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Italianate 1840-1885
The Italianate style derives from palace and villa
architecture of the Italian Renaissance of the 15th century. In
New England it is usually of wood, although brick and stone examples
can be found. Three types are most frequently seen: the traditional
two story, five bay centered entrance house with a gabled roof
parallel to the street to which a verandah has been added across
the front; the nearly square two story three bay house with very
wide eves supported on brackets and with a flat roof; and the
villa form composed of several interlocking blocks grouped around
an off-center square tower. All these variations will have the
wide bracketed eaves, low pitched roofs, large windows, sometimes
set in pairs with ornamental caps, and long one story porches
with sawn decorative fretwork on the front. Bay windows are common
as are two panel entrance doors. Although these houses are wood
frame, they are not built with heavy posts and beams as most buildings
were before the Civil War. Lighter "balloon framing: is used,
allowing much more complex floor plans and roof patterns for this
and all the subsequent domestic styles.
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The variety of Italianate interpretations
is great, but this is perhaps the most frequently seen in
New England; it is the center-hall plan common in Georgian
and Federal houses but on a slightly larger scale. This
example is embellished with quoins at the corners, returns
at the eaves and large bay windows. It stands in Grafton,
MA.
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Ornamentation is drawn from Classical sources generally,
but not consistently. Quoins are often seen at the corners of
exterior walls, but Romanesque and other styles are also used.
Exterior colors may vary from white to pastels to earth tones.
Trim is not usually picked out with separate colors.
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The octagon house, the invention of Orson
S. Fowler in the 1850s, is an American house form not frequently
seen. Fowler was not concerned with matters of style, but
the octagon's popularity during the height of the Italianate
period means that most octagon forms are also Italianate
in style. The interest in octagons, touted for their economy
and sunlit rooms, was over by the 1870s. Awkward-shaped
rooms were hard to furnish. This example is in Gardner,
MA.
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The style is relatively common, and, with Gothic
Revival, initiated the interest - for those who could afford it
- in living outside of cities on carefully landscaped estates.
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This is a plain version of the cubical three-bay Italianate
with a subordinate wing. Becasue the entrance is off-center,
the floor plan resembles that of the three-bay Greek Revival
house. The plainness of the wide cornice and broad overhang,
contrasted with the delicate porch, make an arresting design.
(Photo by James Mathews) |
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Several
interlocking blocks characterize this famous house in Newport,
RI, designed by Richard Upjohn in 1845, the Edward King House.
It is unusual because the arched windows suggest the Romanesque
style, not often seen in domestic work. But the flat-roofed
towers and bracketed eaves are essential Italianate elements. |
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