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Showing posts with the label Neoclassical Revival

Lenox Library, New York, New York;(1871-1877); Neo-Grec

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James Lennox, born 1800 and died 1880, was the richest man in the 19 th  century, because he was the most influential philanthropist and bibliophile. Being one of the earliest buildings to open to all of the public, the Lenox Library was a full collection of over eighty-five thousand books. Originally, these books resided at James Lenox’s house in his personal collection on the corner of fifth and twelfth street where he lived in large piles of collections that he collected since 1845. It was mainly books that James Lenox collected for his collections, but on the side he also liked to dip his foot into the world of fine art and sculptures. As James Lenox became older this system of managing books became less and less reliable as it was hard to find books in stacks and stacks, and so he began looking towards the decision to build a house for his collections. He chose a site in which he had inherited from his father in eighteen thirty-nine and decided this was t...

Schauspielhaus, 1821, Germany Berlin, Greek Revival/NeoClassical Architecture, Karl Friedrich

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Schauspielhaus History The Schauspielhaus was part of a grandiose new scheme of town planning in Germany, Berlin in the year 1818. Design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, a scene designer and romantic painter, the schauspielhaus was designed to be built as a theater. Although it was completed in 1821, the function of the building changed. During the French revolution it became the house of the Prussian national assembly for several years. After the first world war, its usage changed to a concert hall. During the second world war, the building was severely damaged by allied bombing to a point that it had to be rebuilt. It was in 1977 that is was finally reopened and in 1984 it reopened as a "Gala Concert Hall". [1] Architecture The building is design in a mix of Greek revival and Neoclassical architecture. You can tell its Neoclassical origins by its grandeur in scale, simplicity of forms, and use of the Greek order [4]. This are all evide...