 1960s office tower with a regular column grid and a central core with elevators, staircases, WCs and technical services. Yet on the outside, the building looks like a giant Chippendale cabinet. Another building, where image and structure are disconnected, is the Piazza d'Italia in New Orleans by Charles Moore. It is an entirely fictitious coulisse, a colorful assemblage of Roman stairs, porticoes, gables and columns to frame a public space. The façade does not represent any building and serves only as public entertainment.

More recent examples of image-driven architecture are de Rotterdam by OMA and West 57th Street in New York by Bjarke Ingels Group.

De Rotterdam is a mixed-use development on the edge of the river Maas with parking, hotel, commercial, office and residential space. The building consists of three towers that are formed from glass-clad cubes which have been shifted from their vertical axis to create cantilevered structures. Viewing the building across the river, it creates a visually striking and memorable image. However, with the façades clad in a uniform glass and aluminium envelope, the image remains a reflection of light and does not provide a deeper understanding of the building's inner workings.

Bart Lootsma calls the overall impression "blank" in his appraisal in the Architectural Review. 20 The shifting shapes challenge the laws of gravity. The enormous structural support required to allow the cantilevers to work is not referenced on the outside. This leaves the viewer impressed but not informed; the building image does not give any clues as to how this engineering feat is achieved. Although it hides its structural complexity behind a sleek façade, de Rotterdam at least offers some notion of the organization of the building that one might make assumptions about different uses for the different blocks and towers. Perhaps one could argue the shapes symbolize the very idea of mixed-use [fig. 11].

11 OMA, De Rotterdam, Rotterdam, view from across the river.

Bjarke Ingels Group's design for 57th West Street in New York goes one step further by creating a shape that is based on an entirely superficial notion of leaving a mark on the skyline of New York. All consideration for sensible apartment layouts or structural integrity seems to be subordinate to the creation of a memorable icon.

In their book *Learning from Las Vegas*, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour explore the disconnect between content and form, structure and image. Interestingly, they notice that in their pursuit of truth, modernist architects have increasingly used the building's structure as the main form giver, and thereby required a usually mundane element of the building fabric to have poetic and artistic qualities.21 This is an expectation which the structure normally cannot satisfy, leading to more and more extravagant and complex structural solutions which became increasingly difficult and inefficient to build.

In this juxtaposition of the modernist and postmodernist position, architecture gets stuck in a dichotomy. On one hand, there are post-modern buildings that lack visual and intellectual transparency, where image and content (space and structure) are disconnected, leaving the viewer perhaps entertained but ultimately misinformed and confused. On the other hand, there are modernist buildings that, exceptions aside, are dull, of poor aesthetic quality or increasingly difficult to build.

This is where Palladio's methodology becomes interesting.

# **Symbolization of Structure and Space in Contemporary Architecture**

In the search for more recent applications of Palladio's methodology in contemporary architecture, surprisingly, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of Modernism's main protagonists comes to the fore. His post-war oeuvre tells the story of how he moved away from a strict modernist approach in the 1920s and 30s and started adopting a Palladian construction methodology from the late 1940s onwards.22

His first buildings in Chicago, constructed between 1941 and 1946 shortly after he arrived there from Berlin, were simple

12 Mies van der Rohe, Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Chicago. industrial buildings in which, in the modernist tradition, he used an expressed structural frame to give order and articulation to the building's façade. In his first commission for a highrise apartment building, the Promontory Apartments (1946–49), he continued with this approach and employed a simple concrete structural frame with brick infills and aluminium windows. However, almost in parallel to this very direct modernist technique, Mies started experimenting with additional layers wrapping around the actual structural frame.

Although some of his first buildings in Chicago were made with a concrete frame, the subsequent ones all employed a primary steel frame. As a steel frame requires fire protection, especially in taller buildings, exposing the actual frame was no longer a possibility. So, protecting and hiding, layering and wrapping the frame was a technical necessity, but also a creative opportunity at the same time, just as it was for Palladio. This approach can notably be seen in Mies' designs for the Alumni Memorial Hall on the IIT campus from 1946 and for the Lake Shore Drive Apartments from 1951 [fig. 12]. In both cases, an internal structural steel frame is encased with concrete for fire protection which, in turn, is faced with steel plates and I-beams mounted at regular intervals.23

At the time, Mies van der Rohe was confronted with criticism for he was decorating his buildings with elements which look like structure but are in fact not load-bearing. Richard Padovan refers to the decorative layer of I-beams and its relationship to the internal frame in his essay *Machines à méditer*. 24 To him the I-beams become an essential part of the building fabric and, in the corners, create a kind of bundle pillar similar to the architectural vocabulary of the high gothic. He compares Mies' approach to Thomas Aquinus' famous definition of truth as the adaptation of reality and understanding, *adeaquatio rei et intellectus*. The façade not only refers to the structure situated behind the cladding, but symbolizes the very idea of *structure*, *support* and *stability*. The decorative layer becomes necessary for a deeper understanding of the building.

