Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a
style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century
Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to feature more simplified arches and windows than their historic counterparts.
An early variety of Romanesque Revival style known as
Rundbogenstil ("Round-arched style") was popular in German lands and in the
German diaspora
The German diaspora consists of German people and their descendants who live outside of Germany. The term is used in particular to refer to the aspects of migration of German speakers from central Europe to different countries around the world. ...
beginning in the 1830s. By far the most prominent and influential American architect working in a free "Romanesque" manner was
Henry Hobson Richardson. In the United States, the style derived from examples set by him are termed
Richardsonian Romanesque
Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...
, of which not all are Romanesque Revival.
Romanesque Revival is also sometimes referred to as the "
Norman style
The term Norman architecture is used to categorise styles of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion or influence in the 11th and 12th centuries. In particular the term is traditionally used fo ...
" or "
Lombard style", particularly in works published during the 19th century after variations of historic Romanesque that were developed by the
Normans in England and by the Italians in
Lombardy
Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...
, respectively. Like its influencing Romanesque style, the Romanesque Revival style was widely used for churches, and occasionally for synagogues such as the
New Synagogue of Strasbourg built in 1898, and the
Congregation Emanu-El of New York built in 1929. The style was quite popular for university campuses in the late 19th and early 20th century, especially in the United States and Canada; well known examples can be found at the
University of California, Los Angeles,
University of Southern California,
Tulane University,
University of Denver,
University of Toronto, and
Wayne State University.
The Romanesque Revival or Norman Revival in Great Britain
The development of the Norman revival style took place over a long time in the British Isles, starting with
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones (; 15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was the first significant architect in England and Wales in the early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings.
As the most notable archit ...
's refenestration of the White Tower of the
Tower of London in 1637–38 and work at Windsor Castle by
Hugh May for King
Charles II, but this was little more than restoration work. In the 18th century, the use of round arched windows was thought of as being
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
rather than Norman, and examples of buildings with round arched windows include
Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire, Wentworth in Yorkshire, and
Enmore Castle in Somerset. In Scotland the style started to emerge with the Duke of Argyl's castle at
Inverary, started in 1744, and castles by
Robert Adam at
Culzean
Culzean Castle ( , see yogh; sco, Cullain) is a castle overlooking the Firth of Clyde, near Maybole, Carrick, in South Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland. It is the former home of the Marquess of Ailsa, the chief of Clan Kennedy, but is ...
(1771), Oxenfoord (1780–82), Dalquharran, (1782–85) and
Seton Palace, 1792. In England
James Wyatt used round arched windows at
Sandleford Priory, Berkshire, in 1780–89 and the Duke of Norfolk started to rebuild
Arundel Castle
Arundel Castle is a restored and remodelled medieval castle in Arundel, West Sussex, England. It was established during the reign of Edward the Confessor and completed by Roger de Montgomery. The castle was damaged in the English Civil War a ...
, while
Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire was built by
Robert Smirke between 1812 and 1820.
At this point, the Norman Revival became a recognisable architectural style. In 1817,
Thomas Rickman published his ''An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture from the Conquest To the Reformation''. It was now realised that 'round-arch architecture' was largely Romanesque in the British Isles and came to be described as Norman rather than Saxon. The start of an "archaeologically correct" Norman Revival can be recognised in the architecture of
Thomas Hopper. His first attempt at this style was at
Gosford Castle in Armagh in Ireland, but far more successful was his
Penrhyn Castle near Bangor in North Wales. This was built for the Pennant family, between 1820 and 1837. The style did not catch on for domestic buildings, though many country houses and mock castles were built in the Castle Gothic or Castellated style during the Victorian period, which was a mixed Gothic style.
However, the Norman Revival did catch on for church architecture.
