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Egyptian Revival architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Created: 2012-12-18 19:57 Updated: 2012-12-18 19:57 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Revival_architecture Notebook: Architecture

Egyptian Revival architecture

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Quay in Saint Petersburg, with two sphinxes of Amenhotep III brought from Egypt in 1832

Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and Admiral Nelson's defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Napoleon took a scientific expedition with him to Egypt. Publication of the expedition's work, the Description de l'Égypte, began in 1809 and was published as a series through 1826. However, works of art and architecture (such as funerary monuments) in the Egyptian style had been made or built occasionally on the European continent and the British Islands since the time of the Renaissance.

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[edit] Egyptian-influenced architecture before Napoleon

The most important example is probably Gian Lorenzo Bernini's obelisk in the Piazza Navona in Rome. Bernini's obelisk influenced the obelisk constructed as a family funeral memorial by Sir Edward Lovatt Pierce for the Allen family at Stillorgan in Ireland in 1717, one of several Egyptian obelisks erected in Ireland during the early 18th century. Others may be found at Belan, County Kildare and Dangan, County Meath. The Casteltown Folly in County Kildare is probably the best known, albeit the least Egyptian styled, of these obelisks.

Egyptian buildings had also been built as garden follies. The most elaborate was probably the one built by Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg in the gardens of the Château de Montbéliard. It included an Egyptian bridge across which guests walked to reach an island with an elaborate Egyptian-influenced bath house. The building featured a billiards room and a "bagnio". It was designed by the duke's court architect, Jean Baptiste Kleber.

[edit] In the wake of Napoleon

Foire du Caire building (1798) in Paris.
Egyptian Hall (1812) in London, as it appeared in 1815.

New after the Napoleonic invasion was a sudden increase of the number of works of art and the fact that, for the first time, entire buildings began to be built to resemble those of ancient Egypt. In France and Britain this was at least partially inspired by successful war campaigns undertaken by each country while in Egypt.

Among the earliest surviving examples of the revival in France is the Foire du Caire or Fair of Cairo building in Paris, built in 1798. The exterior of the stone structure features large engaged Hathor heads, a freize, and other more subtle ancient Egyptian architectural influences. Another survivor is the Fontaine du Fellah in Paris, built in 1806. It was designed by François-Jean Bralle. A well-documented example, destroyed after Napoleon was deposed, was the monument to General Louis Desaix in the Place des Victoires was built in 1810. It featured a nude statue of the general and an obelisk, both set upon an Egyptian Revival base.[1]

One of the first British buildings to show an Egyptian Revival interior was the newspaper office of The Courier on the Strand in London. It was built in 1804 and featured a cavetto (coved) cornice and Egyptian-influenced columns with palmiform capitals.[2] Other early British examples include the Egyptian Hall in London, completed in 1812, and the Egyptian Gallery, a private room in the home of connoisseur Thomas Hope (1769-1831) to display his Egyptian antiquities, and illustrated in engravings from his meticulous line drawings in his book Household Furniture (1807), were a prime source for the Regency style of British furnishings.

[edit] Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb

The expeditions that eventually led to the discovery in 1922 of the treasure of Tutankhamun's tomb by the archaeologist Howard Carter resulted in a 20th century revival. The revival during the 1920s is sometimes considered to be part of the Art Deco decorative arts style. This phase gave birth to the Egyptian Theatre movement, largely confined to the United States. The Egyptian Revival decorative arts style was present in furniture and other household objects, as well as in architecture.

[edit] Other examples

Egyptian Bridge (1825–26) in St. Petersburg, Russia, prior to its 1905 collapse.
The Tombs (1838) in New York City. Image taken prior to its demolition and replacement in 1902.
Entrance to Egyptian Avenue and the Lebanon Circle of Highgate Cemetery (1838–39), London, United Kingdom.
Egyptian Building of the Medical College of Virginia (1845), Richmond, Virginia, United States.
The Scottish Rite Temple (1921) in Mobile, Alabama, United States.
National Museum of Beirut (1930–37), Beirut, Lebanon.

[edit] Post-modern variants


[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Egyptian Revival architecture

[edit] References

  1. ^ Curl, James Stevens (2005). The Egyptian Revival. Psychology Press. p. 276. ISBN 9780415361194.
  2. ^ Egyptomania; Egypt in Western Art; 1730-1930, Jean-Marcel Humbert, Michael Pantazzi and Christiane Ziegler, 1994, pp. 172-3
  3. ^ The History of the Jews of Philadelphia from Colonial Times to the Age of Jackson, pages 365-366 (Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society, 1956, 1975) by Edwin Wolf, II and Maxwell Whiteman
  4. ^ Medical College of Virginia
  5. ^ The Downtown Presbyterian Church
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Revival styles in Western architecture and decorative arts
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