Mies' student at IIT, Jacques Brownson, employed exactly the same principles with great effect at the Chicago Civic Center (now Daley Center). Here the entire building is clad in a cor-ten steel envelope which, from the outside, looks remarkably like the actual structure, but it is not. Again, the actual steel frame is covered in fire protection and the cor-ten steel envelope is only a very thin skin. Visually striking, and perhaps the reason why the skin looks so much like the steel frame, is the use of applied strips of steel plating to create visual depth within the spandrels and column covers.25

After the postmodern hiatus of about 20 years, one of the first examples where the process of layering and symbolization of the building's structure is used again is I. M. Pei's Bank of China in Hong Kong. The interplay of building shape, structural system and façade design is truly remarkable. As with Palladio's Il Redentore, the building's main viewpoint is from across the water, from Kowloon across Victoria Bay to Hong Kong Island, and the image is similarly unforgettable. In terms of symbolization of structure, Pei employs Palladio's methodology. The crosses shown on the façade represent the building's main structural frame, a three-dimensional system of trusses that creates the building's lateral stability system. 26

In today's architecture, there are several architects, notably Hans Kollhoff, Peter Märkli and David Chipperfield, who can be seen in this tradition of Palladio and Mies van der Rohe. These architects have accepted and accommodated the need for simple and efficient construction techniques, but this has not kept them from conceiving sophisticated architectural concepts and designs with striking visual impact.

In his designs for the Picassohaus office building in Basle and the headquarter building for Synthes in Solothurn, Märkli uses simple rectilinear forms.27 The Synthes headquarter building is an elongated box and the Picassohaus building creates a U-shaped courtyard towards the main square. In both cases, the building skin has been hung in front of the main frame. The Picassohaus building employs an off-the-shelf cladding system to great effect by enhancing it with folded metal sheets to create an elegant grid of thin verticals and wider horizontals (which also house an external blind system) [fig. 13, 14].

13 Peter Märkli, Picassohaus Office Building, Basel, façade junction mock up

14 Peter Märkli, Picassohaus Office Building, Basel, view along north-facing elevation <sup>15</sup>

Peter Märkli, Headquarters Building for Synthes, Solothurn, colonnade detail.

In the Synthes headquarters, Märkli adds another element. Pushed out further from the thermal envelope which sits in front of the frame, representing the building's structure and geometry through windows and pre-cast elements, a colonnade has been provided, running the length of the building in the front and rear. This colonnade creates an intermediate space between inside and outside and gives a sense of scale to the very long building.

Importantly, the colonnade is not part of the building's main frame. It is very much, in the Palladian sense, an additional layer representing the building's frame, which is not the frame itself nor supports it [fig. 15, 16].

In Hans Kollhoff's tower at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, the whole building is clad with a sophisticated relief of red bricks. The main frame is made from concrete and the bricks are part of a pre-cast sandwich element which is hung from this frame.28 The pattern of the relief changes as it goes up the building, creating horizontal bands which correspond with steps in the building shape. The structural system does not fundamentally change over the height of the building, demonstrating Kollhoff's intention to show the relief not as structure but as a representation and, in a way, an enhancement of it.29

16 Peter Märkli, Headquarters Building for Synthes, Solothurn, corner view of main elevation.

# **Bringing Palladio to Westphalia**

In 1999 David Chipperfield won the competition for and was subsequently commissioned to design the headquarters for clothing retailer Ernsting's Family in Coesfeld-Lette near Münster in Germany.30 The project was conceived as a group of three pavilions creating a series of courtyards and atria, with offices organized around these spaces. One fundamental consideration was the headquarters' setting in a rural landscape. Framing the views in and out of the building was an important design parameter. To further this intention, the façade was developed as an almost two meter deep space of accessible loggias, providing a space mediating between the office interior and the surrounding landscape. Viewed from the outside, the frames only cover the columns and floors, yet they appear solid and substantial, in particular when viewed at an angle. Due to their depth, the frames visually contract and form a solid-looking mass of concrete which, despite its apparent solidity, seem to defy gravity and "appear to float"31 above the ground.

