Italianate architecture

The Italianate - style ( pronunciation: [ ɪtæljəneɪt ]; German: " Italienisierender style ") is a historicist embossed architectural style that was popular as a manifestation of early Victorian architecture in the 19th century in the English-speaking countries.

Origins and development

The Italianate style combines the architecture of the Italian Renaissance of the 16th century, which also has the Palladian and classicism inspired with that in the Anglophone world influential since the 18th century romantic ideal of " Picturesquen ", ie the requirement of the landscape be considered according to the rules of picturesque beauty. Under these circumstances an architectural style that is been described as neo-Renaissance, but characteristic own trains bears that could emerge only in this particular intellectual-historical context was created. The commitment to Italian architecture was for gentlemen throughout the English-speaking world since the 1820s, an expression of the desire for cultural refinement.

The earliest example of Italianate architecture is about 1802, designed by John Nash and built at Shrewsbury in 1805 Cronkhill. The style that he created with this free Italian -inspired originals and little formal small country house, inspired by the Victorian time into it to draft a variety of similar villas.

Next developed and popularized the Italianate style was in the 1830s by Charles Barry, who is narrower than Nash oriented to the original buildings of the Italian Renaissance building was designed, were designed much stricter and more formal than Nash's semi - rural, romantic villas.

Both forms of the Italianate style were not limited to England, but found in various forms in Northern Europe and the British Empire and then still more widespread than this style in England was certainly not more popular. In the United States, he obtained - sponsored by Alexander Jackson Davis - since the late 1840s great popularity.

England and Wales

About the year 1805 John Nash designed the Manor Sandridge Park. Built at Stoke Gabriel in Devon house is stylistically quite the transition between William Gilpin's Picturesque Ideal Nash and later fully developed Italianism. Although the building still has many of the features of Regency architecture, refer other elements - an asymmetrical floor plan, brick and wrought iron loggias and balconies, a tower, a flat roof pitch - to the fully developed Italianate style of Cronkhill. Later examples of the English Italianate - style lean more towards the Palladian style to, often also an observation tower ( belvedere ) or a roof balustrade is completed. In this - rather stylistic - interpretation of the Italian prototype more reference is made to the Italian Renaissance motifs than on Nash's early Italianate designs.

Sir Charles Barry, whose most famous work - Tudor and Neo-Gothic style - Palace of Westminster, was a great champion of the Italianate style. Unlike Nash he found his inspiration in Italy itself Barry drew a large extent from the designs of the genuine Roman, Latin and Venetian Renaissance villas, or, as he put it: the " charming character of the irregular villas of Italy". One of the earliest designed by Barry examples of this style is the built in London in 1832 Travellers Club. However, his most important work was the mansion Cliveden, which was drafted by Barry mid-century for George Sutherland - Leveson - Gower. Although it has been claimed that a third of early Victorian country houses in England in the classic style - mainly in the Italianate style - were built, lost this style from 1855 to his popularity and Cliveden was soon considered " under continuous essay about a coming to an end fashion ".

The London-based contractor Thomas Cubitt used simple classical elements as they were characteristic of the defined by Barry Italianate style, for many of its urban townhouses. On behalf of Prince Albert, he designed the mid-century summer residence Osborne House, a two-dimensional transformation of its street architecture in a detached mansion, which later inspired Italianate villas throughout the British Empire.

After the completion of Osborne House in 1851, the style for the wealthy owners of the period became popular. These could be, mostly in the cities, build small mansions, which included large gardens, which were often created as a terrace in Tuscan style. This design concept has sometimes been modified and the villa instead of a low-pitched roof put on a mansard roof; in this case one speaks of chateauesque - style ( " castle- style "). Nevertheless formed, " after a modest spate of Italianate villas and French chateaux ", already in 1855 the Neo-Gothic, Tudor and Elizabethan style of the most popular architectural styles.

A particularly high concentration of preserved buildings in the Italianate style can be found today, for example, in the nearby resort of Portmeirion in Wales.

