Tag Archives: Traditional Architecture

New Initiative on Traditional Architecture Offered at University of Colorado Denver’s College of Architecture and Planning

Christine G. H. Franck is appointed the first Director of Contemporary Traditional Architecture Initiatives

Christine G. H. Franck

Denver (Sept. 26, 2013) – The University of Colorado Denver College of Architecture and Planning is proud to announce the college’s first-ever director of Contemporary Traditional Architecture Initiatives. Award-winning designer, author and educator Christine G. H. Franck has been appointed the first Director.

Dean Mark Gelernter says “this new position will help pull together a number of programs and initiatives in our college around the theme of Enduring Places. This means designing buildings and places that can last longer by adapting to changes over time, rather than wastefully replacing them when functions or tastes change.” Enduring Places partners sustainability with historic preservation, and focuses renewed attention on how buildings in the past adapted more gracefully to change than many of our more recent buildings. This initiative will help today’s practitioners learn important lessons from our traditional settlement patterns, design languages and building practices. Continue reading →

The Classicist’s Library: Recommended Readings in Architecture, Urbanism and Art

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I am often asked which books should be read to learn about the history and practice of classical architecture. In an attempt to answer that question, I offer this list of essential books. Without doubt it is incomplete, as all pursuits of knowledge will always be. And it certainly reflects my own interests, as it is weighted to American architecture. Nonetheless, I hope you find it useful and please advise me of any errors or omissions.

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Winter in Williamsburg

The Biloxi Cottage: An American Vernacular House

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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.

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Closing Remarks, Three Generations of Classical Architects: The Renewal of Modern Architecture, University of Notre Dame School of Architecture (2005)

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I am charged with offering concluding remarks and answering the questions of what the future holds and what challenges we face to meet that future. Before I do, I would like to thank our hosts and offer a special thanks to Michael Lykoudis for his vision for this conference. I also would like to take this opportunity to thank those people who have been so critical to the path of my own career – Bill Westfall, Thomas Gordon Smith, Rodney Cook, Richard John and my dear friends at the Institute.

Now, what challenges do we face and how do we meet them? Well, to consider this, I am first going to take my gloves off for a moment and succumb to what I would call realism, or what Michael Lykoudis has called pessimism, and then I will put my gloves back on and, hopefully, conclude on a polite, optimistic note.

Three Generations of Classical Architects conference speakers, panelists, and attendees, University of Notre Dame (2005)

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Avoiding Fenestration Fiascoes

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A beautiful house can only be so when the windows of the house are right. All too often today houses that would otherwise be beautiful are not because of choices made in the placement and selection of windows. While there are many issues of good design that affect the cost of a building, placing and selecting well-designed windows do not. In the past, while directing the ICAA’s Program in Classical Architecture for Design and Construction Professionals, I have seen a wide range of today’s houses and common window products and have thus been able to see many of the most typical errors in fenestration. For a catalog of windows and their details visit my collection of windows.

: House with good window design

: House with poor window design

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The Will to Build Locally

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“A place is not a place until people have been born in it, have grown up in it, lived in it, known it, died in it – have both experienced and shaped it, as individuals, families, neighborhoods, and communities, over more than one generation.”– Wallace Stegner, The Sense of Place, 1992

Through my windshield I watch the sinuous River Road fade into gray as a summer storm lets loose its rains on waving fields of sugar cane. Here in southern Louisiana, driving between Laura and Oak Alley plantations on a sultry August afternoon, I am reminded of how powerful and precious place is to who we are and how we live.

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American Dutch Colonial Domestic Style

The Shingle Style

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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.

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Queen Anne Style

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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.

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