Revivalism (architecture)

As the map of Europe was repeatedly changing, architecture was used to grant the aura of a glorious past to even the most recent of nations.

Pluralism promoted the simultaneous use of the expanded range of style, while Revivalism held that a single historical model was appropriate for modern architecture.

Associations between styles and building types appeared, for example: Egyptian for prisons, Gothic for churches, or Renaissance Revival for banks and exchanges.

[citation needed] These choices were the result of other associations: the pharaohs with death and eternity, the Middle Ages with Christianity, or the Medici family with the rise of banking and modern commerce.

Whether their choice was Classical, medieval, or Renaissance, all Revivalists shared the strategy of advocating a particular style based on national history, one of the great enterprises of historians from the mid-18th to early 19th centuries.