WEBINAR - ONLINE PROGRAM THROUGH ZOOM

Raphael the Architect in Context
Brian Kelly, AIA, professor university of Maryland, school of architecture, planning & preservation

Raphael’s achievements as a painter are practically axiomatic in art historical circles, while his position as an architect is often overlooked or cast in a subordinate role to Bramante, Michelangelo, and other cinquecento architects. However, Raphael’s architectural sensibilities were well developed and sophisticated. In addition to his built works, his painted depictions of buildings and urban settings are evidence of his command of architectural principles. If we include bricks and mortar as well as painted and drawn architecture in his oeuvre, we can readily assert that Raphael designed a body of truly innovative work that influenced architects well beyond his untimely death in 1520. Contemporary assessments of Raphael’s architectural production are challenged because a significant portion of his work is known only in fragmentary form through his drawings or drawings executed by contemporaries or in greatly altered contexts. Most of Raphael’s work is known out of its physical and temporal context. This lecture will aim to recreate the now lost physical context of the early 1500s, focusing on two of Raphael’s important works: the Palazzo Jacopo da Brescia (1515-1519) and the Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila (1520), both located in The Borgo, a Roman neighborhood adjacent to the Vatican. Seeing Raphael’s works in something approximating their original context allows us to better understand his innovative and unprecedented contributions to architecture.

 $10 fee for guests and subscribers