NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

SYNOPSIS• AIM:- TO STUDY AND RESEARCH ONNEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

• TOPICS COVERED:-EARLY CLASSICAL REVIVAL, EXOTIC/EGYPTIAN

REVIVAL,PALLADIANISM, INTERIOR DESIGN, GREEK REVIVAL, REGIONAL TRENDS,

NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE TODAY, IN ADDITION TO GOTHIC REVIVAL AND

VICTORIAN ERA

• OBJECTIVE:- TO FIND OUT THE CHARACTERSTICS OF THE ABOVE ARCHITECTURE STYLES

THEIR SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPORTANCE .

CONTENTS

• EARLY CLASSICAL REVIVAL

• EXOTIC/EGYPTIAN REVIVAL

• PALLADIANISM

• INTERIOR DESIGN

• GREEK REVIVAL

• REGIONAL TRENDS

NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE TODAY

GOTHIC REVIVAL

LATE VICTORIAN ERA

Early Classical Revival Style: Roman Classical Revival 1790 - 1830, Greek Revival 1820- 1860• The Early Classical Revival style developed at the end of the 18th century and reflected

a desire to take architectural inspiration directly from the ancient buildings of Rome

and Greece. While earlier styles (the Georgian and Federal styles) were also inspired

by these classical forms, they relied more on architectural details and did not attempt

to recreate the look of those ancient buildings. The Roman Classical Revival style

(sometimes called Roman Classicism) and later the Greek Revival style emulated the

form of classical Roman and Greek temples. The Roman Classical Revival style was

promoted and popularized by Thomas Jefferson, who found the impressively

monumental architecture of ancient Rome a suitable model for the newly formed

nation. This style was thus a political symbol as well, likening the young United States to

the once powerful and influential Roman Republic

• Jefferson designed his own home Monticello, the campus of the University of Virginia, and the Capitol of Virginia in this style, using ancient Roman temples as his guide. The Roman Classical Revival style was rarely found north of Pennsylvania, with most examples occurring in southern states. The Bank of Pennsylvania, built in 1800 in Philadelphia, was an early important example of this style.

• The emphasis turned from Rome to Greece as the Greek Revival style developed around 1820. American interest in the culture of ancient Greece grew from sympathy for the Greek War of Independence (1821-1830) and emerging archaeological finds showing Greece as the earliest democracy. Also, Roman inspired architecture was associated with England, and after the War of 1812, there was a strong desire to shake off English influence and define a new national style. The Greek Revival style has much in common with the Roman Classical Revival style in its reliance on the temple form, front pediment, and classical order columns. There is considerable variation in the public and private buildings designed in this style. Some buildings appear to be Greek temple replicas and others simply use the temple shape and form with distinctive details. There are many more surviving examples of the Greek Revival style in Pennsylvania than theRoman Classical Revival style, because the later Greek Revival style was far more popular and wide spread

IDENTIFIABLE FEATURES

• Early Classical Revival Style

• 1. Full height entry porch (portico) with pediment and columns

• 2. Lunette window in portico pediment

• 3. Elliptical fanlight over paneled front door

• 4. Symmetrically aligned windows and door (5 bay front facade most common)

• 5. Side gabled or low pitched hipped roof

• 6. Large windows and doors

• Greek Revival Style

• 1. Front gabled roof

• 2. Front porch with columns

• 3. Front facade corner pilasters

• 4. Broad cornice

• 5. Attic or frieze level windows

EXOTIC/EGYPTIAN REVIVAL STYLE

• The Egyptian Revival style is simply the addition of Egyptian inspired columns and decorative motifs to buildings that are similar to the Greek Revival or Italianate styles in form. Scholarly interest in the archaeological discoveries of ancient Egypt early in the 19th century led to the development of Egyptian-themed buildings. The style attempted to recreate the appearance of Egyptian temples, especially with the use of massive columns that resemble sheaves of sticks tied at the top and bottom. Details refer to ancient Egyptian symbols—the phoenix, the sphinx, and the vulture and sun disk. This style was most often applied to public buildings, banks, prisons, courthouses, offices, and cemetery structures. This style was often chosen for buildings representing eternity and the afterlife. The Egyptian Revival Style flourished yet again for public buildings (especially movie theaters) from 1920 to 1930, often utilizing poured concrete as a building material. The 1835 Philadelphia County Prison (demolished in 1968) was one of the first Egyptian Revival buildings in the U.S., of imposing stone design by architect Thomas Ulrich Walter. Most surviving examples of the Egyptian Revival style are theaters, cemetery mausoleums and entry buildings, and banks. The entrance gate to the Pottsville Cemetery with its massive columns and use of symbolic funereal decorative details is an excellent example of the Egyptian Revival style.

