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While obviously informed by modern thinking, the Founders rooted the American experiment firmly in classical Greek and Roman tradition. There's a reason why US

While obviously informed by modern thinking, the Founders rooted the American experiment firmly in classical Greek and Roman tradition. There's a reason why US government buildings all look like classical temples.

vidarh 10y ago
> There's a reason why US government buildings all look like classical temples. It's not quite that simple. The US Federal style adapted neoclassist architecture from Europe, where Greek and Roman inspired revivals started in the mid 18th century when new archeological expeditions as well as artists bringing back impressions of Italy and Greece produced an influx of images and artefacts that made Greek and Roman architecture better known. French revolutionary architecture went to a similar extreme as the US Federal style, and I'm sure it wasn't all a one way thing, and you're sort-of right in that certainly people were looking to the Roman Republic and the Greek city states as an ideal, and that was part of the fascination with Greece and Roman culture. And the architecture in return did get an image tied to radicalism and republicanism as a result of the extent of its use in the US and France after the revolution (the French then went on to take it to the extreme, when under Napoleon the French Empire style tried to do everything bigger, shiner and even more Roman). But the Greek and Roman revival didn't start in the US, and often copied then-modern European architecture rather than copying the originals. An example where we know the direct influence is the layout of Washington D.C. - Jefferson provided l'Enfant with maps and sketches of a number of European cities to use as inspiration, with Karlsruhe being one of them. Karlsruhe had been built from scratch starting in the 18th century, following a strict planned layout with a palace at the centre, radiating artery roads out from the palace gardens, aligned with the wings of the palace, and was a major force in spreading the influence of strict geometric city plans that used the shape and regularity to draw attention to important buildings or monuments as well as to tie the city together. Washington D.C. (and many later US cities) certainly in turn influenced further city plans in Europe.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Yeah, but they also kept writing about how they were creating the new Rome.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    But that basis of that fascination was also part of the reason for the rise of neoclassisism. Greece and the Roman Republic and Empire came to be seen as purer, grander and more refined past, which drove a lot of effort into re-discovering information about them, which led to an increased interest in archeology, and eventually to things like neoclassism. Dictators and radicals alike looked for lessons, and found them in different places for centuries. E.g. the former have often had an extreme fascination with the idea of continuity with the Roman Empire (see one of Napoleons later extreme examples of trying to be Roman[1]); the latter with the nascent democracy of the Greek city states and the Roman Republic. You find it everywhere, not just in philosophy, architecture and art: English itself was subjected to a sustained "assault" of writers trying to bring more Latin and Greek words into common use. A bit cheek-in-mouth: Everyone wanted to create the new Rome, ever since the fall of Rome (e.g. consider the Holy Roman Empire and the idea of "translatio imperii" which was used to justify a tenuous connection to the perceived glory of ROme [2]). They just disagreed (strongly) about what was great about Rome. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_style#/media/File:The_Madeleine,_Paris,_France,_ca._1890-1900.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_style#/media/File:The_M... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translatio_imperii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translatio_imperii
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      The HRE probably had the best claim next to the Byzantines to being the true successors to Rome, but of course in the US they were a lot more interested in the Roman republic than the dominate.
      - vidarh 10y ago
        The HRE had a very tenuous claim. They didn't even use the name until hundreds of years in, and most of their emperors were not crowned by any popes. Their claim was basically that the HRE was a successor to East Francia, which lands had been part of the Carolingian Empire, which had been ruled by Charlemagne, who had been crowned emperor by the pope in attempt to stake out his own very tenuous claim to be the continuation of the West Roman Empire (which had basically been defunct for centuries by then). Couple that with the invented principle of translatio imperii [1], and they glossed over the multiple long breaks in lineage, and lack of even an unbroken connection between the territories ruled. There's the old joke about the HRE: It was neither Holy, Roman or an Empire - the emperor ruled on paper, but it had very limited practical effect other than letting a smaller and smaller set of families reflect in the glory of an Emperor title. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translatio_imperii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translatio_imperii

