Artist Research: Andrea Palladio

 Italian architect, Andrea Palladio, his full name is Andrea di Pietro della Gondola. He was born in 30th of November in 1580, Padua and died in August in 1580, Vicenza. He is regarded as the greatest architect of 16-century northern Italy. He is also influential figures in Western architecture.

Andrea Palladio

Furthermore when he was young, he was apprenticed to a sculptor in Padua until, at the age of 16, he moved to nearby Vicenza and enrolled in the guild of the bricklayers and stonemasons. He was employed as a mason in workshops specializing in monuments and decorative sculpture in the style of the Mannerist architect Michele Sanmicheli of Verona. Also, Palladio influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, his designs are likely palaces and villas.

 Also, he was believing in the harmonic ratios of Pythagoras: the Greek mathematician believed that the universe was governed by a set of numbers. These sets were derived from musical harmonies and, according to Pythagoras; they were the key to understanding the universe. Furthermore, he was using these number throughout his architecture career and these numbers became crucial to his work. Palladianism paid an incredible attention to the alliterative, or symbolic nature of architectural elements. 

 In this blog I am going to talk about his works that I find very interesting and the building can help me design my mosque for my final project. First I will talk about his Basilica Palladiana building that Andrea Palladio designed.

Basilica Palladiana

So the Basillica Palladiana is a symbolic building of Venice, this building is a palace. Basillica Palladiana was built in Renaissance era. They began to build Basillca Palladiana in 1549 and completed after Palladio’s death in 1614. First they finished the northern and western facades in 1561 and the second level in 1564, the whole building finished 17 years after his death. 

 The building has Gothic facade of the palace was made of diamond-shaped with red and Verona marbles. Its called as a Palladian window, its an architectural motif popularized by Andrea Palladio. It includes of a window with three openings, the central one with arch and wider than the lateral rectangular ones, as it seen here;   

Palladian window

Also this building has loggias which means a gallery or room with one or more open sides, especially one that forms part of a house and has one side open to the garden. The loggias on the ground floor are built in Doric order and the loggias of the upper floor are Ionic order. Also each of the loggias is composed of an arch by supported columns. Furthermore, as I am going to mosque for my final project, mosques include these loggias, so I will definitely use this style for 3D mosque for my project.

Loggias

Therefore this building is now used for architecture and art exhibitions, for instance well-known British architect David Chipperfield had his architecture exhibition, also I will do another research about David Chipperfield for my final project. 

Secondly building that I am going to talk about is a church that I find it very useful for my mosque design. San Giorgio Maggiore, the building is an influential church in Venice and it designed in 1566 by Andrea Palladio. The church is stands on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, also this church is one of the first sights of Venice visible to the traveller if they are approaching by sea.

San Giorgio Maggiore

As he uses the harmonic ratios of Pythagoras, he is designing his all buildings in symmetric as it seen from his floorpan design;

Floor Plan of the San Giorgio Maggiore

Furthermore, from this church we can easily see that Palladio’s facade showed with the arrangement of Classical elements. The facade of the building is developed from his earlier design of San Francesco della Vigna. As seen the facade of the building is symmetric;

Facade of the San Giorgio Maggiore

To talk about the interior of the building, Palladio combined the elements of longitudinal and centralized buildings , so it’s actually responding to the Renaissance “ideal” of the centralized plan and symbolic cross. On the other hand, he both used the medieval tradition of nave churches and the Counter-reformation for functional churches. The Counter-reformation was in the 16th and 17th centuries tooppose the Protestant Reformation and reform the Catholic church. Also, the building is notable for is light-filled interior which I can use this for my mosque design. The interior ceiling is also longitudinal barrel and framed by grouped columns and arches. Lastly the architectural detail of cut stone columns and bases, framed arches , darkened with age, the rhythmic sequence of space.

 

Interior of Sam Giorgio Maggiore

Lastly, I would like to say, I believe that by doing research about this famous Italian architect, I have got lots of new ideas for my project. So I have talked about Palladio and his works, this research will definitely help to improve and design my mosque by learning the style's and materials that has been used for these buildings.

REFERENCES:

Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). San Giorgio Maggiore | church, Venice, Italy. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/San-Giorgio-Maggiore.

buffaloah.com. (n.d.). San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. [online] Available at: https://buffaloah.com/a/virtual/italy/venice/giorgio/int.html.

churchesofvenice.com. (n.d.). The Churches of Venice :: Giudecca :: San Giorgio Maggiore. [online] Available at: http://churchesofvenice.com/sangiorgmagg.htm.

GreatBuildings. (n.d.). San Giorgio Maggiore by Andrea Palladio at GreatBuildings. [online] Available at: http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/san_giorgio_maggiore.html#:~:text=San%20Giorgio%20Maggiore%20Commentary&text=The%20central%20temple%20front%20is [Accessed 5 Aug. 2023].