CHARACTERISTICS

• Egyptian Revival Style

• 1. Massive columns resembling bundles of sticks

• 2. Vulture & sun disk symbol

• 3. Rolled (cavetto) cornice

• 4. Window enframements that narrow upward

PALLADIANISM

• A return to more classical architectural forms as a reaction to the Rococo style can be detected in some European architecture of the earlier 18th century, most vividly represented in the Palladian architecture of Georgian Britain and Ireland.

• The baroque style had never truly been to the English taste. Four influential books were published in the first quarter of the 18th century which highlighted the simplicity and purity of classical architecture: Vitruvius Britannicus (Colen Campbell 1715), Palladio's Four Books of Architecture (1715), De Re Aedificatoria (1726) and The Designs of Inigo Jones... with Some Additional Designs (1727). The most popular was the four-volume Vitruvius Britannicus by Colen Campbell. The book contained architectural prints of famous British buildings that had been inspired by the great architects from Vitruvius to Palladio. At first the book mainly featured the work of Inigo Jones, but the later tomes contained drawings and plans by Campbell and other 18th-century architects. Palladian architecture became well established in 18th-century Britain.

• At the forefront of the new school of design was the aristocratic "architect earl", Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington; in 1729, he and William Kent, designed Chiswick House. This House was a reinterpretation of Palladio's Villa Capra, but purified of 16th century elements and ornament. This severe lack of ornamentation was to be a feature of the Palladianism. In 1734 William Kent and Lord Burlington designed one of England's finest examples of Palladian architecture with Holkham Hall in Norfolk. The main block of this house followed Palladio's dictates quite closely, but Palladio's low, often detached, wings of farm buildings were elevated in significance.

• This classicizing vein was also detectable, to a lesser degree, in the Late Baroque architecture in Paris, such as in Perrault's east range of the Louvre. This shift was even visible in Rome at the redesigned facade for S. Giovanni in Laterano.

• Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the neoclassical

movement that began in the mid-18th century. In its purest form it is a style principally

derived from the architecture of Classical antiquity, the Vitruvian principles and the

architecture of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio.

• In form, Neoclassical architecture emphasizes the wall rather than chiaroscuro and

maintains separate identities to each of its parts. The style is manifested both in its

details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its

architectural formulae as an outgrowth of some classicising features of Late Baroque.

Neoclassical architecture is still designed today, but may be labelled New Classical

Architecture for contemporary buildings

• By the mid 18th century, the movement broadened to incorporate a greater range of Classical influences, including those from Ancient Greece. The shift to neoclassical architecture is conventionally dated to the 1750s. It first gained influence in England and France; in England, Sir William Hamilton's excavations at Pompeii and other sites, the influence of the Grand Tour and the work of William Chambers and Robert Adam, was pivotal in this regard. In France, the movement was propelled by a generation of French art students trained in Rome, and was influenced by the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. The style was also adopted by progressive circles in other countries such as Sweden and Russia.

• International neoclassical architecture was exemplified in Karl Friedrich Schinkel's buildings, especially the Old Museum in Berlin, Sir John Soane's Bank of England in London and the newly built White House and Capitol in Washington, DC of the nascent American Republic. The style was international.

• A second neoclassic wave, more severe, more studied and more consciously archaeological, is associated with the height of the Napoleonic Empire. In France, the first phase of neoclassicism was expressed in the "Louis XVI style", and the second in the styles called "Directoire" or Empire. The Rococo style remained popular in Italy until the Napoleonic regimes brought the new archaeological classicism, which was embraced as a political statement by young, progressive, urban Italians with republican leanings.[according to whom?]

• In the decorative arts, neoclassicism is exemplified in French furniture of the Empire style; the English furniture of Chippendale, George Hepplewhite and Robert Adam, Wedgwood's bas reliefs and "black basaltes" vases, and the Biedermeier furniture of Austria. The Scottish architect Charles Cameron created palatial Italianate interiors for the German-born Catherine II the Great in St. Petersburg.

