Palladian Architecture: The Rotunda, The University of Virginia & Palladian Window

PALLADIAN ARCHITECTURE
The Rotunda, The University of Virginia & Palladian Window

• The only architect to give his name to a style,
Ar. Andrea Palladio’s influence lives on today.
• Palladio’s buildings have inspired: architects for nearly
500 years
• It was Inigo Jones who introduced Palladian architecture
into England.
• In the 18th century a revival of Palladianism in England
spread to Italy and thence throughout most of Europe
and the American colonies.
• Palladian architecture is strongly based on the
 symmetry,
 perspective
 values of the formal classical temple architecture of the
Conjectural portrait of Andrea Palladio
A 16th century Venetian architect Ancient Greeks and Romans.
Villa Rotonda
near Vicenza, Italy,
1566-1590s
Villa Rotonda
• Designed by Andrea Palladio
• Located at the top of a hill in northern Italy.
• the Villa Almerico-Capra, commonly known as La Rotonda,
• one of the most recognizable buildings of the Renaissance.
• It is a building that consciously recalls ancient Roman classical models but its innovative design
had a lasting impact for future generations of architects in Italy and abroad.
A building with four façades
• La Rotonda is extremely unique for it displays not one,
but four striking facades
• Palladio was able to design it by emphasizing balance,
visual clarity, and uniformity.
• The design of the building is completely symmetrical
• it presents a square plan with identical porticoes
projecting from each of the façades.
• At the center of the building, a dome emerges over a
central, circular hall.
• Palladio was concerned with harmony and
mathematical consonance and used the square and the
circle as essential, yet elegant forms.
Importance of
the site
the viewer who

walks around the
villa never
encounters a non-
favorable angle.
Palladio himself
reflected on the
landscape
surrounding La
Rotonda:
“The loveliest hills
are arranged
around it,
which afford a view
into an immense
theatre.”
• La Rotonda is perhaps the best known of the many country houses built in the Veneto in the
16th century.
• A period of changing Venetian economy.
• The Spanish and Portuguese voyages to America and Asia, along with Turkish military
advances in the eastern Mediterranean, signified the demise of the Italian trade routes—which
had been the primary source of wealth for the city-state of Venice.
• As a result, Venetians looked to the Terra Firma (their territories on the Italian mainland) to
support their economy.
• It is at this time that agriculture became, for the first time, a significant economic source for
the Venetian Republic.
• And yet, unlike other villas in the Veneto, Palladio designed La Rotonda without adjacent
farm fields, or service buildings such as barns or warehouses.
• La Rotonda was commissioned by Paolo Almerico, a retired
prelate who returned to Vicenza after a career in the Vatican
Court.
• For this reason, La Rotonda was not technically designed as a
villa as much as an urban residence placed in the countryside.
• Palladio himself classified the building as a Palazzo.
• Inside, La Rotonda is a colorful and vivid space that looks
more like a church than a household.
• The exterior of La Rotonda also suggests the sacred. By using
ancient Roman temples as a model, Palladio incorporates
religious overtones into an otherwise secular space.
interior of Villa Rotonda

The Rotunda
University Of Virginia
• The University of Virginia, frequently referred to simply as UVA, is a public–private
flagship and research university
• Address: Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
Rotunda University of Virginia
• The Rotunda is the building located on The Lawn in the original grounds of
the University of Virginia. It was designed by Thomas Jefferson to represent the
"authority of nature and power of reason" and was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.
the Pantheon
• The collegiate structure, the immediate
area around it, and Jefferson's nearby
home at Monticello combine to form one
of only three modern man-made sites in
the United States to be internationally
protected and preserved as a World
Heritage Site by UNESCO
The Palladian window
• It consists of a central light with
semicircular arch over, carried on an
impost consisting of a small entablature,
under which and enclosing two other
lights, one on each side, are pilasters.
• Three-part window composed of a large,
arched central section flanked by two
narrower, shorter sections having square
tops.
• Popular in 17th- and 18th-century
Thank you
Jithin Jose
Justin Skariah
Lima Mariam Mathew
Loveena Mariam George
Mohzin M.
Nayanthara Roshan
R. Aswanth Sreeram

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PALLADIAN ARCHITECTURE

The Rotunda, The University of Virginia & Palladian Window

• Located at the top of a hill in northern Italy.

• the Villa Almerico-Capra, commonly known as La Rotonda,

• one of the most recognizable buildings of the Renaissance.

the viewer who

interior of Villa Rotonda

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