vidarh 10y ago

> There's a reason why US government buildings all look like classical temples. It's not quite that simple. The US Federal style adapted neoclassist architecture from Europe, where Greek and Roman inspired revivals started in the mid 18th century when new archeological expeditions as well as artists bringing back impressions of Italy and Greece produced an influx of images and artefacts that made Greek and Roman architecture better known. French revolutionary architecture went to a similar extreme as the US Federal style, and I'm sure it wasn't all a one way thing, and you're sort-of right in that certainly people were looking to the Roman Republic and the Greek city states as an ideal, and that was part of the fascination with Greece and Roman culture. And the architecture in return did get an image tied to radicalism and republicanism as a result of the extent of its use in the US and France after the revolution (the French then went on to take it to the extreme, when under Napoleon the French Empire style tried to do everything bigger, shiner and even more Roman). But the Greek and Roman revival didn't start in the US, and often copied then-modern European architecture rather than copying the originals. An example where we know the direct influence is the layout of Washington D.C. - Jefferson provided l'Enfant with maps and sketches of a number of European cities to use as inspiration, with Karlsruhe being one of them. Karlsruhe had been built from scratch starting in the 18th century, following a strict planned layout with a palace at the centre, radiating artery roads out from the palace gardens, aligned with the wings of the palace, and was a major force in spreading the influence of strict geometric city plans that used the shape and regularity to draw attention to important buildings or monuments as well as to tie the city together. Washington D.C. (and many later US cities) certainly in turn influenced further city plans in Europe.

emodendroket 10y ago
Yeah, but they also kept writing about how they were creating the new Rome.
- vidarh 10y ago
  But that basis of that fascination was also part of the reason for the rise of neoclassisism. Greece and the Roman Republic and Empire came to be seen as purer, grander and more refined past, which drove a lot of effort into re-discovering information about them, which led to an increased interest in archeology, and eventually to things like neoclassism. Dictators and radicals alike looked for lessons, and found them in different places for centuries. E.g. the former have often had an extreme fascination with the idea of continuity with the Roman Empire (see one of Napoleons later extreme examples of trying to be Roman[1]); the latter with the nascent democracy of the Greek city states and the Roman Republic. You find it everywhere, not just in philosophy, architecture and art: English itself was subjected to a sustained "assault" of writers trying to bring more Latin and Greek words into common use. A bit cheek-in-mouth: Everyone wanted to create the new Rome, ever since the fall of Rome (e.g. consider the Holy Roman Empire and the idea of "translatio imperii" which was used to justify a tenuous connection to the perceived glory of ROme [2]). They just disagreed (strongly) about what was great about Rome. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_style#/media/File:The_Madeleine,_Paris,_France,_ca._1890-1900.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_style#/media/File:The_M... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translatio_imperii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translatio_imperii
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    The HRE probably had the best claim next to the Byzantines to being the true successors to Rome, but of course in the US they were a lot more interested in the Roman republic than the dominate.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      The HRE had a very tenuous claim. They didn't even use the name until hundreds of years in, and most of their emperors were not crowned by any popes. Their claim was basically that the HRE was a successor to East Francia, which lands had been part of the Carolingian Empire, which had been ruled by Charlemagne, who had been crowned emperor by the pope in attempt to stake out his own very tenuous claim to be the continuation of the West Roman Empire (which had basically been defunct for centuries by then). Couple that with the invented principle of translatio imperii [1], and they glossed over the multiple long breaks in lineage, and lack of even an unbroken connection between the territories ruled. There's the old joke about the HRE: It was neither Holy, Roman or an Empire - the emperor ruled on paper, but it had very limited practical effect other than letting a smaller and smaller set of families reflect in the glory of an Emperor title. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translatio_imperii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translatio_imperii