Palladian revival: Stourhead House,

designed by Colen Campbell and

completed in 1720. The design is based on

Palladio's Villa Emo

Woburn Abbey, an excellent example of

English Palladianism, designed by

Burlington's student Henry Flitcroft in 1746

Altes Museum, built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Berlin.

INTERIOR DESIGN • Indoors, neoclassicism made a discovery of the genuine classic interior, inspired by the rediscoveries at Pompeii and

Herculaneum. These had begun in the late 1740s, but only achieved a wide audience in the 1760s, with the first luxurious volumes of tightly controlled distribution of Le Antichità di Ercolano (The Antiquities of Herculaneum). The antiquities of Herculaneum showed that even the most classicizing interiors of the Baroque, or the most "Roman" rooms of William Kent were based on basilica and temple exterior architecture turned outside in, hence their often bombastic appearance to modern eyes: pedimented window frames turned into gilded mirrors, fireplaces topped with temple fronts.

• The new interiors sought to recreate an authentically Roman and genuinely interior vocabulary. Techniques employed in the style included flatter, lighter motifs, sculpted in low frieze-like relief or painted in monotones en camaïeu ("like cameos"), isolated medallions or vases or busts or bucrania or other motifs, suspended on swags of laurel or ribbon, with slender arabesques against backgrounds, perhaps, of "Pompeiian red" or pale tints, or stone colors. The style in France was initially a Parisian style, the Goût grec ("Greek style"), not a court style; when Louis XVI acceded to the throne in 1774, Marie Antoinette, his fashion-loving Queen, brought the "Louis XVI" style to court..

• However there was no real attempt to employ the basic forms of Roman furniture until around the turn of the century, and furniture-makers were more likely to borrow from ancient architecture, just as silversmiths were more likely to take from ancient pottery and stone-carving than metalwork: "Designers and craftsmen ... seem to have taken an almost perverse pleasure in transferring motifs from one medium to another

• A new phase in neoclassical design was inaugurated by Robert and James Adam, who

travelled in Italy and Dalmatia in the 1750s, observing the ruins of the classical world.

On their return to Britain, they published a book entitled The Works in Architecture in

installments between 1773 and 1779. This book of engraved designs made the Adam

repertory available throughout Europe. The Adam brothers aimed to simplify the rococo

and baroque styles which had been fashionable in the preceding decades, to bring

what they felt to be a lighter and more elegant feel to Georgian houses. The Works in

Architecture illustrated the main buildings the Adam brothers had worked on and

crucially documented the interiors, furniture and fittings, designed by the Adams.

Château de Malmaison, 1800, room for

the Empress Joséphine, on the cusp

between Directoire style and Empire style

Interior of Home House in London,

designed by Robert Adam in 1777

in the Adam style.

GREEK REVIVAL

• From about 1800 a fresh influx of Greek architectural examples, seen through the medium of etchings and engravings, gave a new impetus to neoclassicism, the Greek Revival. There was little to no direct knowledge of Greek civilization before the middle of the 18th century in Western Europe, when an expedition funded by the Society of Dilettanti in 1751 and led by James Stuart and Nicholas Revettbegan serious archaeological enquiry. Stuart was commissioned after his return from Greece by George Lyttelton to produce the first Greek building in England, the garden temple at Hagley Hall (1758–59).[2] A number of British architects in the second half of the century took up the expressive challenge of the Doric from their aristocratic patrons, including Joseph Bonomi and John Soane, but it was to remain the private enthusiasm of connoisseurs up to the first decade of the 19th century.

• Seen in its wider social context, Greek Revival architecture sounded a new note of sobriety and restraint in public buildings in Britain around 1800 as an assertion of nationalism attendant on the Act of Union, the Napoleonic Wars, and the clamour for political reform. It was to be William Wilkins's winning design for the public competition for Downing College, Cambridge that announced the Greek style was to be the dominant idiom in architecture. Wilkins and Robert Smirke went on to build some of the most important buildings of the era, including the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (1808–09), the General Post Office (1824–29) and the British Museum (1823–48), Wilkins University College London (1826–30) and the National Gallery (1832–38). In Scotland, Thomas Hamilton (1784-1858), in collaboration with the artists Andrew Wilson (1780-1848) and Hugh William Williams (1773-1829) created monuments and buildings of international significance; the Burns Monument at Alloway (1818) and the (Royal) High School in Edinburgh (1823-29).

