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18 th Century American Domestic Architecture Architecture is the art or practice of designing and building Structures. American architecture varies significantly from architecture of the ancient world. American architecture began around the seventeenth century. Settlers from different European countries brought with them, during the North American colonization, the different techniques and forms from their homelands. Domestic architecture is produced for the social unit: the individual, family, or clan and their dependents, human and animal.
It provides shelter and security for the basic physical functions of life and at times also for commercial, industrial, or agricultural activities that involve the family unit rather than the community. The basic requirements of domestic architecture are simple: a place to sleep, prepare food, eat, and perhaps work; a place that has some light and is protected from the weather. A single room with sturdy walls and roof, a door, a window, and a hearth are the necessities; all else is luxury. The colonial architecture of the United States and Canada was as diverse as the peoples who settled there: English, Dutch, French, Swedish, Spanish, German, Scots-Irish. Each group carried with it the style and building customs of the mother country, adapting them as best it could to the materials and conditions of a new land. Thus, there were several colonial styles.
The earliest buildings of all but the Spanish colonists were medieval in style: not the elaborate Gothic of the great European cathedrals and manor houses but the simple late Gothic of village houses and barns. These practical structures were well adapted to the pioneer conditions that prevailed in the colonies until about 1700, and few changes were needed to adapt them to the more severe climate. The styles were frank expressions of functional and structural requirements, with only an occasional bit of ornament. So far as is known, no single new structural technique or architectural form was invented in the North American colonies. Colonial architecture was adapted by the climate of the site chosen, the availability of building materials, and supplies. Skilled workers, particularly trained builders were a must.
The general poverty of the colonial settlers was also a factor. Colonial architecture can be broke down into two types. New England settlers architecture reflected the late Gothic Inspiration, such as the gabled houses of wood. The houses also had prominent brick chimney stacks.
The south's chief building material was brick. Many churches and statehouses reflected the classiness of the eighteenth century English architecture. During the early 1730 s a growing prosperity and commerce brought an influx of well-trained artisans to America. English architectural books became more available. Protestant churches adopted and simplified the contemporary English styles.
Architects such as Christopher Wren and James Gibbs, designed many of these churches. Two American examples of these churches were Christ Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and St. Pauls Chapel in New York City, New York. Architecture, previously reserved for the gentleman amateurs and master builders, became more professionalized in the first half of the nineteenth century. The arrival of several well known European architects, including Benjamin Henry Latrobe, greatly enhanced the field. During the Antebellum period, the south built great mansions.
Many were two-story colonnades on large plantations. The shift from earlier Roman based classicism to Greek. Many Greek buildings were located in Washington D. C. and Philadelphia, Barnstable county, southeastern Massachusetts, U. S.
It is bounded by Cape Cod Bay to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Nantucket Sound to the south, Vineyard Sound to the southwest, and Buzzards Bay to the west. The county comprises the whole of Cape Cod and its satellite islands, including a band of territory northwest of Cape Cod Canal (completed 1914). This coastal lowland has many lakes and streams, notably the Herring and Mashpee rivers. Parklands include Cape Cod National Seashore, Sunset Beach State Reservation, Same-Crowell State Forest, and Washburn Island, as well as Hawksnest, Nickerson, and South Cape Beach state parks. The area is known for its lighthouses, windmills, and early American architecture. The principal towns are Barnstable (the county seat), Yarmouth, Falmouth, and Sandwich (the county's first European settlement; 1637).
Woods Hole, at the southwestern tip of the cape, is the home of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Marine Biological Laboratory. In November 1620, before landing at Plymouth, the Pilgrims sheltered at what is now Provincetown, where they signed the Mayflower Compact. The main Indian inhabitants were the Nausets and Wampanoags. Mashpee is the site of the Indian Meeting House (1684), one of the first Indian missionary churches in the eastern United States. In the last years of the 18 th century, when space became scarce, a series of major changes began to alter radically the physical lineaments of the area. In this period of expansion, the architect Charles Bulfinch (17631844), who for more than a quarter of a century was also the head of the town government, skillfully transformed an 18 th-century English town into a 19 th-century American city.