As in Palladio's façades, the loggias are added as an additional layer. They create their own zone or space, wrapping around the building on all sides, including the external courtyard. The corners are emphasized by pushing the frame to the outside of the adjoining loggia thus exposing the internal columns. The loggias also form their own structural system. They share the same foundations as the perimeter columns but they do not cantilever from the internal structure. They are constructed as vertical fins and horizontal architraves with an insulation layer between the internal structure and the external loggias. The loggias are only attached to the main structure with small stainless-steel brackets at discrete locations for horizontal support. At the main entrance and towards the garden entrance, the loggias are altered to create a portico and a colonnade. Similar to the standard frames, the portico and colonnade are effectively stand-alone structures with their own foundations, only tied back to the main building for horizontal support. [fig. 17–22].

David Chipperfield, Ernsting Service Center, Coesfeld-Lette, plan.

18

David Chipperfield, Ernsting Service Center, Coesfeld-Lette, façade detail.

David Chipperfield, Ernsting Service Center, Coesfeld-Lette, construction of typical bay.

#### 21

David Chipperfield, Ernsting Service Center, Coesfeld-Lette, construction of main entrance portico.

22 David Chipperfield, Ernsting Service Center, Coesfeld-Lette, forecourt The similarities between the construction methods of the Ernsting's Family building and Palladio's buildings are clear.

# **Symbolization as a Method**

Palladio's method of layering the external building envelope and creating a memorable image not just as an arbitrary scenery, but by using the internal spatial arrangement and structure as a reference and starting point, has discipline and yet allows great artistic freedom. This process of layering and symbolization of structure on the building's façade is relevant for both the process of making architecture and the perception of architecture.

# *Layering and Superimposing*

Palladio used the simplest and most efficient forms of construction that were available at the time. This allowed for streamlining of the construction process and meant that his projects could be realized across a large part of the Veneto in northern Italy at a time when a site visit required several days of travel. His contractors simply knew how to build his buildings without much explanation because Palladio employed construction techniques that were widely known.

Building the main frame with simple and accepted standard practice allowed Palladio to focus his design on the precision of the plan and the decoration of the exterior. The buildings are almost always simple box-like volumes and only a few have *barchesse* (added barns or sheds) that would create more complex external spaces and building geometries. Most buildings have no sculptural qualities beyond basic massing. What makes Palladio's buildings interesting is the artistry and architectural composition of the layers added to the outside of these volumes. And this is where Palladio was able to focus his energies.

Today's architects use much of their time creating, what they believe are, interesting shapes, often ending up with buildings that are extremely difficult to build. Much design time is spent working out how the basic structure and the build-up of the external envelope is constructed.

As evidenced by the projects by Miller & Maranta and Christian Kerez, the modernist doctrine of truth by directly expressing the building's structure on the outside is running into difficulty in the northern hemisphere as buildings have to become heavily insulated to reduce heating requirements. Thus, penetrating a building's envelope with the structural frame is becoming increasingly technically challenging, difficult to construct and ultimately costly.

Taking a leaf out of Palladio's handbook, architects could spend less time worrying about the shape of the building and complicated detailing, and instead create a simple and purposeful plan, use well-established, standard construction techniques and have more time to concern themselves with the creation of legible and well-proportioned façades.

# *Accessibility*

The other effect of this process of layering and superimposing the structure as an image is that the buildings become more visually accessible. Palladio's façades are immediately recognizable and highly effective, probably mostly due to their visual clarity despite the underlying compositional complexity. They are not arbitrary fabrications of architectural fiction. They represent the building's inner workings and allow the viewer to begin to understand how the building is organized on the inside. Thus, Palladio's façades make the buildings accessible to the public and facilitate an initial, although perhaps unconscious, appreciation of its overall design and layout.

In this way Palladio's buildings achieve something that much of recent architecture does not. They are beautiful and comprehensible at the same time. And perhaps this is why they are so memorable.

# Endnotes

If not indicated otherwise, all translations are by the author of this paper.

