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Article

Adler, (Johann Heinrich) Friedrich  

(b Berlin, Oct 15, 1827; d Berlin, Sept 15, 1908).

German architect, archaeologist and writer. He was one of the leading figures of Berlin’s architectural establishment in the latter half of the 19th century. On completion of his studies in 1852, he was given the prestigious post of Bauleiter at the Neues Museum in Berlin, designed by Friedrich August Stüler. He subsequently became a lecturer and in 1861 a professor of architectural history at the Bauakademie in Berlin. Many of his church buildings used medieval motifs and elements, for example the Christuskirche (1862–8) in Berlin and the Elisabethkirche (1869–72) in Wilhelmshafen. He followed Karl Bötticher in his attempts to merge medieval and classical elements, best illustrated in his design for the Thomaskirche (competition 1862; built 1865–70), Berlin. There, Adler used Gothic structural devices embellished with rich Renaissance detail, a tendency that was also present in many of the entries for the Berlin Cathedral competition (...

Article

Alcock, (Walter) Jimmy  

Enrique Larrañaga

[James]

(b Caracas, Sept 14, 1932).

Venezuelan architect. After finishing elementary and middle school in Caracas, where he was born, Alcock attended St. Edmund’s College High School (1946–1949) and University of Cambridge School of Chemistry (1949–1952), both in England. Back in Caracas, he enrolled in the School of Architecture of Central University, graduating in 1959. While a student, he worked for Venezuelan architect Alejandro Pietri and Brazilian landscapist Roberto Burle-Marx on various landscape architecture projects.

With José Miguel Galia (1919–2009), who had been his tutor at School, Alcock founded Galia & Alcock, Arquitectos Asociados (1959–1962). For Galia, a respected Uruguayan architect who had been working in Venezuela since 1948, architecture should at once respond to a building’s function climate, and incorporate technological innovations and operate as an assemblage of materiality and location that celebrates and intensifies both. Among the projects Galia and Alcock designed together, those for public spaces in both urban and natural environments were the most celebrated, particularly the Macuto Beachfront (...

Article

Algarve  

Kirk Ambrose

Southern-most region of mainland Portugal. Its name is derived from ‘the West’ in Arabic. This region has relatively few medieval buildings: devastating earthquakes in 1722 and 1755 contributed to these losses, though many buildings were deliberately destroyed during the Middle Ages. For example, in the 12th century the Almoravids likely razed a pilgrimage church, described in Arabic sources, at the tip of the cape of S Vicente. Mosques at Faro, Silves and Tavira, among others, appear to have been levelled to make room for church construction after the Reconquest of the region, completed in 1249. Further excavations could shed much light on this history.

Highlights in the Algarve include remains at Milreu of a villa with elaborate mosaics that rank among the most substantial Roman sites in the region. The site further preserves foundations of a basilica, likely constructed in the 5th century, and traces of what may be a baptistery, perhaps added during the period of Byzantine occupation in the 6th and 7th centuries. The period of Islamic rule, from the 8th century through to the 13th, witnessed the construction of many fortifications, including examples at Aljezur, Loulé and Salir, which were mostly levelled by earthquakes. Silves, a city with origins in the Bronze Age, preserves a substantial concentration of relatively well-preserved Islamic monuments. These include a bridge, carved inscriptions, a castle, cistern and fortified walls, along which numerous ceramics have been excavated. Most extant medieval churches in Algarve date to the period after the Reconquest. These tend to be modest in design and small in scale, such as the 13th-century Vera Cruz de Marmelar, built over Visigothic or Mozarabic foundations. The relatively large cathedrals at Silves and at Faro preserve substantial portions dating to the 13th century, as well as fabric from subsequent medieval campaigns. Renaissance and Baroque churches and ecclesiastical furnishings can be found throughout Algarve....

Article

Artaud, Antoine Marie François  

French, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 17 April 1767, in Avignon; died 27 March 1838, in Orange.

Archaeologist, painter.

A student of Gonichon at the École de Dessin de Lyon, Artaud worked as a fabric designer before becoming an archaeologist. He is best-known for his work on the antiques and mosaics discovered in Lyons, and for organising the town's museum, becoming its first curator ...

Article

Artigas, Francisco  

Keith Eggener

(b Mexico City, 1916; d Mexico City, Mar 2, 1999).

