Period Style is the set of defining characteristics and designs that distinguish the architectural and decorative expressions of a historic movement. – design intuit
Classical
Classical style is the most reused style in history and the first instance refers to the Greek Classical style. Classical architecture, the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, especially from the 5th century BCE in Greece to the 3rd century CE in Rome, Strongly emphasise columns and pediment ( triangular gable forming the end of the roof slope over a portico, the area where a roof supported by columns). Greek architecture was based chiefly on the post-and-beam system, with columns carrying the load. Timber construction was superseded by construction in marble and stone.
Roman architecture follows the look of Greek columns but replaces the pediment with arches, vault, and domes, as seen in the Pantheon. This slight change in classical style between the Greeks and the Romans became due to the discovery of concrete which allowed the buildings to be stronger and better at bearing weight.
The decoration of columns began with the Doric order, probably the earliest remained the favourite of the Greek mainland and western colonies. The Ionic order developed in eastern Greece; on the mainland, it was used chiefly for smaller temples and interiors. Both Doric and Ionic orders are present in the Athens Acropolis, the greatest Greek architectural achievement. The Hellenistic Age produced more elaborate and richly decorated architecture, with often colossal buildings. Many of the great buildings were secular rather than religious, and the Ionic and especially the newer Corinthian orders were widely used. The Romans used the Greek orders and added two new ones, Tuscan and Composite, but the Corinthian was by far the most popular.
Gothic
Gothic architectural style in Europe lasted from the mid 12th century to the 16th century, particularly a style of masonry building characterized by cavernous spaces with the expanse of walls broken up by overlaid tracery (bars, or ribs, used decoratively in windows or other openings). In the 12th–13th centuries, feats of engineering permitted increasingly gigantic buildings. The rib vault, flying buttress, and pointed (Gothic) arch were used as solutions to the problem of building a very tall structure while preserving as much natural light as possible. Stained-glass window panels rendered startling sun-dappled interior effects.
Renaissance
Renaissance style of architecture, reflecting the rebirth of Classical culture, that originated in Florence in the early 15th century and spread throughout Europe, replacing the medieval Gothic style. There was a revival of ancient Roman forms, including the column and round arch, the tunnel vault, and the dome. The basic design element was the order. As in the Classical period, proportion was the most important factor of beauty; Renaissance architects found a harmony between human proportions and buildings. This concern for proportion resulted in clear, easily comprehended space and mass, which distinguishes the Renaissance style from the more complex Gothic.
Andrea Palladio was one of the most famous Italian architects and was known for his recreation a Classical architecture.
Baroque
Baroque architectural style originating in late 16th-century Italy and lasting in some regions, notably Germany and colonial South America, until the 18th century. It had its origins in the Counter-Reformation when the Catholic Church launched an overtly emotional and sensory appeal to the faithful through art and architecture. Complex architectural plan shapes, often based on the oval, and the dynamic opposition and interpenetration of spaces were favoured to heighten the feeling of motion and sensuality. Other characteristic qualities include grandeur, drama and contrast (especially in lighting), curvaceousness, and an often dizzying array of rich surface treatments, twisting elements, and gilded statuary. Architects unabashedly applied bright colours and illusory, vividly painted ceilings. The whole idea was to the show the exertion of power instead of simply showing a clean and pure architecture it needed to overwhelm and make a point of dominance.
Rococo
Rococo style, architecture, originated in Paris in the early 18th century but was soon adopted throughout France and later in other countries, principally Germany and Austria. It is characterized by lightness, elegance, and an exuberant use of curving, natural forms in ornamentation. The word Rococo is derived from the French word rocaille, which denoted the shell-covered rock work that was used to decorate artificial grottoes.
At the outset, the Rococo style represented a reaction against the ponderous design of Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles and the official Baroque art of his reign. Several interior designers, painters, and engravers, among them Pierre Le Pautre, J.-A. Meissonier, Jean Berain, and Nicolas Pineau developed a lighter and more intimate style of decoration for the new residences of nobles in Paris. In the Rococo style, walls, ceilings, and mouldings were decorated with delicate interlacings of curves and counter-curves based on the fundamental shapes of the “C” and the “S,” as well as with shell forms and other natural shapes. The asymmetrical design was the rule. Light pastels, ivory white, and gold were the predominant colours, and Rococo decorators frequently used mirrors to enhance the sense of open space.
