ABSTRACT
This is the first comprehensive study of the reception of classical architecture in different regions of the world. Exploring the impact of colonialism, trade, slavery, religious missions, political ideology and intellectual/artistic exchange, the authors demonstrate how classical principles and ideas were disseminated and received across the globe. By addressing a number of contentious or unresolved issues highlighted in some historical surveys of architecture, the chapters presented in this volume question long-held assumptions about the notion of a universally accepted ‘classical tradition’ and its broadly Euro-centric perspective.
Featuring thirty-two chapters written by international scholars from China, Europe, Turkey, North America, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand, the book is divided into four sections: 1) Transmission and re-conceptualisation of classical architecture; 2) Classical influence through colonialism, political ideology and religious conversion; 3) Historiographical surveys of geographical regions; and 4) Visual and textual discourses. This fourfold arrangement of chapters provides a coherent structure to accommodate different perspectives of classical reception across the world, and their geographical, ethnographic, ideological, symbolic, social and cultural contexts. Essays cover a wide geography and include studies in Italy, France, England, Scotland, the Nordic countries, Greece, Austria, Portugal, Romania, Germany, Poland, India, Singapore, China, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand and Australia. Other essays in the volume focus on thematic issues or topics pertaining to classical architecture, such as ornament, spolia, humanism, nature, moderation, decorum, heresy and taste.
An essential reference guide, The Routledge Handbook on the Reception of Classical Architecture makes a major contribution to the study of architectural history in a new global context.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|134 pages
Transmission and re-conceptualisation of classical architecture
chapter 3|12 pages
Architects, architecture and the city
chapter 4|15 pages
Rethinking ornament in classical architecture
chapter 8|25 pages
Neoclassical taste and antiquarian scholarship
chapter 9|14 pages
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century classicism in England
part II|120 pages
Classical influences through colonialism, political ideology and religious conversion
chapter 15|24 pages
Neo-classical architecture in the Straits Settlements
part III|102 pages
Historiographical surveys of geographical regions
chapter 20|13 pages
China: Sixteenth to eighteenth centuries
chapter 21|13 pages
Revising the classical in Australian architecture
chapter 22|13 pages
“A pretty true reflection of our civilisation”
part IV|131 pages
Visual and textual discourses