Mexican architect. Noted for his minimalist modern houses, Artigas was the most prolific designer working at the Jardines del Pedregal, the Mexico City district developed after World War II by Luis Barragán. The son of the army general and Mexico City police chief Francisco Artigas Barbedillo (1884–1961), Artigas attended school in Mexico City until his family moved to Cotija, Michoacán, during the 1920s. Cotija’s colonial and vernacular buildings would influence some of his later work. Returning to the capital, he entered the Escuela Nacional de Ingeniería, but dropped out after one year, opting to travel and study architecture informally on his own. In California the work of Richard Neutra and other Modernists impressed him greatly. His earliest buildings were private houses in Culiacán, Sinaloa, beginning in 1942. By 1950 he had returned to Mexico City and begun work on the first of many houses in the Pedregal district. Over the next decades Artigas worked extensively in Mexico, designing offices, hotels, houses, urban renewal projects, and schools (when he headed CAPFCE, the Comité Administrador del Programa Federal de Construcción de Escuelas, ...

Article

Barvitius, Antonín  

Yvonne Jankova

(Viktor)

(b Prague, July 14, 1823; d Prague, July 20, 1901).

Bohemian architect, draughtsman and archaeologist, brother of Viktor Barvitius. Antonín Barvitius grew up in the Little Quarter of Prague, in the household of Count Jiří František August Buquoy (1781–1851), where his father worked. From 1840 to 1843 he studied various subjects at the Czech Technical University in Prague, and he also painted and became interested in architecture, particularly Gothic buildings. In 1844 he went to Vienna, where he studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste under Karl Rösner, August Siccard von Siccardburg and Eduard Van der Nüll. In addition to Gothic art, he also studied the Renaissance and was interested in the theories of Gottfried Semper. In 1848 he opened his own studio in Vienna and began designing commercial and residential houses and tombstones for the bourgeoisie. In 1851–2 he designed a department store in Feldgasse and in 1853 a block of apartment houses in the Barichgasse. He also designed the façade of Casa Rigoni in the Schüllerstrasse. In ...

Article

Bassano, Alessandro  

Italian, 16th century, male.

Active in Paduac.1550.

Painter, architect, archaeologist.

Alessandro Bassano supplied drawings for the decoration of the Sala dei Giganti of the old town hall in Padua; the actual decoration was done by Campagnola and other Italian artists.

Paris, 25 Nov 1925...

Article

Bianchi, Pietro (ii)  

Daniela Campanelli

(b Lugano, March 26, 1787; d Naples, Dec 6, 1849).

Italian architect and archaeologist, of Swiss origin. He was a pupil of Luigi Cagnola and attended the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Milan, graduating in architecture at Pavia in 1806. He lived in Rome and between 1810 and 1814 was superintendent of the excavation of the Colosseum, which was being directed by Giuseppe Valadier. In 1812 Bianchi published the Osservazioni sull’arena e sul podio dell’Anfiteatro Flavio … in Rome, and he also carried out excavations on the Forum Romanum.

As a member of the Accademia di S Luca, Bianchi was put forward to design the layout of the Largo di Palazzo (now the Piazza del Plebiscito), Naples; the commission was awarded him by Ferdinand I of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (reg 1759–1825). Ferdinand had in fact announced a competition in 1817 for the completion of this work, which had been initiated by Joachim Murat, King of Naples, in ...

Article

Borcht, Hendrik van der, the Elder  

Dutch, 17th century, male.

Born 1583, in Brussels; died 1660, in Frankfurt am Main.

Painter, engraver, archaeologist.

Frankenthal School.

Hendrik van der Borcht the Elder left his native country with his parents in 1586, because of war, and went to Germany, where he was the pupil of Gillis von Valkenburg. According to other biographers, he was the pupil of the elderly Martin von Valkenburg, in Frankfurt. Later he went to Italy, where he devoted himself to archaeology. He lived until 1627 in Frankenthal, and thereafter in Frankfurt am Main. He had also been to England. The engravings for which he is remembered include: ...

Article

Brown, Percy  

S. J. Vernoit

(b 1872; d Srinagar, 1955).

English art historian, museum curator, educationalist, painter and collector. In 1899, after a short period of training as an archaeologist in Egypt, Brown went to India, where he served as curator of Lahore Museum and principal of the Mayo School of Art, Lahore. While working in these posts, he was also assistant director of the Delhi Exhibition of 1902–3 (see Delhi, §II), under George Watt. In 1909 he took up employment in Calcutta as principal of the Government School of Art and curator of the art section of the Indian Museum. In 1927 he retired from the Indian Educational Service to take up an appointment as secretary and curator of the Victoria Memorial Hall in Calcutta, where he remained until 1947. After this he lived on a houseboat on the Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir.

