Architecture tells us about ourselves. Whether it is academic architecture guided by refined aesthetic traditions or vernacular architecture designed and constructed by the layperson, it can reveal aspects of our history, our culture, or a particular place and time.
A study of the Biloxi Cottage, Christine G. H. Franck, 2006.
All architecture reflects its place, but vernacular architecture is inseparable from it because it relies on regional materials, simple forms, and local labor. For example, a building design will respond to the area’s climate: porches, large windows, and high ceiling are common in the hot and humid South, whereas small windows and low ceilings are typical in the cold and windy North. Because vernacular architecture speaks of its place and people, it allows us to experience diversity that, in turn, enriches us.
In 1608, Henry Hudson, an English explorer sailing for the Dutch East India Company in search of a shorter route to the Far East, discovered the great North American river that still bears his name. Although the prospect of a western route to the Asian subcontinent soon faded, the enterprising Dutch saw an opportunity to develop a lucrative fur trade in the New World. From 1613–14, Captain Adriaen Block was the first to map the area between Virginia and Massachusetts, which he named New Netherland. By the 1620s, thirty-some families were settled on Manhattan, Long Island, and in Connecticut. Few examples of their earliest homes exist, but their architectural legacy has survived.
In 1608, Henry Hudson, an English explorer sailing for the Dutch East India Company in search of a shorter route to the Far East, discovered the great North American river that still bears his name. Although the prospect of a western route to the Asian subcontinent soon faded, the enterprising Dutch saw an opportunity to develop a lucrative fur trade in the New World. From 1613–14, Captain Adriaen Block was the first to map the area between Virginia and Massachusetts, which he named New Netherland. By the 1620s, thirty-some families were settled on Manhattan, Long Island, and in Connecticut. Few examples of their earliest homes exist, but their architectural legacy has survived.
In 1608, Henry Hudson, an English explorer sailing for the Dutch East India Company in search of a shorter route to the Far East, discovered the great North American river that still bears his name. Although the prospect of a western route to the Asian subcontinent soon faded, the enterprising Dutch saw an opportunity to develop a lucrative fur trade in the New World. From 1613–14, Captain Adriaen Block was the first to map the area between Virginia and Massachusetts, which he named New Netherland. By the 1620s, thirty-some families were settled on Manhattan, Long Island, and in Connecticut. Few examples of their earliest homes exist, but their architectural legacy has survived.
From the middle to the end of the nineteenth century, the landscape of American domestic architecture was a kaleidoscope of revivals of European historic styles. Gothic Revival, Italianate, Tuscan Villa, Second Empire, Queen Anne, and even Egyptian Revival houses were being built around the country. Out of this cacophony a new, uniquely American style emerged: the Shingle Style.
If any architectural style defines the Victorian era it is the Queen Anne style, so much so that we often refer to Queen Anne style houses as Victorian. However, the term Victorian refers not to a particular style but to the era of the reign (1837-1901) of Great Britain’s Queen Victoria.
The term Second Empire refers to the period in France from 1852-1870 when Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon I, reestablished imperial rule by a coup d’etat, thereby ending the Second Republic of 1848-1852. In an ambitious building campaign, Napoleon III appointed Baron Haussmann to oversee a vast program of work including modernization, improvements to living conditions in the revolution-breeding slums through demolition and rebuilding, and turning Paris into an imperial capital replete with magnificent buildings housing new institutions.
Mid-nineteenth Century America was a time of great energy and change. Cities grew, immigration soared, railroads expanded, and new building technologies emerged. To meet the housing needs and tastes of our growing and increasingly diverse populace, architects designed houses in a multitude of styles. Though widely varied, the Romantic Revival styles of this period all reflect Romantic and Picturesque sensibilities in their yearning for the security of the past to ameliorate the complexities of modern life and in their idealization of nature as an antidote to the city.
Roman and Greek architectural forms were no longer touted as the only appropriate models for houses. Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852) writes that domestic architecture should be “less severe, less rigidly scientific, [than public architecture] and…exhibit…the freedom and play…of every-day life.” To spread their philosophy, and to make house plans widely available, architects published pattern books for the homeowner, unlike earlier builder’s books which were written to instruct builders. Pattern books, such as Downing’s Architecture of Country Houses (1850) and Samuel Sloan’s Homestead Architecture (1861) presented designs for houses while they celebrated the ideals of family, home, and rural life.
