Method and Meaning in the Architecture of Andrea Palladio

ABSTRACT Architects, this article emphasises, follow discernible procedures when designing their buildings, and these include identifiable methods of imitation, which are inextricably linked to the meanings they intend their buildings to impart. With these precepts explained, they are then explored in relation to the architect Andrea Palladio (1508–80), because his design methods and his buildings’ meanings changed so markedly at certain critical moments of his career. Although chronicled in much detail, Palladio’s career has been little elucidated in its development. The differing creative methods Palladio followed at different times have never been properly identified, and the momentous changes he made to them at certain junctures have remained largely unrecognised. Through considering his methods, it becomes possible to understand how these changes related to him formulating new career objectives and why he felt the need to do so. Thus, the change he effected around 1550 was linked to a dissatisfaction with his previous practice coupled with an ambition to seek out commissions from prominent Venetians for the designs of new villas; and the one he subsequently made around 1560 was precipitated by his realisation that he now needed to broaden his horizons, and by his concomitant determination to take advantage of opportunities, never previously presented, of devising schemes for churches. As a result, it becomes easy to see how the design principles he followed in his later years were the ones he embraced in his architectural treatise, the Quattro libri (1570), and then understand how the treatise would affect the methods followed by those later architects who took note of it, and the meanings they expected their own buildings to convey.