Palaces

All new guidebook to the Tower based around the principles established in the 'Tower Core Story' project (led by Polly Richard, Megan Gooch and me) for communicating the complexity of the Tower's history and meaning in a straightforward, relevant and accessible way.

The city, ancient or modern, has shapes and tracings that limit, condition and require relevant design decisions. The architect, very often, during the design process of the building, operates within "batches" of land that require specific solutions by limiting and forcing the project within precise patterns. In the case of historical contexts (centers), this limitation becomes increasingly present and conditioning. Today, as in the past, the architect is called to complete parts of urban lots, trying to optimize the relationship / comparison / integration between new and existing buildings. In the 15th Century, Florence had a great economic prosperity, deriving from the activities in manufacturing and trade. This welfare manifests itself in an intense building production; while it does not lead to a planning or a renewal of the urban fabric, it only encouraged the building of a number of private palaces by the families affected by the general economic development. The fifteenth-century Florence thus, is not affected by extensive and programmatic interventions at "urban scale", but it is only the subject of various re-development projects in certain areas of the city; often in areas adjoining or adjacent to those which are affected by the construction of noble buildings. The important families that give life to this renewal are those of the rich bourgeoisie, which is thriving thanks to the commercial or banking businesses: Medici, Strozzi, Gondi, Rucellai, Peruzzi, Albizi, Alberti that give names to the most important buildings of the Florentine Renaissance. One of the most evident problems arises due to the well-defined urban margins determined by the city walls which creates the complication of finding free land and affordable plots for setting the new buildings on. The rich families, thus, tend to acquire small portions of land or existing buildings adjacent to their homes, mostly the traditional and medieval tower houses (case-torri), to proceed to a substantial renovation of the new spaces and volumes. These constraints were taken in account carefully by the architect in charge who is called to execute the projects. In fact, in the fifteenth-century Florence, there are very few examples of isolated buildings with four open fronts: Palazzo Pitti constitutes the only example which is drawn up by Filippo Brunelleschi. Only a few cases of palaces open on three sides: one for the Medici Family (later Riccardi) by Michelozzo and Palazzo Strozzi by brothers From Majano on a project by Giuliano da Sangallo. The most conspicuous examples of corner palaces: that of the Pazzi Family attributed to Brunelleschi, the Palace Corsi-Horne or that Guadagni-Dei attributed to Baccio d'Agnolo or Cronaca to name a few. The most common typology is constituted by single fronted palaces: one of them is the palace of Rucellai Family by Leon Battista Alberti and Rossellino or the palace of Gondi Family by Giuliano da Sangallo which will be deepened in this paper with its history and evolution of the construction. This research investigates the relationship between the limited urban form and its influences on the design decisions of single buildings. Further, this research aims to identify different building typologies through observing and analyzing the most important interventions of 15th Century in Florence including Gondi Palace.

From research on the history of country residences near Warsaw. The precincts of the Brühl family palace in Młociny (from the mid-18th century).
The palace in the village of Młociny near Warsaw was part of a large early-modern complex, including a park, outhouses and outbuildings, as well as gardens on the bank of the Vistula, decorative pavilions, a game park, an inn and a windmill. It was the most northward residential complex of this type along the Warsaw Embankment. It did not survive long in its most extensive form, as it started to be reshaped at the end of the 18th c., which led to its degradation.
The article discusses structures that were part of the Młociny palace-and-garden design and had various functions (some were used as living quarters, some for leisure pursuits and entertaining guests, some were purely decorative). Various available data were collected, including written and iconographic sources, archival maps and photographs, results of excavations from 2010 and of non-destructive research (an analysis of numerical models of the area generated by the GIS software). Correlating data from all those sources made it possible to the characterize the buildings and trace their histories from the design through the construction to the gradual destruction, as well as localize and identify those that have disappeared completely.
The oldest structures, designed by Johann Friedrich Knöbl and constructed in the years 1748–1763, when the palace in Młociny was owned by Henryk Brühl, were three wooden outhouses and a brick kitchen, probably a palisade–pergola on the courtyard, a neighbouring home farm with a brickyard, a game park with a pheasantry, a massive gate facing the south, a forest theatre and a temple of Diana. The next owner, Alojzy Fryderyk Brühl, who employed the architect Szymon Bogumił Zug, probably commissioned most of the decorative pavilions on the riverbank and some utility buildings, constructed in the years 1772–1784. These were brick outhouses, some small outbuildings (?), a new pillared gate, an Oriental pavilion, a monopteros (gloriette), two “peasant cottages”, a “fisherman’s cottage”, alias hermitage, an inn and
a windmill. Most of those garden structures did not survive beyond the mid-19th century. The complex was largely transformed and some of its 18th-century elements were rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th c., when the palace with its closest surroundings was taken over by Stefan Grodzicki. The elements reconstructed at that time were the outhouses, whose usable floor space was extended, the small neighbouring buildings, which were turned into living quarters, and — partly — the palisades. A new greenhouse, stable and barn were built, while the garden wall was modernized to make a passage to the courtyard.
Excavations on the plot to the south of the palace revealed relics of some of those structures, i.e. the outhouses further from the palace, the neighbouring outbuildings, the palisades-pergoles, the gates and the passage. An analysis of the sources resulted in establishing the approximate location of the 18th-century home-farm buildings and brickyard. A comparison of Zygmunt Vogel’s watercolour A View of Młociny with 19th-century maps helped to identify the location of the possible remains of the structures visible in the painting but non-existent now: the inn and the Oriental pavilion. A thorough analysis of the archival cartographic sources and their integration with the numerical model of the area revealed remnants of two islands in the game park, on one of which there used to be some buildings in the mid-18th c. The buildings described above were integral parts of the residential complex in Młociny and had varied functions, which influenced their varied form and character. In most cases, as far as it can be established on the basis of the available sources, their form was determined by a coherent architectural vision reflecting current trends in designing palace-and-garden complexes. The Młociny complex was shaped mostly by the two architects commissioned by the owners, Johann Friedrich Knöbel i Szymon Bogumił Zug, whose work survived for less than a century. Most credit goes to Zug, whose artistic vision was fully implemented here, with eclectic solutions characteristic of his designs integrated into the Vistula landscape. Due to its coherent design and varied details, the Młociny complex can rival larger grandiose magnate residences of that epoch located in Warsaw or nearby.

