19th Century Architecture :: Art Buildings Essays

19th Century Architecture 19th Century architecture is a wide subject only because there were so many beautiful and magnificent buildings built. The Houses of Parliament were built between 1840 to 1865. It was built by Sir Charles Barry in a Gothic Revival style. The buildings cover an area of more than 8 acres and contain 1100 apartments, 100 staircases, and 11 courts. The exterior, in it’s Revived Gothic style, s impressive with its three large towers: Victoria Tower spanning 336ft in the air, Middle tower 300ft, and Saint Stephen’s better known as the Clock Tower spans 320ft to the sky. The latter contains a clock with four dials, each 23ft long, and a great bell, Big Ben, weighing 13.5 tons. Among the house are the House of Peers; House of Commons; Saint Stephen’s Hall on the site of Saint Stephen’s Chapel; the residence of the speaker, the libraries, committee rooms, and lobbies connected with the House of Commons and the House of Peers; and offices. A very well known structure was also built LA TOUR EIFFEL The Eiffel Tower, or as the French call it, La tour Eiffel, is the last metal construction from the 1887 exhibition. From top to bottom the Eiffel tower is a naked construction showing its rivets and seams proudly. Work on the Eiffel Tower began on January 28, 1887. With new techniques for metal construction the Eiffel Tower was completed in 26 months. With little cost and little labor the only complaints about it were directed at its starkness. The Parisian skyline is forever changed by this tower of steel. Three hundred meters tall when finished, it dominated the landscape of Paris. Later a telecommunications antenna was added to raise the tower's height to almost 350 meters. The Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the world until 1930 when the Chrysler building was built. The Eiffel Tower was built to commemorate the French Revolution. A competition was held for designs for a suitable monument. More than 100 plans were sent in, only three were picked. Of the three the only one standing today is the Eiffel Tower. Conceived by Gustave Alexandre Eiffel, who was an accomplished bridge engineer, the towers' designs were sent in to the Centennial Committee. The reply came not more than a month later, they were to build the tower. Work on the actual tower began more than five months after the designs were accepted.