Although many of Bulfinch's finest works have been destroyed, the central portion of the present State House (179598), above the Common on Beacon Hill, is his work. The construction of the State House on this site led to the conversion of the upland pastures of Beacon Hill into a handsome residential district that has survived with relatively little change. Between the State House and Charles Street are several streets, including famous Louisburg Square, filled with many houses by Bulfinch and other leading 19 th-century architects. The area is protected by historic district legislation, and has been designated as the Beacon Hill Historic District. Starting as nothing but vast frontier land, and followed shortly later when the United States developed into a nation, the U.
S. was heavily influenced by the styles of art and architecture of European societies. Colonial Architecture reflects that of European nation, those that had to adapt to the dangers and harsh weather conditions of the vast wildernesses. If the weather conditions were dominantly rain then the homes would be equipped to disperse large amounts of water. If the conditions in the land called for wind protection because of windstorms or just large gusting periods during the day then the shelters would be built with strong materials so the shelters would not be blown over. In the western part of the colonies Spanish influences prevailed more heavily and were shown in the structures that the early Spanish colonists built, while English styles and some French predominated in the east.
When the colonists came to the U. S. they only brought knowledge of their countries building styles so in order to invent newer styles they had to start out with basic homes until they could design their own newer upscale homes to display their talents. This early period they called Saltbox architecture.
A typical home during the first few years in the colonies was a log home or a cape cod, which was about one room deep, or if the house called for and the owners had enough money the home had a chimney. With the Saltbox era coming to an end the architects looked to styles from their homelands. Many of the architects coming from Europe adopted their styles into American society and started to build homes that resembled some back in Europe. The late 1700 s and early 1800 s the Spanish colonists of the southwest encountered a native building tradition in adobe, which used readily available materials suited to their climate and would be reflected in the building structure. Adobe building structures were shown in many Spanish colonial churches in Arizona and New Mexico and other parts of the West, these churches were protected with large walls that would not allow the sandstorms to cause the church damage. The majority of all other colonies during this time period relied heavily on European architecture, in particular English architecture.
Around 1780 a new style started to prevail, Georgian style. This form reached the American colonies in the form of architecture manuals and pattern books. In New England they had a building boom during this period. Wealth was accumulating along the eastern part of New England. All of the first families were looking at setting a standard of sophistication and elegance to display their wealth and status, and with that they were eager to have the new Georgian style home, such as the Longfellow House or the Private Residence. A typical Georgian changed many concepts of living.
No longer was there multiple rooms; these led to specialization of separate rooms for sleeping, cooking, and dining and so forth. The exterior of the home: would have unpainted shingles, double hung windows and a front door that had a triangle pediment supported by columns to form a entrance. The Main sites of Georgian architecture in New England were the seaports. New England had a large group of middle-class houses in contrast to the south, where there was almost no middle ground architecturally between the mansions of the wealth and the cabins of the slaves.
Throughout the late 1700 s New Hampshire served as a military base and a center of commerce. Georgian houses were being copied, but built on a much larger up-scale development because the population was very much wealthier then there counterpart in the southern colonies. During the last few years of the 1700 s the English's introduction in architecture hit a considerable lag, and the periods style didnt correspond very well with each other. Early English settlements resemble that of late medieval housing; where as the other homes during this period came in all ranges and sizes.
The typical English settlement would be the Parson Can House, which was a typical two-story New England House that used overlapping weatherboards. English settlements in the East Coast preferred that of brick construction. The typical brick home was a half story home that had chimneys at both ends of the home. Just before the Revolution, architects also began to employ current styles. These styles closely followed English practice in larger homes. The English architects designed very sophisticated churches all throughout the colonies that displayed large pane glass windows, and very detailed paintings inside the church, these practices are still used today.