Dikkie Scipio

# **Let's Talk About Palladio** A Brave Attempt to Understand a 16th-Century Architect

## **Introduction**

To understand the 16th-century architect Palladio and his architecture, we must create some context. Where did he live, when, with whom, and what did he do to be of significance even now, five centuries later? How did he differ from his colleagues? What happened in architecture to break with the classical tradition, and what happened in the architectural debate to abandon the search for beauty? Talking about Palladio, there are basically three points worth considering in today's architecture debate. The first is the lost relationship between image and building. When construction methods become disconnected from the image, the image seeks independence in icons whose value represents an idea rather than being one. Secondly, what happened to the concept of beauty? Suppose we accept the abundance of these ideas. Can we still conclude that architecture is not a result of functionality but that it exists despite it? And finally, what does it mean to be an architect? A relevant question we try to ignore by answering an architect can be everything but not a *homo Universalis*.

# **Part I**

Why is it that so many people feel connected to the work of Palladio, and why should we architects be? In the beginning, we must refresh our memory and get some context of 15th-century Europe [fig. 1], which changed from a medieval Gothic society into the Renaissance. It was a complex environment ruled by many royal houses and kingdoms. The land that we now know as Italy was divided into many smaller states [fig. 2].  In the center were the Papal States, and in the south, the (only) kingdom of Napoli, including Sicily.

Mighty families dominated the city-states in the north. They were proud to be independent and not royal, allowing free trade, which ultimately brought them great wealth. So much 1 Europe, 1490 A.D.

wealth, in fact, that by the end of the century, they had become the bankers of half of Europe and gained even more power. The families were very competitive, not only in armory but also in art (including jewelry and crafts), music, theatre, architecture, innovations, and discoveries. This competitive focus on culture was fertile soil for the artists and the arts, and it also made the families demand ever higher quality.

As a result, artists, musicians, actors, architects, world explorers, and scientists were strongly bound to the families. Follow the artists' moves, and you will find the journeys and politics of the families. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446), Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) are just some of many artists who flourished through the wealth-power of the ruling families in a relatively stable environment. Many significant works of art, discoveries, and changes marked the 15th century. Three events, in particular, have extraordinary importance for the field of architecture: the discovery of the *Ten Books on Architecture* of Vitruvius by Bracciolini in 1416, the introduction of the perspective by Brunelleschi in 1415, and the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in 1455.

Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) was an early Renaissance humanist and scholar. Despite his birth town being Florence, he served seven different popes in Rome, contributing to the strong connections between the two states. He continued to keep in touch with his city and was called back to become appointed the Chancellor of the Florentine Republic. In the early 15th century, in 1416, Poggio Bracciolini discovered a manuscript copy of Vitruvius's treatise *De Architectura* in the monastic library of St. Gallen in Switzerland.1 This was very significant since the architecture of Roman antiquity could previously only be understood by studying the ruins. The discovery of the Vitruvian scrolls is considered the start of the High Renaissance or rebirth of the Roman Antiquity.

Vitruvius (born between 100–80 BC) wrote *De Architectura* in the Augustan age of Roman antiquity, probably 25–23 BC. Some parts refer to a period at least ten years before that, when he mentioned his service to Julius Caesar. He recorded for his emperor the architectural and engineering achievements of the Greeks and early Romans and the harmony they had sought between nature and architecture, which he hoped to revive. The text gave information about how ancient buildings were conceived and built with factual information about the materials used, the construction techniques, and the design intentions. The findings were of considerable importance as they would ultimately lead to the Renaissance style in architecture. They are set out in ten books, of which the first one is concerned with defining what an architect and architecture are. Vitruvius explains that an architect must be both a master craftsman and a scholar. He is unequivocal in his statement that without the one, the other will never be convincing:

"The architect should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning, for it is by his judgement that all work done by the other arts is put to the test. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory."2

"Practice is the continuous and regular exercise of employment where manual work is done with any necessary material according to the design of a drawing. Theory, on the other hand, is the ability to demonstrate and explain the productions of dexterity on the principles of proportion."3

"It follows, therefore, that architects who have aimed at acquiring manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a position of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied only upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the shadow, not the substance. But those who have a thorough knowledge of both, like men armed at all points, have the sooner attained their object and carried authority with them."4 Vitruvius named all the disciplines that the architect had to

acquire and studies he must learn, which are numerous: drawing, geometry, history, philosophy, music, medicine, law, astronomy, and the theory of the heavens. Unfortunately, the text was difficult to comprehend fully as it was handwritten, not illustrated, and incorporated obscure technical terms in Latin and a mixture of Greek and Latin.

