Andrew Marvick
Associate Professor of Art History
Department of Art and Design
Southern Utah University

At the start of the nineteenth century the dominant new spirit in architecture, both in Europe and in the United States, was Neoclassicism. Both the forms of ancient Greece and Rome and their association with long-lasting civilizations and systems of governance made them attractive to architects of state building projects and their employers. Exceptionally erudite and inventive Neoclassical adaptations of ancient designs include the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C., designed in what is referred to usually as the Federal style from 1792, with initial construction completed by 1811. French examples include the Arc de Triomphe, designed in 1806 by Jean Chalgrin; the Arc du Carrousel, an 1806-1808 structure by the co-founders of the French Empire style, Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine; and the Château de Rastignac (the primary model for the extant design of the White House), designed by Mathurin Salat. A mark of the formal persuasiveness and flexibility of the Neoclassical style in architecture is the choice of classical orders by democratic and authoritarian governments alike.

By mid-century, however, a new, neo-Baroque alternative was becoming popular in major urban building projects. Eventually this expressive current became known as the Beaux-Arts style, in reference to the range of flamboyant forms of Academic Neoclassicism then being promulgated at the École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris. The Palais Garnier (home of the Paris Opera, built between 1861 and 1875) is a spectacular late example of this mode of highly extravert and richly decorated architecture, which its designer, the Beaux-Arts-trained Charles Garnier, dubbed the "Napoléon III style."

Much of the large-scale architecture of the latter half of the nineteenth century consisted of an elaborate re-visiting of historical styles, adapted to suit the demands of the modern, rapidly urbanizing world. An example is London's Houses of Parliament (officially known as the New Palace of Westminster), designed by Charles Barry and constructed between 1840 and 1870 in the so-called Perpendicular Neo-Gothic style.

Meanwhile a conflicting temperament of utilitarianism took root from the ideas and designs of such American architects as Louis Sullivan. His famous dictum "Form ever follows function," as well as such brilliant, practical and space-efficient buildings as the so-called "Palazzo-style" Guaranty Building (1895), in Buffalo, New York, helped to establish the foundation of modern urban architecture and, most significantly, the skyscraper.

As the century drew to a close, new and more overtly personal styles became associated with specific architects, designers and artistic movements. The mainstream progressive style of the period, known as Art Nouveau in France and Jugendstil in Germany, produced a variety of striking designs inspired by the flowing rhythms of organic growth—plants and water, for example. Two extraordinary examples of this style are the Belgian architect Victor Horta's Hôtel Tassel (1893-1894), in Brussels; and the entranceways to the Paris Métropolitain subway system, designed by Hector Guimard between 1899 and 1900. The eccentric Secession Building, designed by Josef Maria Olbrich in Vienna between 1891 and 1893, is another such fin-de-siècle ("end-of-century") folly; the Casa Batlló in Barcelona, a remarkable Art Nouveau structure by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí y Cornet, is another; and the more refined, less ostentatious but widely influential Willow Tearooms Building, designed in Glasgow by Charles Rennie Mackintosh between 1900 and 1903, is still another.