• At the same time the Empire style in France was a more grandiose wave of neoclassicism in architecture and the decorative arts. Mainly based on Imperial Roman styles, it originated in, and took its name from, the rule of Napoleon I in the First French Empire, where it was intended to idealize Napoleon's leadership and the French state. The style corresponds to the more bourgeois Biedermeierstyle in the German-speaking lands, Federal style in the United States, the Regency style in Britain, and the Napoleonstil in Sweden. According to the art historian Hugh Honour "so far from being, as is sometimes supposed, the culmination of the Neo-classical movement, the Empire marks its rapid decline and transformation back once more into a mere antique revival, drained of all the high-minded ideas and force of conviction that had inspired its masterpieces"

• Neoclassicism continued to be a major force in academic art through the 19th century and beyond—a constant antithesis to Romanticism or Gothic revivals— although from the late 19th century on it had often been considered anti-modern, or even reactionary, in influential critical circles.[

Thomas Hamilton's design for the Royal High

School, Edinburgh, 1831

CHARACTERISTICS

• High neoclassicism was an international movement. Though neoclassical architecture employed the same classical vocabulary as Late Baroque architecture, it tended to emphasize its planar qualities, rather than sculptural volumes. Projections and recessions and their effects of light and shade were more flat; sculptural bas-reliefs were flatter and tended to be enframed in friezes, tablets or panels. Its clearly articulated individual features were isolated rather than interpenetrating, autonomous and complete in themselves.

• Neoclassicism also influenced city planning; the ancient Romans had used a consolidated scheme for city planning for both defense and civil convenience, however, the roots of this scheme go back to even older civilizations. At its most basic, the grid system of streets, a central forum with city services, two main slightly wider boulevards, and the occasional diagonal street were characteristic of the very logical and orderly Roman design. Ancient facades and building layouts were oriented to these city design patterns and they tended to work in proportion with the importance of public buildings.

• Many of these urban planning patterns found their way into the first modern planned cities of the 18th century. Exceptional examples include Karlsruhe and Washington DC. Not all planned cities and planned neighborhoods are designed on neoclassical principles, however. Opposing models may be found in Modernist designs exemplified by Brasilia, the Garden city movement, levittowns, and new urbanism.

REGIONAL TRENDS• BRITAIN

• From the middle of the 18th century, exploration and publication changed the course of British architecture towards a purer vision of the Ancient Greco-Roman ideal. James 'Athenian' Stuart's work The Antiquities of Athens and Other Monuments of Greece was very influential in this regard, as were Robert Wood's Palmyra and Baalbec. A combination of simple forms and high levels of enrichment was adopted by the majority of contemporary British architects and designers. The revolution begun by Stuart was soon to be eclipsed by the work of the Adam Brothers, James Wyatt, Sir William Chambers, George Dance, James Gandon and provincially based architects such as John Carr and Thomas Harrison of Chester.

• In the early 20th century, the writings of Albert Richardson were responsible for a re-awakening of interest in pure neoclassical design. Vincent Harris (compare Harris's colonnaded and domed interior of Manchester Central Reference Library to the colonnaded and domed interior by John Carr and R R Duke), Bradshaw Gass & Hope and Percy Thomas were among those who designed public buildings in the neoclassical style in the interwar period. In the British Raj in India, Sir Edwin Lutyens' monumental city planning for New Delhi marked the sunset of neoclassicism. In Scotland and the north of England, where the Gothic Revival was less strong, architects continued to develop the neoclassical style of William Henry Playfair. The works of Cuthbert Brodrick and Alexander Thomson show that by the end of the 19th century the results could be powerful and eccentric.

FRANCE

• The first phase of neoclassicism in France is expressed in the "Louis XVI style" of architects like Ange-Jacques Gabriel (Petit Trianon, 1762–68); the second phase, in the styles called Directoire and "Empire", might be characterized by Jean Chalgrin's severe astylar Arc de Triomphe (designed in 1806). In England the two phases might be characterized first by the structures of Robert Adam, the second by those of Sir John Soane. The interior style in France was initially a Parisian style, the "Goût grec" ("Greek style") not a court style. Only when the young king acceded to the throne in 1771 did Marie Antoinette, his fashion-loving Queen, bring the "Louis XVI" style to court.

