Romantic Revolt: Challenges to Neoclassicism and the Birth of the Avant Garde in France and Germany

Barry Bergdoll, professor at Columbia University and former curator at MOMA, explores the history and legacy of an exciting period of architectural invention that began in the late 1820s.

About the Program:
In the late 1820s the consensus of the architectural excellence of an immutable classicism, based on the models of ancient Greece and Rome, was challenged in a series of theoretic disputes that pitted generation against generation. In France debates were catalyzed by a group that styled themselves “Romantics,” most famous among them Henri Labrouste who rocked the French academy with a controversial interpretation of the Doric temples at Paestum and went on the craft one of the most challenging buildings of the period, the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève. In the same years in the German states the young Heinrich Hübsch asked the provocative question which would resound for decades to come: “In what style should we build?” It was in the crucible of these debates as well that social thinkers coined the notion of the “avant-garde” as a position for the artist and architect, a term too often associated with the modern movement a century later but launched first in debates over the relationship of historical knowledge to modern invention.

This is a recording of an event held by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA), a nonprofit educational organization committed to promoting and preserving the practice, understanding, and appreciation of classical design. To see more educational videos and courses like this one, or if you are interested in attending our classes or becoming a member, visit www.classicist.org .

About the Speaker:
Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University and former chief curator of Architecture & Design at the Museum of Modern Art (2007-14). A specialist in 18th and 19th century French and German architecture, he is the author of numerous books on modern architecture, including European Architecture 1750-1890, in the Oxford History of Art series published in 2000. He was also co-curator of the exhibition “Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light” at MoMA in 2013, where he also curated exhibitions on Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Latin American modern architecture, and the Bauhaus. He is currently completing a book on the history of exhibiting architecture, based on the Mellon Lectures delivered at the National Gallery of Art in 2013.

Sponsors:
This lecture is presented as part of The Françoise and Andrew Skurman Lecture Series on Classical French Architecture.
Lead Annual Public Programs Sponsor: RINCK
Seasonal Public Programs Sponsor: Dell Mitchell Architects
Seasonal Public Programs Sponsor: Hyde Park Mouldings