During the first years of the 19 th century a domestic home that was two rooms deep and a central-stair hall represented architecture. Near mid-century the country houses were designed in the English Palladion style that features a compact two-story or three-story building. This home also features a principle room that would extend to the second story. Many other important public buildings used the Palladion style such as the hospitals throughout Philadelphia and New Jersey. During the end of the colonial period, architectural styles became more based on ancient Roman and Greek buildings. The style coincided with the American Revolution, thus the neoclassical style became very closely identified with the political values of the young America.
Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson gave serious thought to architecture because they were deeply involved with the planning and building preparations of Washington, D. C. Both Statesman looked to the classical world as their best source of inspiration. Jefferson's conception of the Roman ideas of beauty and proportion were elegantly expressed in his design for the Virginia State Capitol at Richmond. The new nation that came after the revolution brought a surge in architecture, as well as a new national style of architecture.
In Boston the high rise of buildings brought a new architectural style Federal. This style of development employed English neoclassical designs in the homes that were only typically seen in the middle to upper class of Boston. Nations leaders started to construct buildings with a more classical design. Thomas Jefferson designed the then new State Capitol at Richmond directly an old Roman temple, the Maison Carr'e at N'mes, France. This classical style based upon Roman sources became the official and popular style of the new nation. Shortly thereafter the Greek Revival followed this classical style that Jefferson had developed in the former New England colonies.
The Greek style is sometimes thought to have been the nation style from 1820 - 1850. This style displayed a column Greek-temple form that was preferred for public and many other domestic structures. Around 1850 a wider range of romantic revival styles were being used as well; Gothic and Tuscan revivals, which displayed asymmetrical floor plans and picturesque groupings of architectural components, were favored. The financial panic of 1857 and the disruptions of the Civil War, however, brought this building phase to a close. The architectural style in the early 1800 s, which is evident, was without equal in its time. The scrolled windows on the west front of the Colony House, its dormers, and borders were features to be found in many more upscale homes.
These homes were found all throughout the majority of New England and many of the other colonies in the Southern part of the new nation that followed the revolution. The Colony House became the single home that could be defined as the home of its particular period, where-as there is no other home during this period that is so widely seen in the nation. Thusly, the architecture of the Puritan Era actually was influenced by styles of many different time periods that all grouped together from many different cultures. The era started when the colonists just used log cabins and expanded to large homes occupied by many citizens. Even before the Revolution, styles predominantly came from European society and the cultures from their people that influenced the architects that built homes in the U. S.
Basically, there is no American architecture, because all styles came from already pre-made societies. There is no definite style of building either, because as times changed peoples views on what their homes should look like changed that much more quickly. Whatever it was that a person wanted a single room log cabin that just had a chimney and maybe a single window, or they wanted a spacious ten bedroom Colony House, with scrolled pane glass windows and two chimneys. As times change, peoples views and opinions change. This closely follows in architecture as well, at first the Americans thought log cabins were good, then they cut the log down into lumber and started to build the homes a little more upscale. Soon thereafter, brick and masonry came into the picture and houses got larger and larger, some even started to use marble if they could afford it.
With most of the architecture during the Puritan era if they had money they could have just about whatever they wanted. It wasnt just about money though, some had opinions on what their home should look like, not just from the vantage point of what style. Many wanted to show off wealth and class and the only way in doing this was to build their houses up so extravagantly that their house was very elegant but way overdone. In closing, architecture had many changes during the Puritan Era, some good, some bad, but with every bad construction idea came a better change in a different time. Bibliography: Ames, Kenneth L. Meaning in Artifacts: Hall Furnishings in Victorian America.
Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture. Editors Dell Upton and John Michael Beach. University of Georgia Press, 1986. Any, Lynne and Hobson, Archie; Little Museums; Henry Holy & Co. ; 1998. Bergheim, Laura A. Weird Wonderful America; Macmillan, 1988.
Dell Upton. Architecture in the United States. Oxford: New York, 1998. Dorsey, John and James D. Diet. A Guide to Baltimore Architecture.
Tidewater Publishers; 1987 (3 rd edition). Reynolds, Donald M. The Architecture of New York City. MacMillan, 1988.
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Research essay sample on 18th Century American Domestic Architecture