Thomas Penson, a Welsh architect, would have been familiar with Hopper's work at Penrhyn, who developed Romanesque Revival church architecture. Penson was influenced by French and Belgian Romanesque Revival architecture, and particularly the earlier Romanesque phase of German
Brick Gothic
Brick Gothic (german: Backsteingotik, pl, Gotyk ceglany, nl, Baksteengotiek) is a specific style of Gothic architecture common in Northeast and Central Europe especially in the regions in and around the Baltic Sea, which do not have resourc ...
. At St David's Newtown, 1843–47, and St Agatha's Llanymynech, 1845, he copied the tower of
St. Salvator's Cathedral
The Saint-Salvator Cathedral is the cathedral of Bruges, Flanders, in present-day Belgium. The cathedral is dedicated to the ''Verrezen Zaligmaker'' (Dutch, 'risen saviour', cf. Latin ''salvator'', 'saviour') and Saint-Donatius of Reims.
Histo ...
, Bruges. Other examples of Romanesque revival by Penson are
Christ Church, Welshpool, 1839–1844, and the porch to Langedwyn Church. He was an innovator in his use of
Terracotta to produce decorative Romanesque mouldings, saving on the expense of stonework. Penson's last church in the Romanesque Revival style was
Rhosllannerchrugog
RhosllanerchrugogDavies, Jenkins and Baines (eds) ''The Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales'', 2008, p.752 (also spelled Rhosllannerchrugog, or simply Rhos) is a village and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It lies within the histor ...
, Wrexham, 1852.
The Romanesque adopted by Penson contrasts with the Italianate Romanesque of other architects such as
Thomas Henry Wyatt, who designed Saint Mary and Saint Nicholas Church, in this style at
Wilton, which was built between 1841 and 1844 for the Dowager Countess of Pembroke and her son, Lord Herbert of Lea. During the 19th century, the architecture selected for Anglican churches depended on the churchmanship of particular congregations. Whereas high churches and
Anglo-Catholic, which were influenced by the
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of high church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the University of O ...
, were built in
Gothic Revival architecture, low churches and broad churches of the period were often built in the Romanesque Revival style. Some of the later examples of this Romanesque Revival architecture is seen in Non-conformist or
Dissenting churches and chapels. A good example of this is by the Lincoln architects
Drury and Mortimer, who designed the Mint Lane Baptist Chapel in Lincoln in a debased Italianate Romanesque revival style in 1870. After about 1870 this style of Church architecture in Britain disappears, but in the early 20th century, the style is succeeded by
Byzantine Revival architecture.
File:GosfordCastle.jpg, Gosford Castle, Armagh by Thomas Hopper
File:Penrhyn Castle - geograph.org.uk - 206536.jpg, Penrhyn Castle, by Thomas Hopper, 1820–1837
File:Church of St Agatha, Llanymynech 02.jpg, Church of St Agatha, Llanymynech, Romanesque Tower by Thomas Penson
File:Baptist Church, Lincoln.jpg, Mint Street Baptist Church, Lincoln, 1870
File:WiltonChurch.jpg, St Mary and St Nicholas Church, Wilton, Wiltshire
File:Russian Patriarchal Orthodox cathedral Kensington London.jpg, Russian Patriarchal Orthodox cathedral Kensington London 1848–49 and 1891–92
Canada
Two of Canada's provincial legislatures, the
Ontario Legislative Building in
Toronto and the
British Columbia Parliament Buildings in
Victoria, are Romanesque Revival in style.
University College, one of seven colleges at the
University of Toronto, is an example of the Romanesque Revival style. Construction of the final design began on 4 October 1856.
File:University College Front Facade.jpg, University College, Toronto, Ontario
File:Holy Rosary, 2008.jpg, Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Cathedral, Regina, Saskatchewan
File:Charlottetown_City_Hall.JPG, Charlottetown City Hall, Charlottetown
Charlottetown is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, and the county seat of Queens County. Named after Queen Charlotte, Charlottetown was an unincorporated town until it was incorporated as a city in ...