The introduction of the linear perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi in 1415, one year before discovering the Vitruvian scrolls, was another important moment. The theory was registered in (still hand-) writing by Leon Battista Alberti in 1435 in the book *Della Pittura* [fig. 3]. Alberti was a scientist, writer, artist, architect, and diplomat at Pope Eugenius' IV court. He is most famous for his registration of Brunelleschi's linear perspective and his own ten books on architecture in 1452, *De re aedificatoria*, handwritten in Latin. Alberti criticized Vitruvius, as he considered his books unclear, unreadable, and failing to explain.5

Alberti wrote his book in the rhetorical style, which resulted in not only describing the architecture but explaining (rather forcefully) how and why an architect should act:

"I should explain exactly whom I mean by an architect; for it is no carpenter that I would have you compare to the greatest exponents of their disciplines: the carpenter is but an instrument in the hands of the architect."6

"Him, I consider the architect, who by sure and wonderful reason and method, knows both how to devise through his own mind and energy, and to realise by construction, whatever can be most beautifully fitted out for the noble needs of man, by the movement of weight and the joining and massing of bodies."7

"To do this he must have an understanding and knowledge of all the highest and most noble disciplines. This is the architect."8

3 Leon Battista Alberti, Treatise on painting (Study of perspective). In: Alberti 1435, 182.

Alberti, in contrast to Vitruvius, was a statesman. He traveled a lot and was the only architect for three projects for the banker Giovanni Rucellai, a close relation of the Medici family. That is perhaps why he made a great effort to make a treatise telling others how to build, in which he warns architects of many possible political and contractual troubles. Nevertheless, Alberti's book reads like a novel and was, until the late 19th century, still the basis of all architectural education.

The last of the 15th century inventions mentioned above is probably the most important: the Gutenberg printing press in 1455. It was the press that made it possible to print and copy the Vitruvius scrolls all over Europe. This provoked a whole stream of dedicated enthusiasts that now had the means to interpret the remnants of ancient buildings, measuring them and then restoring their forms in drawings. With this information, they too could build in the ancient manner.

At the end of the 15th century, Europe had changed. Then the reformation occurred, and the Roman church suddenly lost its undisputable power. Instead of many, now only three dynasties ruled Europe while the Italian republics suffered major defeats, ultimately leading to the Italian city-states' downfall. The families had to deal with their loss of superiority over Europe.9

The 16th century requested another mindset. Many families embraced Italian Humanism (or Renaissance humanism), which accepted Roman antiquity as the superior period of Italy's history that they hoped to revive. The Academies in Florence and Rome were famous and promoted classical literature and wisdom. These academies were based on three pillars: study, arts, and virtue. In antiquity, virtue meant excellence and good action. Thus, virtue was preceded by study and knowledge of the arts.10 Many clergymen were humanists, and many young nobles also enjoyed a humanist education.

Andrea di Pietro Della Gondola was born in Padua in a humble family on November 30th, 1508. There, until the age of 16, he was apprenticed to a sculptor before moving to nearby Vicenza and enrolling in the guild of the bricklayers and stonemasons. He was employed as a mason in workshops specializing in monuments and decorative sculpture. When the humanist, statesman, poet, and scholar Count Gian Giorgio Trissino decided to rebuild a villa in Cricoli, just outside of Vincenza, in the Classical style, it was a lucky course of events that Andrea was one of the workers between 1530 and 1538. The villa was Trissino's interpretation of the ancient Roman architect and theorist Vitruvius. It was planned to house an Academy for his pupils, who lived a semimonastic life studying mathematics, music, philosophy, and classical authors. Trissino noticed Andrea and the count undertook to expand his practical experience with a Humanist education.11 When Andrea finished his education at the Academia, he was given the name Palladio, after a Humanist habit, as an allusion to the mythological figure Pallas Athena and a character in Trissino's poem *L'Italia liberata dai goti*. 12 The poem, first published in 1547, talks about an archangel called Palladio, an expert on architecture. It indicates both Andrea's respect for Trissino and the hopes the count had for his protégé.