Widok pałacu okropny, wszystkie drzwi i szafy połamane, posadzki usłane pierzem i włosiem z mebli i materaców, podartemi książkami, listami, potłuczonemi lustrami i szkłem. Trudno uwierzyć, by tak olbrzymi pałac można było w tak krótkim czasie doprowadzić do takiej ruiny ... Pani Kurnatowskiej kilka razy przykładali nóż do gardła, nie szczędzili nawet chorej córki, która od lat nie opuszcza łóżka, przyskoczyli do niej, krzycząc, że udaje chorą, wyrzucili z posłania, a wyłamawszy drzwi i okna, pozostawili ciężko chorą w wychłodzonym pokoju.

Przedruk z uzupełnieniem cyklu artykułów w:  Kuryer Lwowski 10-14.04.1918 (oprac. Genealogia Polaków)

Türkiye, dünyanın en eski kültürlerinin doğduğu, benzersiz bir coğrafi konumda bulunmaktadır. Tarih öncesi dönemlerden günümüze, birçoğu kesintisiz süren yerleşimler, farklı dönem ve kültürlere ait eşsiz hazineleri bir arada barındırır. Bakanlığımız; kültür varlıklarının korunması, tanıtılması, toplumun bu eserler ve kültürel birikim konusunda bilgilendirilmesi ve bilinçlendirilmesi misyonunu üstlenmiştir. Bakanlığımızın kilit görevi, kültür varlıklarımızın korunması, yaşatılması ve gelecek kuşaklara aktarılmasıdır. Bu işlevin yerine getirilmesi; geçmiş yapı geleneğinin günümüze taşındığı bir altyapı üzerine, yine bu altyapıdan beslenen ancak en teknolojik ve bilimsel gelişmeleri de kullanan zengin ve bilinçli bir uzman ekiple mümkün olabilmektedir. Görülen o ki bu ortamda, geleneksele ve geçmişe ait bilgiye sahip ustalar giderek yok olmakta ve somut delil olan kültür mirası da geçmişe ait ipuçlarını giderek yitirmektedir. Bu nedenle biz de kültür mirasının belgelenmesi ve yaşatılmasına ilişkin çalışmalar yürüten tüm uzmanlık alanları ve uzmanları, İstanbul Rölöve ve Anıtlar Müdürlüğünün özverili çabalarıyla bir derginin çatısı altında toplamak ve yayınımızda Türkiye'nin tüm bölgelerinde yürüttüğümüz çalışmaları paylaşmak istemekteyiz. Bakanlığımızın şemsiyesi altında, kültür mirasımız bir başka boyutta da korunmasını ve geleceğe taşınmasını planladığımız bu yayın ile geçmişten geleceğe uzanan bir köprünün iskeletini oluşturduk. Hep birlikte inşa etmek niyetindeyiz. Murat GÜRÜL Kültür Varlıkları ve Müzeler Genel Müdürü