• From about 1800 a fresh influx of Greek architectural examples, seen through the medium of etchings and engravings, gave a new impetus to neoclassicism that is called the Greek Revival. Although several European cities — notably St Petersburg, Athens, Berlin and Munich — were transformed into veritable museums of Greek revival architecture, the Greek revival in France was never popular with either the State or the public.

• What little there was, started with Charles de Wailly's crypt in the church of St Leu-St Gilles (1773–80), and Claude Nicolas Ledoux's Barriere des Bonshommes (1785–89). First-hand evidence of Greek architecture was of very little importance to the French, due to the influence of Marc-Antoine Laugier's doctrines that sought to discern the principles of the Greeks instead of their mere practices. It would take until Laboustre's Neo-Grec of the second Empire for the Greek revival to flower briefly in France.

SPAIN

• Spanish Neoclassicism was exemplified by the work of Juan de Villanueva, who

adapted Burke's theories of beauty and the sublime to the requirements of Spanish

climate and history. He built the Prado Museum, that combined three functions — an

academy, an auditorium and a museum — in one building with three separate

entrances.

• This was part of the ambitious program of Charles III, who intended to make Madrid the

Capital of the Arts and Sciences. Very close to the museum, Villanueva built the

Astronomical Observatory. He also designed several summer houses for the kings in El

Escorial and Aranjuez and reconstructed the Major Square of Madrid, among other

important works. Villanueva´s pupils expanded the Neoclassical style in Spain.

POLISH -LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH• The center of Polish Neoclassicism was Warsaw under the rule of the last Polish king Stanislaw August

Poniatowski. Vilnius University was another important center of the Neoclassical architecture in Europe, led by notable professors of architecture Marcin Knackfus, Laurynas Gucevicius and Karol Podczaszynski. The style was expressed in the shape of main public buildings, such as the University's Observatory, Vilnius Cathedral and the town hall.

• The best-known architects and artists, who worked in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were Dominik Merlini, Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer, Szymon Bogumil Zug, Jakub Kubicki, Antonio Corazzi, Efraim Szreger, Christian Piotr Aigner and Bertel Thorvaldsen.

•HUNGARY• The earliest examples of neoclassical architecture in Hungary may be found in Vác. In this town the

triumphal arch and the neoclassical facade of the baroque Cathedral were designed by the French architect Isidor Marcellus Amandus Ganneval (Isidore Canevale) in the 1760s. Also the work of a French architect Charles Moreau is the garden facade of the Esterházy Palace (1797-1805) in Kismarton (today Eisenstadt in Austria). The two prinicpal architect of Neoclassicism in Hungary was Mihály Pollack and József Hild. Pollack's major work is the Hungarian National Museum (1837-1844). Hild is famous for his designs for the Cathedral of Eger and Esztergom.

USA

• In the new republic, Robert Adam's neoclassical manner was adapted for the local late 18th and early 19th-century style, called "Federal architecture". One of the pioneers of this style was English-born Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who is often noted as one of the first formally trained America's professional architects and the father of American architecture. The Baltimore Basilica, the first Roman Catholic Cathedral in the United States, is considered by many experts to be Latrobe's masterpiece.

• The widespread use of neoclassicism in American architecture, as well as by French revolutionary regimes, and the general tenor of rationalism associated with the movement, all created a link between neoclassicism and republicanism and radicalism in much of Europe. The Gothic Revival can be seen as an attempt to present a monarchist and conservative alternative to neoclassicism.

• In later 19th-century American architecture, neoclassicism was one expression of the American Renaissance movement, ca 1880-1917. Its last manifestation was in Beaux-Arts architecture (1885–1920), and its very last, large public projects in the United States were the Lincoln Memorial (1922), the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. (1937), and the American Museum of Natural History's Roosevelt Memorial (1936).

• Today, there is a small revival of Classical Architecture as evidenced by the groups such as The Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America.The School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, currently teaches a fully Classical curriculum

USSR

• In the Soviet Union (1917–1991), neoclassical architecture was very popular among the political elite, as it effectively expressed state power, and a vast array of neoclassical building was erected all over the country. "

• Soviet neoclassical architecture was exported to other socialist countries of the Eastern Bloc, as a gift from the Soviet Union. Examples of this include the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw, Poland and the Shanghai International Convention Centre in Shanghai, China.