, Prince Edward Island
File:Basilica of St. John the Baptist, St. John's, Newfoundland.jpg, Basilica of St. John the Baptist
The Basilica-Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador is the metropolitan cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John's, Newfoundland and the mother church and symbol of Roman Catholicism in Newfoun ...
, St. John's, Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
Sweden
The
Vasa Church in
Gothenburg
Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...
, Sweden, is another prime example of the Neo-Romanesque style of architecture.
United States
The Church of the Pilgrims—now the
Maronite Cathedral of Our Lady of Lebanon—in
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City Boroughs of New York City, borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza, Cadman Plaza West on the ...
, designed by
Richard Upjohn and built 1844–46, is generally considered the first work of Romanesque Revival architecture in the United States. It was soon followed by a more prominent design for the
Smithsonian Institution Building in
Washington, DC, designed by
James Renwick Jr.
James Renwick Jr. (born November 11, 1818, Bloomingdale, in Upper Manhattan, New York City – June 23, 1895, New York City) was an American architect in the 19th century. ''The Encyclopedia of American Architecture'' calls him "one of the most ...
and built 1847–51. Renwick allegedly submitted two proposals to the design competition, one Gothic and the other Romanesque in the style. The Smithsonian chose the latter, which was based on designs from German architecture books.
[Poppeliers, John C. and S. Allen Chambers, Jr. ''What Style Is It?: A Guide to American Architecture''. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2003, 54–6.]
Several concurrent forces contributed to the popularizing of the Romanesque Revival in the United States. The first was an influx of German immigrants in the 1840s, who brought the style of the Rundbogenstil with them.
Second, a series of works on the style was published concurrently with the earliest built examples. The first of these, ''Hints on Public Architecture'', written by social reformer
Robert Dale Owen in 1847–48, was prepared for the Building Committee of the Smithsonian Institution and prominently featured illustrations of Renwick's Smithsonian Institution Building. Owen argued that
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
—then the prevailing style in the United States for everything from churches to banks to private residences—was unsuitable as a national American style. He maintained that the
Greek temples upon which the style was based had neither the windows, chimneys, nor stairs required by modern buildings, and that the low-pitched temple roofs and tall
colonnades were ill-adapted to cold northern climates. To Owen, most Greek Revival buildings thus lacked architectural truth, because they attempted to hide 19th-century necessities behind classical temple facades.
[Owen, Robert Dale. ''Hints on Public Architecture''. New York: George P. Putnam, 1849.] In its place, he offered that the Romanesque style was ideal for a more flexible and economic American architecture.
[Meeks, Carroll L.V. "Romanesque Before Richardson in the United States." ''The Art Bulletin'' 23, no. 1 (1953): 17–33.]
Soon after, the
Congregational Church
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
published ''A Book of Plans for Churches and Parsonages'' in 1853, containing 18 designs by 10 architects, including Upjohn, Renwick,
Henry Austin, and
Gervase Wheeler
Gervase Wheeler (1815–1889) was a British architect, writer, and illustrator who designed homes in the United States.
Wheeler is best known for publishing influential architectural pattern books ''Rural Homes'' (1851) and ''Homes for the Peopl ...
, most in the Romanesque Revival style.
Richard Salter Storrs and other clergy on the book's committee were members or frequent preachers of Upjohn's Church of the Pilgrims.
[Steege, Gwen W. "The 'Book of Plans' and the Early Romanesque Revival in the United States: A Study in Architectural Patronage." ''Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'' 46, no. 3 (1987): 215–27.]
St. Joseph Church in Hammond, Indiana, is Romanesque Revival.
The most celebrated "Romanesque Revival" architect of the late 19th century was
H. H. Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson, FAIA (September 29, 1838 – April 27, 1886) was an American architect, best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Richardson is one ...
, whose mature style was so individual that it is known as "
Richardsonian Romanesque
Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...
". Among his most prominent buildings are
Trinity Church (Boston) and
Sever Hall and
Austin Hall at Harvard University.