United States

History

In the United States developed the first Italianate houses in the late 1830s. One of the earliest examples is a house in " Italian villa-style ", which in 1837 was built in 1831 immigrated from Scotland architect John Notman in Burlington. He was further popularized in the 1840s by Alexander Jackson Davis, who promoted him as an alternative to the neo-Gothic and Greek Revival style. 1844 Davis built the residence of the Governor of North Carolina, John Morehead of the Italianate style. This building, Blandwood was closely based on the model of John Nash's formless villas and is considered the oldest preserved Italianate building in the United States. A more polished fuller example of this style, the first as "Italian " or " Tuscan villa style " and in the U.S. - directly related to the work of Davis - was also called " Hudson River bracketed style ," Davis ' 1854 is in today's Prospect Park in Brooklyn built Litchfield Villa. Other leading sponsors of the style were next to Henry Austin turned three traveled from England Architect: Richard Upjohn ( Edward King House, Newport, 1845), Gervase Wheeler and Calvert Vaux.

The spread of the Italianate style was greatly promoted by two books published by the architect Andrew Jackson Downing in the 1840s: Cottage Residences ( 1842) and The Architecture of Country Houses ( 1850). These two original books were highly popular standard works, which were studied by builders before they committed to a particular design concept. After it had been universally since the founding of the United States of the Greek Revival style, the two books offered for the first time at a selection of interesting stylistic alternatives. The Italianate style proved to be the most successful of them.

The Italianate style was indigenous to the United States to the extent in which it adapted itself to the customary design - the European stone construction was "translated " for example, in a wooden structure - and thereby opened the way to the Italian original shall be free to interpret. So its characteristic is the pointed exaggeration of many elements of the Italian Renaissance: strongly accented eaves that are supported by consoles, low-pitched roofs, which are barely visible from below, or even flat roofs with more projection. Often, a tower is completed, which implies an Italian Belvedere or even Campanile. It is very rare Italianate houses were strictly modeled on the formal Italian town houses of the Renaissance period. The style gained in the U.S. since the late 1860s even greater popularity as the Greek Revival style and repressed also incurred in 1840 Gothic Revival style, the local contractors less like transpose, because it was difficult to build. The success of the Italianate style was not least the fact that he 's know -how of the contractor not overwhelmed and was not fixed to particular few building materials or to a specific budget. Progress in iron casting and metal stamping technique also simplified the production of the required decorative elements such as brackets and cornices. Another advantage was that the style has allowed to grow subsequently to a finished house. In the Greek Revival style, for example, that had not been possible.

What popularity, the Italianate architecture achieved by 1845, one sees in Cincinnati, Ohio, the first boomtown west of the Appalachian Mountains. In this city, whose rise was linked to the navigation on the Ohio River, there are more Italianate buildings than anywhere else in the United States. Most of them are located in the district of Over- the-Rhine, which was inhabited in the time of origin of dense predominantly German immigrants. An impressive number of buildings in the Italianate style, with the cities of Newport, Kentucky and Covington, Kentucky. The Garden District in New Orleans is also home to fine examples of this architecture, as designed, for example, by Samuel Jamison Morris - Israel House (1869 ), Van Benthuysen - Elms Mansion ( 1869) and the Armstrong - Danna House (1868 ).

Many buildings that were built in the fictional James Bogardus in the 1850s cast iron art, wore a façade in the Italianate style.

The sinking of the Italianate style, which was the way parallel to that of the closely related Second Empire style, coincided with the collapse of financial markets in 1873 and the subsequent economic depression. As the economy recovered in the late 1870s, were different architectural styles - particularly the Queen Anne and Colonial Revival style - en vogue.

