It is remarkable that the Baroque was not a step aside or a degenerate architecture, as it may seem. It was a direct development of architectural thought. And that thought was not about adding more wispy decor.

There's an interesting cultural observation about the time machine. When the human imagination got to time travel by mechanism (it started in the late 19th century), time machines were depicted as large clocks, steam engines, and even bicycles.

The emergence of a new idea does not mean new means of achieving it. People think in familiar categories. The first expensive carriages were decorated with columns and capitals like a house, and the first cars were shaped exactly like carriages. It's the same story with the Baroque.

The revolutionary idea was to overcome the flatness, static and closed nature of the architecture of the time. Part of what we profess today was invented in Baroque times. Only achieved the desired effect then on the material of the time: the decorations became grotesque (depth), porticos bitten off (openness), the towers turned (dynamics). Heavy buildings revolted and came into motion. Stand-alone Renaissance facade decorations merged into an ensemble, a "general living impression" in Baroque architecture. Baroque craftsmen even planned scenarios of familiarity with the building, complicating the layout.

The lemon in the Baroque still life became cut and peeled, ready for celebration right now rather than in perfect eternity. In this sense, Baroque is more human, and closer to modern architecture than its austere predecessors.

The Baroque is more human, and closer to modern architecture than its austere predecessors.