Along with the alteration of social structure, the
replacement of royal patrons by public authorities, new typologies of buildings
such as government offices, banks, hospitals, museums have emerged. Though it
was a revolutionary period, not all was new. 19th century is the
century of eclecticism and revival. Therefore, many of the architecture in the
previous historic scene would reappear, beyond their original borders or
otherwise brought together.
While there’s a positive progression in the advancement of
machinery and new energy, continuing from the Industrial Revolution of the 18th
century, I would say that there’s a negative progression in architectural
innovation. Instead of simulating new architecture it revives the old, existing
structures. However it wasn’t a direct imitation, it was an application of the
new into the old. I view it almost like a trial run, for them to test their
qualities, so they start from the ancient, the very basic, aiming to challenge
and overcome what were architectural achievements and successes of the
preceding periods. Consequently, the architecture of the century was an
experiment used to explore the integration of newly invented materials of steel
and glass, firstly into the existing architecture of the past. Therefore, it is
a period of time that eventually becomes a mark of the transition of
architecture into the modern world, before the big leap in the face of
architecture.
