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Eloge de l'Art par Alain Truong
22 mai 2009

'Palladio, The Architect (1508-1580)" @ Caixa Forum in Barcelona

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A man touches one of the models included in the "Palladio, The Architect (1508-1580)", exhibition. EFE/Alberto Estévez

BARCELONA.- Caixa Forum in Barcelona presents Palladio, The Architect (1508-1580), on view through September 6, 2009. Palladio was not only one of the greatest Italian architects; he was also a practitioner whose work has continued to resonate down five centuries. Active in Vicenza, Venice and the Veneto region, he crafted a new architectural language derived from classical sources yet shaped to fulfill the functional demands and aesthetic aspirations of his own age. His impressive oeuvre includes public buildings and churches; however, it was his town palaces and country villas that influenced subsequent generations of European and American architects. Large-scale models, computer animations, original drawings, books and paintings will present the full range of this exceptional architect’s output and his legacy, demonstrating why Palladio’s name has been synonymous with architecture for 500 years.

The exhibition will follow Palladio’s career, from the Basilica, the earlier palaces in Vicenza and his innovative solutions to rural buildings such as the Villa Poiana and the Villa Barbaro at Maser to his great Venetian churches, culminating with the Villa Rotonda. However, Palladio’s fame and influence rested not only on his executed buildings but also on his Four Books of Architecture (1570), in which he illustrated the basic grammar and vocabulary of architecture, his reconstructions of classical buildings, and his built and un-built projects. His language answered the practical and social needs of his time and those of later centuries. The treatise helped to spread his fame, their designs becoming models for new constructions throughout the world.

Moreover, the presence of many of his drawings in England (from 1614, when Inigo Jones brought them back with him from Vicenza) had a considerable impact on British architecture. In the early eighteenth century, the 3rd Earl of Burlington, himself the owner of a very significant number of Palladio’s drawings, initiated the Palladian Revival with his remodeling of the 17th century Burlington House in the Palladian style.

To present the extent of Palladio’s influence the exhibition will concentrate on a selection of pertinent examples. These will show how Palladio’s system of architecture was transposed and adapted to countries and contexts far from the Veneto region. The ablest Palladians in fact were those who best understood that to enrich their own work with Palladio’s ideas meant to extend his method, adapting it to the needs of their own place and time, rather than building precise facsimiles of his works. The architects who will be presented here included the two great masters of the ‘Vicenza School’; Palladio’s jealous Vicentine follower, the brilliant Vincenzo Scamozzi and his inventive admirer Inigo Jones.

This major exhibition will explore new aspects of Palladio’s work. Drawing upon recent scholarship, it will exploit the survival of a large number of Palladio’s exceptional drawings, and a number of recently created large scale models of his major buildings. These will be complemented by specially commissioned computer animations, which will provide a “fly through” experience of visiting a Palladian building. To contextualise his work, paintings by Titian, Veronese and El Greco will establish his circle of friends and patrons and testify to the close collaboration between architect and artist during his lifetime, while works by such artists as Canaletto will demonstrate the popularity of his buildings for 18thcentury ‘men of taste’.

Andrea Palladio: His Life and Legacy has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts and the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, Vicenza in collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects. The exhibition has been curated by Guido Beltramini, Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, Vicenza, and Howard Burns, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa with Charles Hind and Irena Murray from the Royal Institute of British Architects and MaryAnne Stevens, Royal Academy of Arts, London.

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