• THE THIRD REICH• Neoclassical architecture was the preferred style by the leaders of the National Socialist

movement in the Third Reich, especially admired by Adolf Hitler himself. Hitler commissioned his favourite architect, Albert Speer, to plan a re-design of Berlin as a city comprising imposing neoclassical structures, which would be renamed as Welthauptstadt Germania, the centrepiece of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich.

• These plans never came to fruition due to the eventual downfall of Nazi Germany and the suicide of its leader

A. Rinaldi. The White hall of the

Gatchina palace. 1760s. An early

example of the Italianate neoclassical

interior design in Russian architecture.

The central courtyard

of Sir William Chambers'

Somerset House in

London

Château de

Montmusard (1765),

by Charles de

WaillyPrado Museum

in Madrid, by

Jun de

Villanueva

Cathedral of Vác by Isidor

Marcellus Amandus

Ganneval, 1762-1777

The Lincoln Memorial, an early

20th century example of

American Renaissance

neoclassical architecture

The Red Army Theatre in

Moscow, Russia

NEOCLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE TODAY

• After a lull during the period of modern architectural dominance (roughly post-World War II until the mid-1980s), neoclassicism has seen somewhat of a resurgence. This rebirth can be traced to the movement of New Urbanism and postmodern architecture's embrace of classical elements as ironic, especially in light of the dominance of Modernism. While some continued to work with classicism as ironic, some architects such as Thomas Gordon Smith, began to consider classicism seriously. While some schools had interest in classical architecture, such as the University of Virginia, no school was purely dedicated to classical architecture. In the early 1990s a program in classical architecture was started by Smith and Duncan Stroik at the University of Notre Dame that continues successfully.[7] Programs at the University of Miami, Andrews University, Judson University and The Prince's Foundation for Building Community have trained a number of new classical architects since this resurgence. Today one can find numerous buildings embracing neoclassical style, since a generation of architects trained in this discipline shapes urban planning.

• As of the first decade of the 21st century, contemporary neoclassical architecture is usually classed under the umbrella term of New Classical Architecture. Sometimes it is also referred to as Neo-Historicism/Revivalism, Traditionalism or simply neoclassical architecture like the historical style.[8] For sincere traditional-style architecture that sticks to regional architecture, materials and craftsmanship, the term Traditional Architecture (or vernacular) is mostly used. The Driehaus Architecture Prize is awarded to major contributors in the field of 21st century traditional or classical architecture, and comes with a prize money twice as high as that of the modernist Pritzker Prize

The Keating Millennium

Centre at St. Francis Xavier

University, Canada,

completed in 2001

Gothic Revival Style 1830 - 1860

• The Gothic Revival style is part of the mid-19th century picturesque and romantic

movement in architecture, reflecting the public’s taste for buildings inspired by

medieval design. This was a real departure from the previously popular styles that drew

inspiration from the classical forms of ancient Greece and Rome. While distinctly

different, both the Gothic Revival style and the Greek Revival style looked to the past,

and both remained popular throughout the mid 19th century. The Gothic Revival style

in America was advanced by architects Alexander Jackson Davis and especially

Andrew Jackson Downing, authors of influential house plan books, Rural Residences

(1837), Cottage Residences (1842), and The Architecture of Country Houses (1850). This

style was promoted as an appropriate design for rural settings, with its complex and

irregular shapes and forms fitting well into the natural landscape. Thus, the Gothic

Revival style was often chosen for country homes and houses in rural or small town

settings.

• The most commonly identifiable feature of the Gothic Revival style is the pointed arch, used for windows, doors, and decorative elements like porches, dormers, or roof gables. Other characteristic details include steeply pitched roofs and front facing gables with delicate wooden trim called vergeboards or bargeboards. This distinctive incised wooden trim is often referred to as “gingerbread” and is the feature most associated with this style. Gothic Revival style buildings often have porches with decorative turned posts or slender columns, with flattened arches or side brackets connecting the posts. Gothic Revival style churches may have not just pointed arch windows and porticos, but often feature a Norman castle-like tower with a crenellatedparapet or a high spire

Identifiable Features

1. Pointed arches as decorative element and as

window shape

2. Front facing gables with decorative incised trim

(vergeboards or bargeboards)