Dissemination

In the period from 1850 to 1880 was the Italianate style in the United States most commonly chosen style. Especially prevalent it was in the rapidly growing cities of the Midwest, but also in many older, continue growing cities of the Northeast. Another center of the style was San Francisco, which grew in this period from one village to one of the most important ports in cities of the country. Many of the townhouses in San Francisco have survived the earthquake of 1906 and are still preserved. The least common was the Italianate style in the southern states, which were struck economically after the Civil War so that there was generally built little long time.

Most of the still preserved Italianate houses were built in 1855-1880. Older homes are rarely to be found.

Mark

One of the key visual elements of the Italianate style include:

A projecting eaves, which is supported by brackets. A crafted from wood cornice profile.

High, narrow windows, often arched.

Style variants

Within the Italianate style can be distinguished three different variants that have been described by some American historians of architecture even as an independent architectural styles:

Italian Villa (1845-1870)

The starting points of the Italian villa style in the United States are paintings of the French landscape painter Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, and John Nash's design of the manor Cronkhill. Andrew Jackson Downing was a fan of this style and wore with his book Cottage Residences significantly to its popularization. Italian villas were popular with wealthy American families and peri-urban, small urban or rural residences. They were larger than cottages, but more compact than most farm houses. The plan of the Italian villa was asymmetric. The most interesting feature of this house type was a tower, whose function openly only in the enjoyment of the residents was: a frivolity that was a tremendous novelty in the architecture of the Puritan tradition dominated by the country. An early and famous example of this architecture is designed by Richard Upjohn and 1845-47 in Newport, Rhode Iceland Built Edward King House. Later followed inter alia, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Birthplace Springwood ( Hyde Park, New York, 1845 Italianate - style redesigned ), Martin Van Buren's residence linden wood ( Kinderhook, New York, 1849 Italianate - style redesigned ) and Homewood Villa ( Baltimore, 1853).

Italianate style in the narrower sense (1845-1875)

The actual Italianate style is closely related to the Italian villa style, on towers, however, was omitted. The consoles are simply decorated and assembled either at regular intervals or in pairs. Italianate houses are typically less complex created as Italian villas. Although the rooms are very high, the floor plan but often a simple rectangle. This encouraged the practice to make older buildings by adding decorative elements to subsequently Italianate houses. Other possible stylistic features include a loft, which hung windows are located in the interstices of roof consoles and a roof patch square cupola or lantern. As the tower of the Italian Villa, also serves as the lantern of the Italianate house that is accessible from inside the house through a trapdoor, only the view. Additional informal structural features that has the Italianate house with the Italian villa together, include bay ( bay windows ) and sliding doors inside the house, as well as balconies and porches that allow the residents an outdoor life.

In the 1850s and 1860s, this style was so popular in the United States that he was also called "American style console " (American style bracketed ). Other names were " Tuscan style ", " Lombardi shear style " or simply " American style "

Octagon House

The " Octagon House", a type of house with a regular octagonal plan, which was invented by Orson Squire Fowler and 1850-1870 found a number of enthusiasts is usually represented in the literature as an independent style. As the architectural historian John Milnes Baker has pointed out, these are but rather a type of construction as an architectural style, and in fact most of octagon houses are designed in a simple Italianate style.

Renaissance Revival (1845-1860)

By 1880, only few houses were built in the tradition of the designs of Charles Barry and were closely followed the palaces of the Italian Renaissance; even fewer are still preserved. As well as their role models, this Renaissance Revival houses were mostly town houses, and unlike the other two style variations they were of masonry, typically made of stone or stucco. In its purest form Renaissance Revival buildings were strictly square or rectangular boxes with triangular gables on the rectangular windows. The cornice is decorated restrained and the consoles are significantly less than auslandend to the Italian Villa Italianate houses. Also typical are segmented gable, window cornices, quoins and rustication accented on the building's base. Columns appear only sporadically and only in the area of the portico.

