Neo-Byzantine architecture
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Neo-Byzantine architecture is an architectural revival style, of the mid- to late 19th and early 20th centuries, most frequently seen in religious, institutional and public buildings. Neo-Byzantine architecture incorporates elements of the Byzantine style associated with Eastern and Orthodox Christian architecture dating from the 5th through 11th centuries, notably that of Byzantium (Constantinople, or modern-day Istanbul).
The style is characterized by round arches, vaults and domes, brick and stucco surfaces, symbolic ornamentation, and the use of decorative mosaics. It was developed primarily in Imperial Russia and Eastern Europe, where it evolved a long way from Sophia Cathedral of 1782 to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia of 1882. It was popularized in Russia by Konstantin Ton, who combined it with Neoclassical and Russian Revival stylistic elements at will.
Notable American examples include many buildings on the campus of Rice University in Texas, the Throne Room of the Neuschwanstein Castle which is modelled after Hagia Sophia, St. Francis de Sales Church in Philadelphia, Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception built between 1920 and 1959 in Washington, D.C. In the early 1980s, famed American architect Philip Johnson designed a Post-Modernist addition to the Cleveland Play House that reflects Byzantine influences, and could thus be termed Neo-Byzantine.
In the United States and elsewhere, the Neo-Byzantine style is often seen in vernacular amalgamations with other Medieval revivalist styles such as Romanesque and Gothic, or even with the Mission Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival styles.
From about 1850 to 1880 in the English city of Bristol a related style known as Bristol Byzantine was popular for industrial buildings which combined elements of the Byzantine style with Moorish architecture.
