Palazzo Rucellai
Florence, Italy. Leon Battista Alberti (architect). c. 1450 C.E. Stone, masonry
It uses architectural features for decorative purposes rather than structural support; like the engaged columns on the Colosseum, the pilasters on the façade of the Rucellai do nothing to actually hold the building up .Also, on both of these buildings, the order of the columns changes, going from least to most decorative as they acend from the lowest to highest tier.
"Humanism applied to domestic and private architecture."
Context:
- Constructed as part of the "building boom" after the Medici family built their own palace
- At the time, palaces were viewed as if they were created for the city's good and thus, brought Florence much civic pride.
- The Palazzo was never actually finished -- only 3/4ths of the original plan was constructed
- Partly based on the Medici Palace (and it’s three facade design)
- The Medici Palace was much heavier though and more fortress-esque
Form:
- Created in an effort to emphasize measure & harmony
- Filled with “geometric grace” -- intellectual & delicate
- All about horizontality
- The higher the floor = the more intricate & fancy it became (+ smaller stones were used as you moved up)
- The building has four floors:
- 4th floor: the servant quarters (it was designed to be hidden)
- 3rd floor: the family's apartment
- 2nd floor: the guest rooms and area
- 1st floor: the Rucellai family's center of business
Content:
- Includes the Rucellai family seal (a diamond ring with three feathers coming out of it) several times
- Nearly every piece of the Palazzo's design is pulled from ancient Greek & Roman architectural ideals
- Pilasters
- Capitols
- Corinthian
- Ionic
- Tuscan
- Rounded Arches
- Entablature with friezes (this was different than the Medici's Palace which only had a string course with dentils)
- Included several features for design rather than actual support
- 1st Floor = grounds the building
- HEAVY
- Surrounded by benches
- Has:
- Cross-hatching
- Large blocks of stone
- Post-&-Lintel portals
- Rectangular windows
- All straight lines
+ The Loggia
- Caddy-cornered to the Palazzo Rucellai
- A large open space, with rounded arches, corinthian capitals, collonades, pilasters = VERY much based on the ancient Greek & Roman traditions
- Represents the joining of the Medici & Rucellai families
- Could have been created to be used as a “wedding” building
- (Now a shoe store!)
Function:
- Most basically, the Palazzo Rucellai was created to house the Rucellai family (duh)
- In reality, it was a created as a physical representation of the family's wealth, status, power, and importance.
Vocabulary:
- Pilaster = a shallow rectangular column that projects slightly beyond the wall into which it is built and conforms precisely to the order or style of the adjacent columns
- Entablature = a horizontal part in classical architecture that rests on the columns and consists of architrave, frieze, and cornice
- Trabeated = designed or constructed with horizontal beams or lintels
