Architecture

         Buildings of the Baroque period are composed of great curving forms and billowing facades. Ground plans were of unprecedented size and complexity and there were various shapes of domes. Some examples of these buildings are the churches of Francesco Borromini, Guarino Guarini and Balthasar Neumann. Most architectural structures were executed on a colossal scale, utilising aspects of urban planning and landscape architecture. This is most clearly seen in Bernini's elliptical piazza in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and in the gardens, fountains and the palace at Versailles. 

Axial overview (looking over and across) of Piazza of St. Peter's, Vatican City, Rome

Aerial view of Versailles Palace

In Spain in the 17th century, some features of Baroque art emerged in the architectural style of J. B. de Herrera’s school. The splendour and luxuriousness of the Baroque style were given a unique interpretation in Austria (by the architects B. Fischer von Erlach and L. von Hildebrandt and the painter A. Maulbertsch), in the absolutist states of Germany (by the architects B. Neumann, A. Schlüter, Matthäus Pöppelmann, the Asam brothers, and the Dientzenhofer family), in Poland, the Czech lands, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Western Ukraine, and Lithuania. It was in the 18th-century buildings by J. B. de Churriguera’s circle, that baroque forms gained atypical complexity and decorative refinement.

 
Classicism was the leading style in 17th century France and the Baroque style remained secondary until the middle of the century; however, with the triumph of absolutism, the two styles were merged into a single, extravagant style ( eg. the decoration of the halls of Versailles, the paintings of C. Le Brun).

 
Baroque architecture is distinguished mostly by richly sculpted surfaces. In contrast, Renaissance architects used flat surfaces veneered in classical elements, or planar classicism. Baroque architects moulded surfaces with a freedom that helped them achieve a sort of three-dimensional sculpted classicism. And while Renaissance design was based on modular, balanced sections, Baroque design is treated as a continuous whole, with a strong sense of dynamism. And these surfaces featured an attention grabbing concentration of decorative elements (curved walls, columns, arches, statues and sculpture) around a central design.  

Example of three dimensional sculpted classism of the Baroque style

 
In Italy, churches are the most magnificent form of Baroque architecture, whilst chateaux are the splendid Baroque works of France. Christopher Wren, considered one of the greatest English architects, designed many of London's buildings after the Great Fire, one of which is his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral. 

St. Paul's Cathedral, London, Christopher Wren

The foremost pioneer of Baroque architecture was Carlo Maderno, whose masterpiece is the facade of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City, Rome.  The facade of St. Peter’s contains a number of Baroque elements, some including double columns (close-set pairs of columns), layered columns, colossal columns (columns that span multiple stories), and broken pediments (in which the bottom and/or top of a pediment features a gap, often with ornamentation that “bursts through” the pediment).