The Italianate style was but one of many presented. Built as early as the mid-1830s, the Italianate style supplanted the popularity of the Gothic Revival in the 1860s and reached its zenith in the 1870s. Borrowing from “the charming character of the irregular villas of Italy,” according to English Architect Charles Barry, and Italian Renaissance examples, architects filtered these sources through the Romanticism of the 19th century into something wholly new. Three distinct Italian-inspired sub-styles emerged: the Tuscan Villa style, with its asymmetry, arcaded porches, and towers; the more rare Renaissance Revival style inspired by Renaissance urban palaces; and lastly, the Italianate style, shown here.
By far, the Italianate (or American Bracketed) style was the most popular. It is characterized by its cubic form, vertical proportions, low pitched roofs, and oft present cupola. Though the massing is simple, elevations are ornate. One-over-one or two-over-two sash windows, with arched, segmental or flat heads, are elaborated by decorative surrounds, hoods, or pediments. Windows are commonly paired or tripled together. Deeply projecting eaves supported by ornate brackets, turned or chamfered posts at porches, quoins dressing corners, horizontal bands separating floors, and stone or materials imitating stone complete this style. An excellent example is Sloan’s George Allan House in Cape May, New Jersey (1863), whereas the Tuscan Villa style is typified by Richard Upjohn’s Edward King House (1845) in Newport, Rhode Island.
Gazing back on this period of rapid change, increasing immigration, rampant eclecticism, and the beginnings of the plan book and housing industries, one must wonder if we today are not more influenced by this time than we might otherwise think.
Copyright for all images and text, unless in the public domain or otherwise noted, Christine G. H. Franck, Inc.
The Gothic Revival style, popular in America from the 1830s through the 1860s, could be seen as a mere revival of medieval motifs, but peer beneath the scrolls and trefoils that animate this style and one finds more profound meaning.
The Greek Revival style, at its height from 1820 to 1840 in America, parallels a period of geographic expansion and growing national identity. Part fashion, part conscious aesthetic, the Greek Revival, or Grecian, style is defined by the adaptation of ancient Greek forms of architecture and decorative motifs to new uses. Publications such as James “Athenian” Stuart’s and Nicholas Revett’s Antiquities of Athens—the first accurate survey of Greek architecture ever undertaken—originally published in four volumes from 1762 through 1816, sparked a fashion for the Grecian style first in Europe and then in America. In America, though, it was more than fashion. It was political. As a young country emerging from the shadow of our British colonial past, we sought new paradigms and found parallels in the Greek War for Independence of 1821-1828, during which time, after nearly four hundred years of Turkish rule, Greeks fought their own revolution. Viewing ourselves as inheritors of the Greek democratic tradition forging a new democratic state, seeing parallels with another people fighting for their own freedom, we imagined ourselves as a new Athens. Our classically educated politicians and landowners were also familiar with the myths and history of Greece and the classical world.
After emerging independent and free from the colonial yoke of Great Britain, post-revolutionary America began to form its national identity. Whether inspired by the works of Seneca or the life of Cincinnatus, early leaders like George Washington understood this nation to be the inheritor of Roman republican traditions. They sought to imbue America’s Novus Ordo Seclorum with symbols and architecture evocative of this. Concurrently, a growing class of merchants and landowners desired ways to show their taste and wealth. This confluence of interests in symbolic meaning and fashionable forms flowered into America’s Federal Style.
In the early days of America’s founding, along the eastern seaboard, English colonists built robustly beautiful homes that are today often referred to as Colonial. However, Georgian, or more descriptively American Georgian, better describes these houses and distinguishes them from earlier colonial traditions of our English, Dutch, Spanish, and French colonists. The term Georgian refers to the period of British history encompassing the reigns of Kings George I through IV (1714-1830). American Georgian architecture is most prevalent prior to and just after our revolution, after which other stylistic influences drawn from discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum captivated popular taste.
