Architecture

Eclectic Architecture: 1880-1940

Architecture in the late 1800s and early 1900s diverged into a multitude of styles. This age was of elegance and indecision, the age of eclectic architecture. After the civil war, many people found themselves immensely rich, or incredibly poor. As cities grew, tenements sprung up. The new forms of architecture allowed the poor to be packed into the cities in tiny apartments. The wealthy moved out to the country to lord over their businesses while displaying their wealth in ostentatious houses. The Gilded Age was aptly named, for the grandeur of the new buildings couldn’t quite hide the crooked lives trapped inside.

Earlier Styles

• 1860-1900
  
• Includes styles that precede and lead up to late 19th and early 20th century designs:
  
  • Richardsonian Romanesque
    
  • Chateauesque
    
  • Gothic
    
  • Stick Style Queen Anne
    
  • Italianate
    
  • Second Empire

Colonial Revival

Germantown Cricket club, Gernmantown, PA

• 1880-1955
  
• Like Georgian colonial architecture, and like English architecture
  
• Rectangular, few projections, symmetrical façades
  
• Hipped, double-pitched, or gabled roofs
  
• Classical cornices
  
• Hipped roofs have a flat deck and rail or balustrade
  
• Some central cupola
  
• Symmetrical chimneys
  
• Projecting façade
  
• Doors with fanlights
  
• Rectangular double hung windows
  
• Palladian window central
  
• Churches with arched windows, square steeple
  
• Initially inspired by the Philadelphia Centennial
  

Neoclassical:

Pennsylvania Station, NY	Pennsylvania Station (interior), NY

• 1895-1950
  
• Larger than 19th century
  
• Simpler than Beaux Arts
  
• Expanses of plain walls
  
• Level roof lines, quiet and unbroken
  
• Lintel doors and windows, predominant porticoes
  
• No coupled columns
  
• Full height porch, columns
  
• Classical ornament
  
• Revival of the Greek Revival
  

Tudor:

• 1890-1940
  
• Half timbering
  
• Steeply pitched roofs
  
• Casement windows with mullions
  
• Combination clipped and gabled roofs (clipped gables)
  
• Decorative chimney
  
• Bay window
  
• Heavy shingles in tile or slate
  
• Textured exterior
  
• Popular in suburban homes

Beaux Arts:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

• 1885-1930
  
• Also known as Classical Revival, Academic Classicism
  
• Late form of neoclassicism
  
• Steps, arches, lintel, between columns
  
• Figure sculptures in skyline
  
• Symmetrical
  
• Five part composition
  
• Climactic central mass over the wings
  
• Front broken in advancing and receding planes

The American Mansions

The Vanderbilt Mansion

In the Gilded Age, industry was quickly separating economic classes. The poor conditions of factory workers in the cities got worse as the company owners got richer. The immensely wealthy upper crust sought to display their wealth, and one outlet was architecture. The upper class build summer “cottages,” which were elaborately decorated houses in which to hold parties, and show of one’s wealth.

Mediterrean Period Houses

Italian Renaissance

• 1890-1935
  
• Low pitched, hipped roofs
  
• Roof covered with ceramic tiles
  
• Smaller upper story windows, less elaborate
  
• Arches above doors, windows, porches
  
• Small columns or pilasters at the entrance
  
• Façade symmetrical

Spanish Eclectic

• 1915-1940
  
• Inspired by Spain and Latin America
  
• Rich stylized detail
  
• Mostly found in the Southwest, Texas or Florida
  
• Low pitched roof, little or no eave overhang
  
• Red tiled roofs
  
• Arches over doors, windows, and porches
  
• Stucco wall
  
• Asymmetrical façade
  

Pueblo Revival

Hotel Franciscan, Labuquerque, NM

• 1912 - present
  
• Roots in California and New Mexico
  
• Inspired by Native American pueblos and Spanish colonial styles
  
• Flat roof with parapet wall
  
• Rounded wall edges
  
• Stucco wall
  

Balloon Frame Houses

Balloon Frame Houses are an innovation due to the expansion of industry and machine made products. Before the Gilded Age, framework joints were heavy and unwieldy, making houses difficult to construct and very expensive. Balloon frames were first introduced in Chicago, a center of architectural expansion. The joint in these new houses were pre-cut into much lighter pieces of wood. They were joined with factory produced nails and factory produced studs. These innovations made family housing much cheaper to build and to buy, greatly increasing suburban expansion.

Modern Houses

Prairie

Home by Frank Lloyd Wright

• 1910-present
  
• Made Popular by Frank Lloyd Wright
  
• Horizontal lines, low flat roofs
  
• Extended overhangs
  
• Casement windows
  
• Low pitched roofs
  
• Raised central block
  
• Continuous band of windows
  
• Limited decoration
  
• No curves
  

Craftsman

A typical Californian bungalow

• 1905-1930
  
• Stressed comfort and utility
  
• Natural materials
  
• Exposed rafter ends
  
• Clipped gables
  
• Large porch, columns
  
• Knee braces at eaves
  
• Bungalow style employ these elements in a one to one and a half story buildings
  
• Credited to the Greene and Greene brothers of California
  
• Supposed to have originated from Native American “bungalows,” but bears little resemblance to the original

The Skyscraper

The age of machines and factories brought about entirely new building techniques. The passenger elevator (Elisha Otis) and Louis Henry Sullivan’s steel framed building techniques drastically altered city horizons. Sullivan’s lightweight design was based on a steel grid, with rooms built around the frame. This cost effective design, coupled with a safe elevator, enabled buildings to stack story upon story. Unfortunately, the cheap design led to tenement apartments and poor city conditions. However, these developments in architecture allowed for the vertical expansion characteristic of cities today.

Art Deco

Chrysler Building, NY

• 1920-1940
  
• Smooth surfaces
  
• Stucco, stone or metal
  
• Simplified forms
  
• Geometric Designs
  
• Emphasis on vertical elements
  
• Machined, metallic construction
  
• Construction is the decoration
  

Art Moderne

• 1920-1940
  
• Smooth wall surface, stucco
  
• Flat roof, with small ledge
  
• Horizontal grooves or lines in walls
  
• Horizontal balustrade
  
• Façade usually asymmetrical
  
• Emphasis on horizontal elements
  

International

• 1925-present
  
• Concrete, glass and steel
  
• Exposed structure
  
• Only essential elements, no decoration
  
• Balanced, regular features
  
• Flat roof
  
• Large, single-panned windows separated by thin pieces or metal or flat panels

Study Question: Why was architecture in the late 1800s and early 1900s called “Eclectic” architecture?