It was Palladio who later illustrated the publication, translation, and interpretation of Vitruvius's books by Daniele Barbaro13, his mentor, after Trissino's death. Palladio's work was dedicated to the search to understand the proportions of beauty in architecture, taking lessons of Vitruvius as guidelines [fig. 4, 5]:

"There are three things in every building (as Vitruvius says) that have to be considered, without which none deserve credit; these are: usefulness or convenience, durability, and beauty."14

"For one could not describe as perfect a building which was useful, but only briefly, or one which was inconvenient for a long time, or being both durable and useful, that was not beautiful."15

Next pages

#### 4

Cesare Cesariano, Diagram showing Vitruvian principles applied to the design of Milan Cathedral. In: Vitruvius Pollio 1521, Liber primus, XV, verso.

#### 5

Cesare Cesariano, The Vitruvian Man. Ideal proportions revealed to be based on the human body. In: Vitruvius Pollio 1521, Liber tertius, L, como.

Scipio 251

"Beauty will derive from a graceful shape and the relationship of the whole of the parts, and of the parts among themselves and to the whole, because buildings must appear to be like complete and well-defined bodies, of which one member matches another and all the members are necessary for what is required."16

Durability implies longevity, as opposed to the nowadays fashionable sustainability or circularity, which both accept the short lifecycle of buildings. Palladio's buildings were meant to stand as the ancient architecture did. The choice of location, position, carefully selected materials, and the simple stacking of weight on weight made the buildings truly durable.

Usefulness or convenience is understood as the architecture's ability to properly host the client's needs. These needs do not dictate the form and dimensions of the architecture. Therefore, the architecture is not a result of functionality but exists despite it.

The metric system, the mathematical shapes, the dimensions, the playful use of views and light, the steps from graceful entering to privacy, the decorations, colors, and art, applied with craftsmanship, give the architecture an independent quality.

Like Alberti before him, Palladio also wrote a treaty, although he was neither a statesman nor from a noble or wealthy family. He was a hardworking fortunate child of his time. He understood the needs of his clients and had both the knowledge and the craftsmanship that Alberti did not. Palladio's style is very different from Alberti's. He did not write about education in terms of what others should do or be. His ambition to note down his instructions had very different motives. He wrote factual and straightforward instructions without bias and motivated his intentions as follows:

"I considered it worthy of man, who is not born for himself alone but also to be of use to others, to make public the designs of those buildings that I have collected over such a long period and at

such personal risk, and to expound briefly what it is about them that seemed to me most worthy of consideration, and also the rules that I have followed and still follow when building; so that those who read my books may benefit from what is useful in them and supply for themselves those things […] which I will have overlooked."17

During his life, the four books were never published altogether, but one by one. It is not even sure whether Palladio intended to write only four books. He could also have intended to write ten resembling Vitruvius.

It is conceivable though he considered the four books sufficient. This would be consistent with the promise he makes in the introduction of the first chapter:

"In all these books I shall avoid being long-winded and will simply provide the advice that seems essential to me, and will make use of those terms widely used nowadays by craftsmen."18

Palladio's drawings prove that he understood what is essential to understand a building. The drawings were compact, not too many, and described exactly what was needed and nothing more. In the 16th century, it made sense to limit the number of drawings to a minimum, considering the time, skill, and concentration needed to make one. The drawings did not only have to be drawn but made in a woodcut (in mirrored plan) to get printed. Consequently, one had to think ahead and know what should be on them before starting. The importance of preparing well is stressed in the first chapter of his *First Book*:

"One must consider carefully every aspect of the plan and elevations of a building before starting to build."19

Palladio thought it wise only to use what was needed but not less. He wanted to spend his clients' money wisely and was careful not to waste time or materials while building. Although he did not expressly distance himself from Alberti and spoke of him with high regard20, he preferred Vitruvius as his master. As he points out to the reader in the foreword of the *First Book*:

"I elected my master and guide Vitruvius."21

His dedication to architecture was humble. Acknowledging the unity of God and nature as the lead, everything in his books was about understanding, not telling. He considered himself one of many to seek perfection and understanding.