This style was called " Italian Renaissance " or " Renaissance Revival". Renaissance Revival houses were less imaginative than Italian or Italianate villas houses and corresponded to the Picturesque ideal, therefore, with some restrictions. Individual houses were seldom built in Renaissance Revival style; more significant was this style for the New York City architecture. Thus, a large part of the known as " Brownstones " multi-storey terraced houses, for example, the Upper West Side dominate the streets, designed in the Renaissance Revival style. Other examples are the Athenaeum of Philadelphia ( John Notman, 1845), the India House in Manhattan ( Richard Carman, 1854) and the Custom House in Georgetown, Washington DC ( Ammi B. Young, 1858).

After the establishment of the manor The Breakers (1893-1895), the Renaissance Revival was a revival.

Main forms

According to the plan, and the general shape can be divided into the following six house shapes the Italianate style:

Asymmetric (usually L- förming )

Symmetrical with central gable

Asymmetric Tower

With Pediment ( on narrow land)

Townhouse ( in large cities )

Distinction of similar architectural styles

Townhouses In the Italianate style easily with the resulting slightly later Victorian Stick Style (1860-1890) is to be confused. The roof is flat in this type of house and therefore provides no evidence on the style. Townhouses in embroidery style have as well as Italianate houses one of the supported consoles eaves; also triangular pediment above the windows are typical.

A distinction, however, both styles are in a number of decorative details that are not seen in Italianate houses: so have stick -style houses often ribbons, planar ornaments or decorative paneling, eg at the eave between the brackets; Consoles may appear not only under the eaves, but also eg under the Fensterbekrönungen or as a visual extension of the vertical trim that can extend over the full height of the façade; and vertical stripes on the sides of the window indicate Stick Style.

Stick Style

Even closer to the Italianate style with the Second Empire style (1855-1885) is related. Also, Second Empire homes have profile-shaped eaves and projecting eaves that are supported by brackets. Because of the characteristic roof shape - all Second Empire homes have windowed dormers mansard roofs - is, however, almost impossible with the Italianate - style confusion.

Second- Empire - style

Interior design

In the interior design were next to items whose use in the same form as early as the exterior design was common, even free combinations of decorative elements used, which were the architecture and art objects of the Italian Renaissance borrowed directly. Not only metropolitan rows of houses, but also closets and dressers could be designed as in the Italianate style. A preform such commercial designs is the " free Renaissance ", the British architect and furniture designer Charles Eastlake is prescribed in the second half of the 19th century. In 1868 he published his book Hints on Household button in Furniture, Upholstery and other Details which was very influential in the United Kingdom and in the United States, where it was published four years later. The rules that gave Eastlake here for the establishment in the Italianate style were simple: so were, inter alia, profiles and carvings were not allowed to be stuck, but had to be machined from the solid; instead mitres secured connections were only rectangular, by grooves, posts or pins permitted; Wood had either unglazed and used in its natural color, or painted in a matt color and coated with contrasting lines and via mask ornaments in the corners. The furniture, which he suggested were made ​​of flat, stable, square cut parts. The ornamentation consisted of painted wood, porcelain plates or tiles, from Metallbesätzen or wooden reliefs. While North American collectors and dealers today often refer to furniture in the Italianate style as Eastlake, very different names were common, including " Modern Greek " by his contemporaries.

Australia

In Australia, the Italianate style gained great popularity in the residential home construction. Suggestions provided William Wardell, of the 1876 completed Government House (now the official residence of the Governor of Victoria ) designed in this style. The cream colored rooms equipped with many Palladian building elements would - apart from his crowned with a belvedere tower - to put in the designed by Thomas Cubitt London rows of houses and places. The hipped roof of the building is covered by a parapet. The main building is flanked by two lower asymmetrical wings - enable picturesquen sight - especially from non- frontal view. The larger of the two wings is divorced from the main building by a Belvedere. The smaller wing, which houses a ballroom, is accessible through a column provided with porte cochere, which is designed as a single-story portico.

The Italianate style was the rest of the British Empire spread far longer than in England itself so even the 1881 station, completed in Albury (New South Wales ) is still built in this style.