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
The
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is a large Catholic minor basilica and national shrine located in Washington, D.C., United States of America.
The shrine is the largest Catholic church in North America, one of the largest churches in the world, and the tallest habitable building in Washington, D.C.
Its construction of
Byzantine Revival and Romanesque Revival architecture began on September 23, 1920, with renowned contractor John McShain and was completed on December 8, 2017, with the dedication and solemn blessing of the ''Trinity Dome'' mosaic on December 8, 2017, the
Feast of the Immaculate Conception, by
Cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
Donald William Wuerl.
SmithsonianCastel 07120014.jpg, The Smithsonian Institution Building, an early example of American Romanesque Revival designed by James Renwick Jr.
James Renwick Jr. (born November 11, 1818, Bloomingdale, in Upper Manhattan, New York City – June 23, 1895, New York City) was an American architect in the 19th century. ''The Encyclopedia of American Architecture'' calls him "one of the most ...
in 1855
File:IIT Main Building.jpg, Main building, Illinois Institute of Technology
File:Ursinus Bomberger Hall.JPG, Bomberger Hall, Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pennsylvania, built in 1891
File:Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Shreveport, LA IMG 1334.JPG, Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is t ...
File:Bexar County Court House perspective.jpg, Bexar County Courthouse
The Bexar County Courthouse is a historic building in downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA.
The building was designed by architect J. Riely Gordon, and borders Main Plaza, along with such other architectural landmarks as the Cathedral of San Fernand ...
, San Antonio
File:RHall.JPG, Royce Hall, University of California, Los Angeles
File:2008-1019-02-CentralWashingtonUniversity.jpg, Barge Hall, Central Washington University, Ellensburg
File:Basilica of St. Adalbert.jpg, Basilica of St. Adalbert, Grand Rapids, Michigan, completed in 1913
File:Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.jpg, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington D.C.
File:Scottish Rite Cathedral.jpg, Scottish Rite Cathedral, Long Beach, California, built in 1926
Gallery
File:Rakovski Military Academy.JPG, Georgi Rakovski Military Academy
The Georgi Rakovski Military Academy ( bg, Военна академия „Георги Стойков Раковски“), based in Sofia, is Bulgaria's oldest military institution of higher education. It is named after Bulgarian revolutiona ...
, Sofia, Bulgaria
File:Budai Várnegyed, Halászbástya nyugat felől. - panoramio.jpg, Fisherman's Bastion, Budapest, Hungary
File:Vajdahunyad Castle, Chapel, Budapest.jpg, Chapel, Vajdahunyad Castle, Budapest, Hungary
File:MKon1 Kirha.jpg, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Katarina, Saint Petersburg, Russia
File:Front view of The Cathedral in Intramuros, Manila.jpg, Manila Cathedral
The Minor Basilica and Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception ( fil, Basilika Menor at Kalakhang Katedral ng Kalinis-linisang Paglilihi; es, Basílica Menor y Catedral Metropolitana de la Inmaculada Concepción), also known as the ...
, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines
File:PrestonCastle.jpg, Preston School of Industry, Ione, California
File:Saint_joe.jpg, St. Joseph Church, Hammond, Indiana
File:Metz Temple Neuf R02.jpg, Temple Neuf, Metz
File:Lubumbashi Cathedral.jpg, Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (1920) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
See also
*
Alexander Brown House
The Alexander Brown House, at 726 West Onondaga Street in Syracuse, New York, is a Richardsonian Romanesque mansion in Pottsdam sandstone and Spanish tile home built in 1895. It was the home of Alexander T. Brown, inventor and co-founder of Fran ...
, Syracuse, New York
*
Gothic Revival architecture
*
Museum of Early Trades and Crafts
*
Romanesque Revival architecture in the United Kingdom
*
Richardsonian Romanesque
Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...
*
Rundbogenstil
*
Venetian Gothic
References
{{Authority control
Revival architectural styles
19th-century architectural styles
20th-century architectural styles