"For my part, I can promise no more than long labour, great diligence, and the devotion which I put into understanding and practicing what I offer; if it pleases God that I have not worked in vain, I shall give thanks to his goodness, with all my heart, while still remaining greatly indebted to those who, through their own ingenious inventions and the experience they gained, have bequeathed us the rules of this art, for they opened up an easier and more direct route to the study of new things, and thanks to them we know of many things that would perhaps have remained hidden."22

Andrea Palladio is regarded as the greatest architect of the 16th century in northern Italy. When he died in 1580, Palladio left a series of unfinished projects. Among them is the Villa Rotonda, often considered one of his most famous projects. The Villa was finished by Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548–1616) when many of Palladio's clients turned to Scamozzi to finish the Palladio projects. The simple, clear structures and plans made it possible to complete the buildings as faithfully as possible to Palladio's original intentions [fig. 6].

6

La Rotonda (Villa Almerico Capra), Vicenza: plan, half elevation and half section. In: Palladio 1570, II 19 (Cap. III).

# **Part II**

# *A. Image and building*

For many decades classicism has been the leading architecture depending on the textbooks of Alberti and Palladio until the industrial revolution led to a radical break, and the modern movement was born in the late 19th century. The construction methods changed so dramatically, that the simple stacking weight upon weight was no longer applicable. If quotes from classicism were used, this could only be done as decorating elements, which led to the mockery of modernists. Production methods led to the form that followed function, and perfecting functionality reached ultimate efficiency, i.e. efficiency in controlling the production process.

When we try to embrace the beauty in forms, light, dimensions, and the choice of colors, art, and materials, we must deal with construction and buildings physics, sustainability included, that have very different laws. Building and expression, which was so understandable and clearly related to Palladio's architecture, have now become totally disconnected.

In this light, it is not surprising that form seeks its independence and becomes an image [fig. 7]. With the introduction of the media, first noticed by Marshall McLuhan in 1967 in his book *The Global Village*23, the image has become the representation of who we are and who we want to be. It has become our brand, our icon.

A brand needs designing only, while construction, physics, and sustainability are part of the efficiency system that holds the brand.

La Rotonda. Digital collage by Magdalena Wierzbicka (2022).

# *B. Beauty*

The concept of beauty was abandoned as beauty was no longer seen as the complex composition, the fragile balance, the incredible interchained system of nature that we try to understand, but as an icon that, in the end, could be any shape depending on the opinion of its creator. If beauty becomes an opinion, it loses its status and disappears in the architectural debate, and we can design anything we like. Ultimately, we became the masters of creation. Instead of trying to understand God and nature, we became the human God, the *Homo Deus*, that destroyed nature, as clearly explained in the books by the Israelian professor in history and futurism, Yuval Noah Harari.24

Nowadays, in the age of *Homo Deus*, we are used to the fact that architecture has become the expression of the client, the icon that represents the "brand", and by that, architecture is in great danger of losing its intrinsic quality: the quality of being architecture in itself—architecture that is strong in expression, form, and proportions as one coherent whole. Architecture that stands independently from fashion and time, the architecture we love and immediately recognize as quality, even when we are not trained architects.

Do we really accept such architecture as heritage only and beyond our contemporary reach? And if architecture loses its value as a complete and coherent whole, what will be the future role of architects? Do we accept a serious devaluation of the profession in becoming a designer of built images?

# *C. What is an architect?*

 Even within the profession, we no longer have a united answer. If the question comes to the table, we try to ignore its urgency by ending the debate with weird answers like: "An architect can be everything but not a *homo universalis*". And yet, in the age in which we have to fear a serious devaluation from architecture into the design and into mere opinion, there has never been a more relevant question.

Vitruvius, Alberti, and Palladio were clear in their answers about what an architect was. Palladio, with Vitruvius, believed an architect had to be both a scholar and a craftsman. Alberti considered the knowledge of the crafts more essential than the psychical mastering of the crafts. The architect should draw the plans that the craftsmen must execute. With this, Alberti proclaimed the separation of design and execution that is still subject to debate among architects.25

# **Conclusion**

Palladio was a true child of Renaissance humanism. His oeuvre is made in pursuit of finding the laws of beauty in architecture. He considered himself one of many trying to capture this elusive answer. This was a dominant view in physics until the late 20th century with the concept of the theory of everything by Stephen Hawking, but it was abandoned in architecture long before. Palladio's search was to understand the creations of God and thus nature, not to become God as we do now.

By accepting the absence of beauty and the disconnection between building and designing in contemporary architecture, we risk losing the intrinsic quality of architecture.

This essay advocates that we try to understand and learn from the sincerity in the architecture and the books of Palladio; at least, we can make a brave attempt.

# Endnotes

If not indicated otherwise, all translations are by the author of this paper.

Bibliography

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