3. Porches with turned posts or columns

4. Steeply pitched roof

5. Gables often topped with finials or crossbracing

6. Decorative crowns (gable or drip mold) over

windows and doors

7. Castle-like towers with parapets on some high

style buildings

8. Carpenter Gothic buildings have distinctive board

and batten vertical siding

Late Victorian Period 1850 - 1910• The Late Victorian Period covers the later half of the 19th century, for a portion of the true reign of

Britain's Queen Victoria (1837-1901) for which this era is named. This was the time period in American architecture known for intricate and highly decorative styles such as the Second Empire, Romanesque Revival, Victorian Gothic, Queen Anne, Stick/Eastlake, Shingle, Renaissance Revival and Chateauesque. All of these style are often described as "Victorian" and indeed may buildings of this era borrowed stylistic elements from several styles, and were not pure examples of any.

• The Late Victorian Period was a time of growth and change in America. Advances in building technology such as the development of balloon framing and factory-built architectural components made it easier to build larger, more complex and more decorative structures. The expanding railroad system allowed these products to be transported across the country at a more reasonable cost. Heretofore luxury elements could be employed in a wide variety of more modest buildings. It was an expansive time in American culture and the buildings of this period reflect this. Most Victorian styles look to historic precedents for inspiration, but the architectural designs of the era were not exact replicas of those earlier buildings. The tall, steeply roofed, asymmetrical form of Victorian era buildings is based on a Medieval prototype, with a variety of stylistic details applied. Elements of the Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, and Italianate styles continued to appear, but often in a more complex form, in combination with one another. New stylistic trends like the Second Empire style, Queen Anne style, Stick/Eastlake style, Romanesque Revival, Renaissance Revival and Chateauesque style, borrowed from those previous styles, but offered new shapes, forms and combinations of decorative features.

• Romanesque Revival Style 1840 - 1900

Identifiable Features

1. Masonry construction

2. Round arches at entrance windows

3. Heavy and massive appearance

4. Polychromatic stonework on details

5. Round tower

6. Squat columns

7. Decorative plaque

• Second Empire/Mansard Style 1860 - 1900

Identifiable Features

1. Mansard roof

2. Patterned shingle roof

3. Iron roof crest

4. Decorative window surrounds and dormers

5. Eaves with brackets

6. One story porch

7. Tower

8. Quoins

9. Balustrade

• High Victorian Gothic Style 1860 - 1890

Identifiable Features

1. Linear decorative polychrome bands of brick or

stone

2. Masonry construction

3. Stone quoins

4. Pointed arch (Gothic) windows and doorways

5. Steeply gabled roofs, often with cross gables

6. Ornamental pressed brick and terra cotta tiles

7. Patterned brick chimneys

8. Corbelled brickwork

9. Turret with conical roof

• Chateauesque Style 1860 - 1910

Identifiable Features

1. French chateau-like appearance

2. Round tower with conical roof

3. Steeply pitched hipped or gable roof, often with

cresting

4. Tall chimneys with decorative caps

5. Round arch or flattened basket-handle arch entry

6. Multiple dormers

7. Quatrefoil or arched tracery decorative elements

8. Balustraded terrace

9. Usually of masonry (stone or brick) construction

• Stick Style 1860 - 1890

Identifiable features

1. Steeply pitched gable roof

2. Cross gables

3. Decorative trusses at gable peak

4. overhanging eaves with exposed rafters

5. Wood exterior walls with clapboards

6. horizontal, vertical or diagonal decorative wood

trim - stickwork

7. Porches with diagonal or curved braces

8. Towers

• Queen Anne Style 1880 - 1910

Identifiable Features

1. Abundance of decorative elements

2. Steeply pitched roof with irregular shape

3. Cross gables

4. Asymmetrical facade

5. Large partial or full width porch

6. Round or polygonal corner tower

7. Decorative spindlework on porches and gable

trim

8. Projecting bay windows

9. Patterned masonry or textured wall surfaces

including half timbering

10. Columns or turned post porch supports

11. Patterned shingles

12. Single pane windows, some with small

decorative panes or stained glass

• Shingle Style 1880 - 1900

Identifiable Features

1. Shingled walls and roof

2. Asymmetrical facade

3. Irregular roof lines

4. Moderately pitched roofs

5. Cross gables

6. Extensive wide porches

7. Small sash or casement windows with many panes

8. Round or polygonal shingled towers