Brown’s earliest publications included a contribution to the catalogue of the Delhi Exhibition and a descriptive guide to the Department of Industrial Art at Lahore Museum in ...

Article

Canina, Luigi  

Valeria Farinati

(b Casale Monferrato, Oct 24, 1795; d Florence, Oct 17, 1856).

Italian architect, archaeologist and architectural historian. He studied architecture at the University of Turin (1810–12) under Ferdinando Bonsignore (1767–1843) and his assistant Giuseppe Talucchi (1782–1863). After serving (1812–14) in the fortress of Alessandria, he resumed his studies and obtained a degree in architecture in 1814. He served a period of apprenticeship under Talucchi, who helped him obtain a three-year grant from the Court of Turin for further study in Rome, where Canina settled in January 1818. He worked on engravings of Roman monuments under the antiquarian, scholar and publisher Mariano Vasi (1744–1820), and at the end of his three-year period as pensionato, he presented a survey of the Colosseum (Anfiteatro Flavio descritto, misurato e restaurato; dispersed) to the architects of the Accademia di S Luca, including Giuseppe Valadier, who were much impressed.

In 1824 Canina was appointed to execute his scheme for the expansion of the park of the ...

Article

Cardonnel, Adam de  

British, 19th century, male.

Active in Edinburgh.

Died 1820, in Cramlington.

Engraver, archaeologist.

Adam de Cardonnel produced 20 plates for Numismata Scotiae, published in Edinburgh in 1786, and one plate for Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland (London 1788-1793).

Article

Cassas, Louis-François  

Joshua Drapkin

(b Azay-le-Ferron, Indre, June 3, 1756; d Versailles, Nov 1, 1827).

French draughtsman, engraver, sculptor and archaeologist. He received instruction in drawing from Joseph-Marie Vien, Jean-Jacques Lagrenée and Jean-Baptiste Le Prince. In 1778 he departed for Italy, where he developed his landscape draughtsmanship and his passion for antiquity. He travelled incessantly, recording everything he saw and venturing out from Rome to Venice, Naples and Sicily. An example of the numerous drawings he produced is the Ruins of the Baths of Titus Seen from the Colosseum (Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.). In 1782 a group of amateurs, under the patronage of Emperor Joseph II, commissioned from him a series of views of the Istrian and Dalmatian coast; these were eventually published in J. Lavallée’s Voyage pittoresque et historique de l’Istrie et de la Dalmatie. After a brief spell in France, Cassas followed Marie-Gabriel, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, to his new ambassadorial post in Constantinople in 1784. He subsequently visited Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Cyprus and Asia Minor, recording his impressions of Alexandria, Cairo, Smyrna, the Temple of Diana (Artemis) at Ephesos and the Palmyra and Baalbek ruins. Many of the 250 drawings dating from this trip were of hitherto unrecorded sights. With Choiseul’s assistance Cassas published these works in the ...

Article

Catherwood, Frederick  

Esther Acevedo

(b Hoxton, London, 1799; d at sea nr. Terranova, 1854).

English draftsman and printmaker, active also in Mexico. He studied architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in London and continued his studies in Rome. Active in the Middle East, he made drawings of antiquities in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Holy Land. At the end of the 1830s, Catherwood worked for an architecture studio in the USA. During the assemblage of an exhibition about his first works, he met the American archaeologist John Lloyd Stephens (1805–1852), who proposed to travel with him to Yucatan.

Catherwood accompanied Stephens on two trips to Mexico. On the first one, in 1839–1840, he undertook the task of drawing the archaeological ruins of Palenque, Uxmal, Copan, and other places or monuments specified by Stephens. Under the terms of his contract, Stephens became the owner of the original drawings, with the right to reproduce them. The monuments were captured with great precision down to the minutest details. On their second trip, in ...

Article

Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale  

Stephanie Luther

[CESCM]

French organization founded in Poitiers in 1953. The Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale (CECSM) is affiliated with the Université de Poitiers, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), and the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. The founders, among them historian Edmond-René Labande and art historian René Crozet, began CESCM as a month-long interdisciplinary study of medieval civilization, inviting foreign students to participate. CESCM has since developed into a permanent organization but maintains the international and interdisciplinary focus of its founders.

CESCM continues to hold its formative summer session, known as ‘Les Semaines d’études médiévales’, and invites advanced graduate students of all nationalities. The summer session spans two weeks and includes sessions on a variety of topics, each conducted by a member or affiliate of CESCM. CESCM supports collaborative research groups and regularly holds colloquia attended by the international scholarly community.

Since 1958 CECSM has published ...

