American Greek Revival was an architectural style popular in the United States and Canada from about 1800 to 1860. The unique American interpretation of a larger Greek Revival of the era allowed many rural and vernacular interpretations to flourish, and these further influenced the development of many other styles, such as the gablefront. Marcus Whiffen states that the "first building in the United States to incorporate a Greek order was the Bank of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe in 1798". [1] Talbot Hamlin says that "The period called 'Greek Revival,' extend[s] roughly from 1820 to 1860." [2]
The style was employed in ecclesiastical, institutional, and residential buildings. Virtually all the buildings in the style are characterized by the use of columns or pilasters, usually from the Greek orders. "Bilateral symmetry is the rule," with the main portion of the buildings being "block" or "temple" shaped with a low pitched or flat roof. Many buildings in this style, particularly rural farmhouses of New England and the Midwest, use an asymmetrical Upright and Wing floorplan, though this has many regional and vernacular variants. Many Antebellum plantations were completed in the Greek Revival style, with large colonnade porches. Arches were not employed because "the arch had no place in Greek temple architecture." [1]
Several factors led to the style's popularity in the United States, two of them wars. The War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain led the former colonials in America to wish to disassociate themselves from things British, [3] such as the previously popular Adam style, while the Greek War of Independence, begun in 1821, helped make things Greek admired and emulated. [4]
Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe was an Anglo-American neoclassical architect who immigrated to the United States. He was one of the first formally trained, professional architects in the new United States, drawing on influences from his travels in Italy, as well as British and French Neoclassical architects such as Claude Nicolas Ledoux. In his thirties, he immigrated to the new United States and designed the United States Capitol, on "Capitol Hill" in Washington, D.C., as well as the Old Baltimore Cathedral or The Baltimore Basilica,. It is the first Cathedral constructed in the United States for any Christian denomination. Latrobe also designed the largest structure in America at the time, the "Merchants' Exchange" in Baltimore. With extensive balconied atriums through the wings and a large central rotunda under a low dome which dominated the city, it was completed in 1820 after five years of work and endured into the early twentieth century.
Greek Revival architecture was a style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, as well as in Greece itself following its independence in 1821. It revived many aspects of the forms and styles of ancient Greek architecture, in particular the Greek temple. A product of Hellenism, Greek Revival architecture is looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture, which was drawn from Roman architecture. The term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as an architecture professor at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1842.
The architecture of the United States demonstrates a broad variety of architectural styles and built forms over the country's history of over two centuries of independence and former Spanish, French, Dutch and British rule.
The Queen Anne style of British architecture refers to either the English Baroque architecture of the time of Queen Anne or the British Queen Anne Revival form that became popular during the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century. In other English-speaking parts of the world, New World Queen Anne Revival architecture embodies entirely different styles.
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture with picturesque aesthetics. The resulting style of architecture was essentially of its own time. "The backward look transforms its object," Siegfried Giedion wrote of historicist architectural styles; "every spectator at every period—at every moment, indeed—inevitably transforms the past according to his own nature."
Châteauesque is a revivalist architectural style based on the French Renaissance architecture of the monumental châteaux of the Loire Valley from the late fifteenth century to the early seventeenth century.
A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and expensive architectural works today, though most were more utilitarian, working farmhouses.
The Samuel Russell House is a neoclassical house at 350 High Street in Middletown, Connecticut, built in 1828 to a design by architect Ithiel Town. Many architectural historians consider it to be one of the finest Greek Revival mansions in the northeastern United States. Town's client was Samuel Russell (1789-1862), the founder of Russell & Company, the largest and most important American firm to do business in the China trade in the 19th century, and whose fortunes were primarily based on smuggling illegal and addictive opium into China.
The Lampert-Wildflower House is a home in the U.S. city of Belvidere, Boone County, Illinois. The main, upright, portion of the house was constructed in 1838 and the wing section was added to the home during the 1860s. It passed through the hands of several owners until it was purchased by Phillip C. Lampert who is responsible for the wildflower covered lawn. The property contains five types of rare plants and is semi-wooded, shaded by 32 trees. The home is a distinct example of Upright and Wing construction, though it retains some elements of the Greek Revival style it was originally designed in. The wing section of the house features a front porch decorated with Gothic Revival and Queen Anne style elements. The house was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance in 2005.
First Presbyterian Church in Sag Harbor, New York, also known as Old Whaler's Church, is a historic and architecturally notable Presbyterian church built in 1844 in the Egyptian Revival style. The church is Sag Harbor's "most distinguished landmark." The facade has been described as "the most important (surviving) example of Egyptian revival style in the United States," and "the best example of the Egyptian Revival style in the U.S. today.
The Union House, also known as the John Bower House, is a small, mostly Gothic Revival house in downtown Orangeville, Illinois, United States. The house, the first brick home in Orangeville, was built in 1849 by village founder John Bower. It was purchased by Samuel Hutchins in 1885 and it remained in the Hutchins family until 1951. The house blends elements of Greek and Gothic Revival architecture and is the only example of Gothic Revival found in the village of Orangeville. The house was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
Upright and Wing, also referred to as Temple and Wing or Gable Front and Wing, is a residential architectural style found in American vernacular architecture of New England and the Upper Midwest, specifically associated with the American Greek Revival. It was popular from the mid- to late 19th century and is typified by a gable ended "upright" section, usually two stories, and a one-story ell or "wing" section.
A gablefront house, also known as a gable front house or front gable house, is a vernacular house type in which the gable is facing the street or entrance side of the house. They were built in large numbers throughout the United States primarily between the early 19th century and 1920. A gablefront cottage is a smaller variant, consisting of either a single story or a story-and-a-half. They were typically used as working-class dwellings, most being rather simple in design. However, they may contain some ornamentation such as brackets around the doorways or roof line. Many gablefront houses contain front porches.
Queen Anne style architecture was one of a number of popular Victorian architectural styles that emerged in the United States during the period from roughly 1880 to 1910. Popular there during this time, it followed the Second Empire and Stick styles and preceded the Richardsonian Romanesque and Shingle styles. Sub-movements of Queen Anne include the Eastlake movement.
The Canton Township MPS is a multiple property submission, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. A multiple property submission is a group of related structures that share a common theme. The Canton Township MPS consists of eleven houses built between 1825 and 1904 and located in Canton Township, Michigan.
In the United States, the National Register of Historic Places classifies its listings by various types of architecture. Listed properties often are given one or more of 40 standard architectural style classifications that appear in the National Register Information System (NRIS) database. Other properties are given a custom architectural description with "vernacular" or other qualifiers, and others have no style classification. Many National Register-listed properties do not fit into the several categories listed here, or they fit into more specialized subcategories.
Second Empire architecture in the United States and Canada is an architectural style that was popular in both nations in the late 19th century between 1865 and 1900. Second Empire architecture was influenced by the redevelopment of Paris under Napoleon III's Second French Empire, and was influenced partly by the architectural styles of the French Renaissance.
In the New World, Queen Anne Revival was a historicist architectural style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was popular in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries. In Australia, it is also called Federation architecture.
The River Ledge Historic District is a primarily residential historic district located along Jefferson, Scott, and Lincoln Streets between Franklin and Maple Streets in Grand Ledge, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.