NeoClassical
Neoclassical architecture is the revival of Classical architecture during the 18th and early 19th centuries. The movement concerned itself with the logic of entire Classical volumes, looking for a more seriousness to match to social change between looking to science instead of religion. Neoclassical architecture is characterized by the grandeur of scale, simplicity of geometric forms, Greek—especially Doric —or Roman detail, dramatic use of columns, and a preference for blank walls. The new taste for antique simplicity represented a general reaction to the excesses of the Rococo style. Neoclassicism thrived in the United States and Europe, with examples occurring in almost every major city.
British Style (Victorian)
Britain tried to create a style to show national identity and idealism based on a mixture of different periods of architecture such as Gothic, Neoclassical etc… and a British history which is predominantly based on myths and legends such as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The Industrial revolution also impacted this style of architecture as buildings began to be made it hide and incase machinery.
Arts and Crafts
Arts and Crafts architecture was, like the movement itself, defined more by a set of ideas and principles than a particular architectural style.
Many of its leading figures were architects, rather than designers, and they came to view buildings and their interiors as a whole. They worked in a variety of media, often with other artists, and hoped to bring a greater unity to the arts. As a result, Arts and Crafts buildings often included sculpture and carved or tiled decoration, sometimes with highly symbolic imagery.
Another defining feature of Arts and Crafts architecture was an interest in the vernacular. Architects used local materials and traditional styles to create something that would not jar with its surroundings, but at the same time distinctive and modern. Many hoped to revive traditional building and craft skills or to design buildings that looked as if they had grown over many years.
While the majority of Arts and Crafts buildings were domestic, the architects of the movement also addressed the various needs of churches, museums and commercial buildings.
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is characterized by its use of a long, sinuous, organic line, whiplash curves, exploration of the female form and forms in nature. It was a deliberate attempt to create a new style, free of the imitative historicism that dominated much of 19th-century art and design. Art Nouveau developed first in England and soon spread to the European continent, where it was called Jugendstil in Germany, Sezessionstil in Austria, Stile Floreale (or Stile Liberty) in Italy, and Modernism (or Modernista) in Spain. The term Art Nouveau was coined by a gallery in Paris that exhibited much of this work.
Art Deco
Art Deco, also called style moderne, movement in the decorative arts and architecture that originated in the 1920s and developed into a major style in western Europe and the United States during the 1930s. Its name was derived from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925, where the style was first exhibited. Art Deco design represented modernism turned into fashion. Its products included both individually crafted luxury items and mass-produced wares, but, in either case, the intention was to create a sleek and antitraditional elegance that symbolized wealth and sophistication.
The distinguishing features of the style are simple, clean shapes, often with a “streamlined” look; ornament that is geometric or stylized from representational forms; and unusually varied, often expensive materials, which frequently include man-made substances (plastics, especially Bakelite; vita-glass; and ferroconcrete) in addition to natural ones (jade, silver, ivory, obsidian, chrome, and rock crystal). Though Art Deco objects were rarely mass-produced, the characteristic features of the style reflected admiration for the modernity of the machine and for the inherent design qualities of machine-made objects (e.g., relative simplicity, planarity, symmetry, and unvaried repetition of elements).
International Style
International Style developed in Europe and the United States in the 1920s and ’30s and became the dominant tendency in Western architecture during the middle decades of the 20th century. The most common characteristics of International Style buildings are rectilinear forms; light, taut plane surfaces that have been completely stripped of applied ornamentation and decoration; open interior spaces; and a visually weightless quality engendered by the use of cantilever construction. Glass and steel, in combination with usually less visible reinforced concrete, are the characteristic materials of construction.
Postmodern
Postmodern architecture is a style which emerged in the 1960s as a reaction against the austerity, formality, and lack of variety of modern architecture, particularly in the international style advocated by Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The movement was given a doctrine by the architect and architectural theorist Robert Venturi in his 1966 book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The style flourished from the 1980s through the 1990s, particularly in the work of Venturi, Philip Johnson, Charles Moore and Michael Graves. In the late 1990s, it is divided into a multitude of new tendencies, including high-tech architecture, neo-classicism and deconstructivism.
Post-Post Modern
Post Post Modern relates to the current period of time we are in that is yet to be named or defined by a particular style or movement nor by a dramatic political, technological or biological breakthrough/ chance in our current culture. During this current period, we can see reflections of Art Nouveau and organic forms but which can only be achieved by advancing technology that allows more complex shapes to be built.
Natalie Rose 