Article

Charnay, (Claude-Joseph-)Désiré  

Patricia Strathern

(b Fleurieux, Rhône, May 2, 1828; d Paris, Oct 24, 1915).

French photographer, archaeologist, and writer. An intrepid traveler, he used photography as a method of recording and documenting the sites he explored and wrote about. He left for the USA in 1857, spending two years in Mexico from 1857 to 1859. Using the wet collodion process and large plates, his photography (e.g. Mexico—Chichen Itza, c. 1858; see Berger and Levrault, cat. no. 40) was something of a technical feat in the circumstances. He returned to Europe in 1861, and his first book, Antiquités mexicaines, was published the same year. In 1863 he photographed in Madagascar and from 1864 to 1880 worked in South America, Java, Australia, and Canada. In 1880 he returned to Mexico, where he made some important archaeological discoveries in Pre-Columbian sites.

See also Pre-Columbian sources in American architecture; Mesoamerica, Pre-Columbian, §X, 1.

Article

Chauvigné, Auguste-Alexandre  

French, 19th – 20th century, male.

Born 1855, in Tours; died 1929, in Tours.

Potter, writer, archaeologist.

School of Tours.

Auguste-Alexandre Chauvigné trained with his father Auguste-François, and worked in the same studio. A journalist, novelist, playwright, historian and archeologist, he was a member of the Académie Française and of the Académie d'Agriculture. In ...

Article

Clérisseau, Charles-Louis  

Thomas J. McCormick

(b Paris, baptAug 28, 1721; d Auteuil, Jan 19, 1820).

French architect, archaeologist and painter. He was an important if controversial figure associated with the development of the Neo-classical style of architecture and interior design and its dissemination throughout Europe and the USA. He studied at the Académie Royale d’Architecture, Paris, under Germain Boffrand and won the Grand Prix in 1746. He spent the years 1749 to 1754 at the Académie Française in Rome but left after an argument with the director Charles-Joseph Natoire over his refusal to make his Easter Communion; this may have been due to his Jansenist sympathies. He nevertheless remained in Italy until 1767. During these years he became a close friend of Piranesi, Winckelmann, Cardinal Alessandro Albani and other members of the international circle interested in the Antique.

In his early student days in Rome, Clérisseau became acquainted in particular with English travellers and began to sell them his attractive topographical drawings of Roman architecture. Initially these were influenced by his studies with ...

Article

Cruzvillegas, Abraham  

Robin Adèle Greeley

(b Mexico City, 1968).

Mexican sculptor, installation artist, and multimedia artist. A figure in the generation of Mexican artists that came to prominence in the 1990s, Cruzvillegas studied pedagogy at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (1986–1990). Informally, he also studied caricature with Rafael “El Fisgón” Barajas (1985) and with Gabriel Orozco in the Taller de los viernes (“Friday workshop,” 1987–1991). In 2007 Cruzvillegas began developing the aesthetic platform of autoconstrucción (“self-building”). Rooted in the ad hoc building tactics prevalent in squatter settlements on the outskirts of megacities, his autoconstrucción works inventively repurpose found detritus to produce a materialist critique of object experience in the 21st-century’s global consumer economy.

Cruzvillegas’s early artistic ventures were informed by, among other factors, his participation in the Taller de los Viernes; his engagement with the underground music, political caricature, and comic book scenes; and his encounters with artists and curators committed to opening Mexico’s then relatively insular art world to international ideas. At the informal Taller de los viernes run by Orozco, Cruzvillegas explored artists and ideas not readily available in Mexico at the time, assimilating everything from Robert Filliou’s ...

Article

Cunningham, Sir Alexander  

E. Errington

(b London, Jan 23, 1814; d London, Nov 28, 1893).

British archaeologist, numismatist and engineer. He obtained an Indian cadetship in 1828 through the patronage of Sir Walter Scott and received his commission as Second Lieutenant, Bengal Engineers, in 1831. After training at Addiscombe and Chatham, he was sent to India in 1833. Friendship with James Prinsep encouraged an immediate interest in Indian antiquities and led to his excavation of the Sarnath stupa (1835–6). After three years with the Sappers at Calcutta, Delhi and Benares (Varanasi), he was appointed an aide-de-camp (1836–40) to Lord Auckland. A geographical mission (July–September 1839) to trace the sources of the Punjab rivers in Kashmir provided access to the antiquities of the region. While Executive Engineer to Muhammad ‛Ali Shah, the ruler of Avadh (1840–42), he discovered the Buddhist site of Sankasya (Sankisa).

As a field engineer, he saw action during the Bundelkund rebellion (1842), at Punniar (...