Jacobean architecture
The Jacobean architecture is the second phase of the Renaissance in England . It was a further development of Elizabethan architecture and is named after King James I of England , during whose reign (1603-1625) it was in fashion.
Characteristics
In the reign of King Jacob VI. of Scotland (also King James I of England) falls the first substantial introduction of Renaissance motifs in free form in England, which was done by German and Flemish builders and not by Italians . The basic lines of Elizabethan architecture remained, but the formal language was applied more consistently and uniformly, both in the floor plans and in the facades. Columns and pilasters , arched arcades and flat roofs with openwork parapets were often used. These and other classical elements appeared in a free, fantastic peculiarity and not in classical purity. Prismatic rustication and ornamental details were mixed in, fittings and rhombuses that were also typical of the Elizabethan style. This architectural style also influenced the style of furniture and works of art.
History and examples
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Reproductions of classic patterns found their way into English architecture during the reign of Elizabeth I , often based on John Stute's The First and Chief Grounds of Architecture of 1563 and the re-editions of 1579 and 1584. 1577, three years before Wollaton Hall began , Hans Vredeman de Vries brought out a booklet with classic patterns in Antwerp . Nominally this booklet was based on the description of the patterns by Vitruvius , but the author not only deviated from it in their presentation, but made suggestions himself, showing how these patterns could be used in different buildings. So eminently decadent were these proposals that even the author found it advisable to publish a letter from a canon of the Church who stated that no detail of his architecture was contrary to religion. Jacobean architecture owes the perversion of its forms to these publications and the introduction of fittings and openwork parapets, which first appeared in Wollaton Hall (1580). In Bramshill House in Hampshire (1607-1612) and in Holland House in Kensington (1624) they experienced their greatest expression.
Other important Jacobean style buildings are Crewe Hall in Cheshire , Hatfield House in Hertfordshire , Knole House at Sevenoaks in Kent , Charlton House in Charlton ( London ), Holland House by John Thorpe , Plas Teg at Pontblyddyn between Wrexham and Mold in Wales , Bank Hall in Bretherton , Castle Bromwich Hall at Solihull and Lilford Hall in Northamptonshire .
Although the term Jacobean architecture refers to the architectural style that prevailed in England in the first quarter of the 17th century, its particularly decadent details can be found in Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire almost 20 years earlier , and examples of this exist in Oxford and Cambridge until 1660, not to mention the introduction of the purer, Italian style by Inigo Jones in 1619 at Whitehall .
In the New World
England established its first successful colonies in 1607 and 1620: Jamestown , Virginia and Plymouth , Massachusetts . Like other settlers in the New World, these men and women constructed and acted the houses and buildings that formed the infrastructure of these cities in a style similar to the Jacobean of the buildings of the part of England they came from those who followed them in the later centuries. So was z. B. the inverted formwork , which is still common today in houses in New England and Nova Scotia , derived from the local architecture in northeast England in the early to mid-17th century. Historians often classify this architecture as a subtype of American colonial architecture called first-period architecture . There are, however, great similarities between the architecture of the simpler class in England in the early 17th century and American colonial architecture. Because of the low contact between the American colonists and the fashion in England, some crucial elements of the Jacobean era often clearly outlived King James I of England.
When the Puritans arrived in New England in the winter of 1620, there was no time to waste because of the bitterly cold weather: many of the settlers who had come on the Mayflower were very ill and needed homes before conditions on board made the disease spread. Those who were healthy enough had to act quickly, and so the first buildings in New England looked a lot like the wickerwork farms of the common people at home, especially those of East Anglia and Devonshire , with their thatched roofs that were common in England until 1660. However, the material used to cover the houses was grass that was found in the salt marshes. Most of these houses had only two rooms and a simple fireplace in the middle, just as simple houses have been built in Great Britain since early Elizabethan times. They had a wooden frame, a sub-floor and a top floor made of raw boards and space to store the supplies. Surveys on the excavated remains of the houses of Myles Standish and John Alden , who lived in the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries in Duxbury, Massachusetts, a settlement across the port of Plymouth that was also inhabited by the Pilgrim Fathers for eight years was inhabited for a long time, show that the old houses were very small and narrow, an average of only 12 meters long and 4.5 meters wide. This is roughly the size of the houses that the simpler people (especially Yeomen and small farmers) lived in in England. This could be seen in tax rolls from the Jacobean period that have survived to this day.
Examples of the original Jacobean architecture in America are e.g. B. Drax Hall Great House and St Nicholas Abbey , both in Barbados and Bacon's Castle in Surry County, Virginia .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Vernacular House Forms in Seventeenth Century Plymouth Colony . The Plymouth Colony Archive Project. Retrieved January 16, 2015.
literature
- M. Whiffen: An Introduction to Elizabethan and Jacobean Architecture (1952).
- J. Summerson: Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830 . Revised edition 1963.
- The Columbia Encyclopedia . 6th edition 2001.
