Analysis Of Hardwick Hall

Hardwick Hall Analysis by Mark Girouard and John Harvey

Elizabethan architecture is reign of Queens Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603), influence by the European Renaissance styles, though often somewhat provincial in treatment. Hardwick Hall located in Derbyshire, built for the Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick), in 1591~1597. Hardwick Hall, “More glass than wall.” was a popular saying in the time where great expanses of glass were an ultimate luxury and a symbol of immense wealth. It was designed by the architect Robert Smythson(1535–1614), an exponent of the Renaissance style of architecture. The shape of the house is unusual as other house in Elizabethan, with its six great towers, is exploited internally by many permutations and combinations, the towers in their different stages sometimes contain one or two self-contained and comparatively small rooms; sometimes portions of the staircases; sometimes are opened up into the great rooms and enliven their shape.

Hardwick Hall, Burton Agnes Hall, Wollaton Hall, and other significant Elizabethan projects were designed by Robert Smythson. In other words, Robert Smythson is a signature of that period. Countess of Shrewsbury remains today ‘the supreme triumph of Elizabethan Architecture’ and it is one of the better documented, as well as the best preserved, of Robert Smythson’s works. Although Robert Smythson influenced by renaissance era especially English Gothic, stripped of most classical detail and accentuated by what little remains always can find in his work thus have innovative domestic buildings designed by him. Robert Smythson, who until now has been a shadowy figure among British architects, was an England architect.

John Hooper Harvey and Mark Girouard FAS are inter...

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...rt are two more pavilions, with a gatehouse between them. Unusual features of Hardwick are the colonnades or loggias, not that these were new in England, these loggias were one of the main vehicles for displays of the classical ornament so fashionable in the 1560 and ‘70s.

The comment given by Mark Girouard is ‘Hardwick hall is a non-courtyard house with loggias that it unlike most Elizabethan examples in that their openings are not arched, it’s massive cylindrical columns, of simple but effective design, support a horizontal entablature.’ The example to show that as the stonework shows, they were originally planned to run right round the house between the towers, making its plan at ground level a simple rectangle. In connection with many Elizabethan examples, which has external loggias on each of its four facades but at Hardwick the side loggias were never built.