The Baroque Age was an era of tremendous building activity across Europe and Latin America. The addition of great Baroque churches, palaces, and other buildings transformed many cities into the forms they still maintain today. Sixtus V's plan for the redevelopment of Rome proved particularly influential on schemes for the aggrandizement of European cities and estates.

Baroque Planning
Louis XIV of France was a ruler of tremendous ego and absolute power. To immortalize his reign, he transformed The palace and garden of Versailles (from 1622-90; Andre Le Notre planner and landscape architect; Louis Le Vau, the Jules Hardouin-Mansart architects; Charles Lebrun interior designer). Soon Versailles came to be widely admired and imitated by royalty and aristocracy all over Europe: e.g. Sir Christopher Wren's plan for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666; Hampton Court palace gardens, west of London, 1670s, Wren architect; radial plan of Karlsruhe, Germany, 1715-; built for Margrave Karl Wilhelm of Baden-Durlach; St. Petersburg, Russia, 1703-; Palace at Caserta, near Naples, Italy, King Carlo III patron, Luigi Vanvitelli architect, 1752-. Even the plan for the capital of the world's first modern democracy-- Washington D.C.- which was designed by Pierre L'Enfant, (1791-2) employed the absolutist planning ideals of the Baroque.

Baroque Architecture
Although the Baroque was widely popular outside of Italy, it underwent many changes and modifications in the course of its migration. Some countries, such as France and England, largely ignored the exuberant curvilinearity of Italian Baroque in favor of its heaviness and grandiose scale. Other countries, such as Germany and Spain, went even further than the Italians in their exploitation of elaborate decorative and spatial qualities.

The final phase of the Baroque is often called the Rococo. Emerging in the early and mid-18th century, the Rococo displayed a delicacy, lightness and elegance (and often radical asymmetry), that has been interpreted as a reaction to the heaviness of the Baroque. First developed as furniture and decoration in the court of Louis XV, Rococo was mostly applied to the interiors of Baroque buildings, and cannot really be considered as a separate style of architecture.

France
Vaux le Vicomte, South of Paris, 1657-6, Le Vau architect, Andre Le Notre landscape designer, Foquet patron; East front of the Louvre, Paris, 1667-74, Claude Perrault architect, Louis XIV patron.

England: Like the Frence, the British were often reluctant to exploit the dynamic curvilinearity of the Italian Baroque, e.g. St. Paul's Cathedral, 1675-1710, London, Sir Christopher Wren architect; St. Stephen Walbrook, London, 1672-7, Wren arch.; St. Brides, London, 1670-84, Wren arch. A few British baroque designers developed a rectilinear Baroque language using exaggerated or odd details and violently contrasting scales, e.g. Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, England, 1705-22, Sir John Vanbrugh & Nicholas Hawksmoor architects; Christ Church, London, 1713-29, Hawksmoor arch.

Germany and Central Europe: Influenced by the spatial dynamics of Guarino Guarini, architects in Central Europe developed interior spaces of great drama, fluidity and complexity that in many later cases was combined with extravagant Rococo decoration; e.g. S. John Nepomuk (aka Asamkirche), Munich, Germany, 1733-46, the Asam Brothers (Egid and Cosmas) architects; Melk Abbey, Melk, Austria, 1702-27, Jacob Prandtauer architect; pilgrimage church of Vierzehnheiligen, (Rococo), Germany, 1743-, Balthasar Neumann, et. al.architects; grand staircase at the Residenz, Wurzburg 1737-42, Neumann arch.; Amalienburg (Rococo), Munich, 1734-9, Francois Cuvillies architect; "Die Wies," pilgrimage church, Germany, 1745-54, Domenikus Zimmerman architect; S. Miklaus, Prague, Czech Republic, 1703-53, Christoph and Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer architects; S. John Nepomuk, Z'dar, Czec Rep., 1720-23, J.B. Santini-Aichel architect.

Spain and its Colonies: The most exuberant forms of Hispanic baroque architecture are sometimes called Churrigueresque and feature the use of complex, faceted estipite pilasters, e.g. facade of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 1738-; San Sabastian y Santa Prisca, Taxco, Mexico, 1751-8, Jose de la Borda patron, various architects; San Francisco Acatepec and Santa Maria Tonantzintla, both c. 1750 and near Cholula, Mexico; San Francisco, 1669-74, Lima, Peru, Constantino de Vasconcelos architect; San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo, San Antonio, Texas, 1768-82, Pedro Huizar sculptor; San Xavier del Bac, Tuscon, Arizona, 1784-1797.