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The London Palladian
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent27 Jan 2009
THE Italian architect who influenced the design of some of London's most famous buildings is being celebrated with an exhibition.
Andrea Palladio, regarded as "the architects' architect," has spawned a multitude of imitators since he first produced his distinctive villas and churches in the 16th century.
Now the Royal Academy is using Palladio's original drawings to explain his ideas, which were influenced by classical Rome whose buildings were, in turn, influenced by the ancient Greeks (a typical Palladian design has a frontage similar to that of a Greek temple).
The Academy has devised walking tours to take in London's buildings in the Palladian style. These include Chiswick House, Marble Hill House in Richmond, Spencer House overlooking Green Park and Banqueting House in Whitehall.
The show will include a drawing only recently identified as being by Palladio at Westminster Abbey. Studies Of The Roman Theatre As Described By Vitruvius was among a body of antiquarian works given to the Abbey in 1939.
Professor Howard Burns, the exhibition's co-curator, said: "No other architect, until Le Corbusier, has spoken so clearly and compellingly."
Palladio was born in Padua in 1508 in relatively humble circumstances but rose to be regarded as one of the greatest architects of all time. He died in 1580.
In Venice, visitors can still see Palladian buildings such as the churches of Il Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore.
Many of his masterpieces are at Vicenza, his adoptive home, including the Palazzo Chiericati and the Teatro Olimpico. He also designed many villas in the surrounding countryside - for example the Villas Capra and Foscari.
His ideas were spread across Europe through his treatise, I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura - The Four Books Of Architecture. In 1614, British architect Inigo Jones brought back a large collection of Palladio's drawings and used them to inspire his own designs, such as Banqueting House.
A century later, the drawings were bought, along with others, by Lord Burlington. This collection of more than 330 drawings is now at the Royal Institute of British Architecture. Many can be seen at the RA show - some publicly for the first time.
Lord Burlington also initiated the Palladian revival in Britain by dismissing his baroque architect and remodelling his home, Burlington House (now the home of the Royal Academy), and his lodge Chiswick House in a Palladian style. MaryAnne Stevens, the exhibition's co-curator, said that is why it is "logical" for the 500th anniversary exhibition to be shown at the academy. "Burlington wanted to introduce this new type of architecture into England."
■Andrea Palladio: His Life and Legacy opens Saturday and runs to 13 April.
