Architecture

Architecture

Sources

Greek Revival. The growth of the young republic required the construction of various new buildings to house its government. Architects patterned most of the new nation’s public buildings after classical models. The neoclassical lines of Greek Revival buildings suggested a simplicity that differed sharply from the luxury and decay Americans associated with British aristocracy. This republican style was intended to confer a sense of both democracy and community.

Public Buildings. Architect and engineer Benjamin Latrobe’s work on the Bank of Pennsylvania (1798–1800), considered to be the first Greek Revival Structure in the United States, brought him to the attention of Thomas Jefferson. Impressed by Latrobe’s ability to use

and adapt Greek Revival designs to American themes, Jefferson named him surveyor of the public buildings of the United States in 1803. Latrobe oversaw the restoration of the capital after it was partially destroyed by fire in 1814. As part of this project Latrobe designed columns for the Senate wing that featured ears of corn, tobacco, and other native plants; by blending neoclassical form with native decoration, Latrobe showed that it was possible for American architecture to draw on older models while adapting them to the American environment. Two of Latrobe’s students, Robert Mills and William Strickland, dominated the public architectural scene through the 1840s. Mills designed the Washington Monument at Baltimore (1814–1829), a giant unfluted Doric column. His other important projects included the United States Treasury and the Patent Office in 1836 and the Washington Post Office in 1839. Strickland designed the Second Bank of the United States (1824) and several of its branch banks as well as the Philadelphia Merchants’ Exchange (1832–1834) and the Tennessee State capital (1844–1849).

Republican Homes. After the American Revolution many prominent men wanted to build houses that would reflect their commitment to the republican principles of the new nation. Architects such as Latrobe and Strickland, perhaps best known for public projects, designed homes as well. As they did in their public buildings, these architects tended to use simple, neoclassical designs as a means of illustrating the homeowner’s commitment to republican virtue. By using designs suggested by and related to the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, these architects and the men who hired them hoped to demonstrate their faith in the American republic and to inspire viewers to virtuous thought and action.

Pattern Books. During the early decades of the nineteenth century pattern books for house building became popular. Between 1797 and 1860, 188 architectural handbooks for builders were published in the United States. Asher Benjamin’s American Builder’s Companion (1806) went through multiple editions; in the book’s sixth edition, published in 1827, Benjamin incorporated illustrations of Greek Revival detailing, fashionable for houses by that time. Another well-known pattern-book author, Minard Lafever, published several different builders’ guides during the 1820s and 1830s, with each one carrying a larger variety of Greek Revival detailing. Lafever’s third book. The Beauties of Modern Architecture (1835), contained not only house plans and diagrams but also lithographic prints showing what the finished house would look like.

Downing. In 1841 landscape gardener Andraw Jackson Downing published Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America. In contrast to the pattern-book authors who stressed Greek Revival architectural style, Downing favored a nature oriented landscape and architectural design. Influenced by English domestic and landscape designers, Downing believed that civilized taste naturally progressed from the more formal and ordered garden and house sites popular in the eighteenth century to sites that seemed to blend with nature rather than stand apart from it. A modern American garden, suggested Downing, should appeal to the sense of the beautiful, picturesque, or sublime rather than to a sense of order and geometric perfection. In other words a garden was to appeal to a viewer’s emotions as well as reason. In his 1842 book Cottage Residences Downing applied these principles of landscape gardening to country houses. Unlike the pattern books of Benjamin. Lafever, and others, Cottage Residences was aimed at potential homeowners rather than at builders. Downing argued that architecture was not simply a utilitarian art aimed at the building of a serviceable home but was also a fine art. A home should be both beautiful and practical. Cottage Residences and Downing’s last book, The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), contained numerous illustrations of homes in a variety of styles, all of which favored either a beautiful and harmonious look or a more rugged, picturesque appearance. Downing was also careful to include a range of houses, some inexpensive and others larger and more elaborate. Downing believed that a beautiful and morally uplifting home should be within the economic reach of every American family.

Sources

Talcott Hamlin, Benjamin Henry Latrobe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955);

David Schuyler, Apostle of Taste: Andraw Jackson Downing, 1815–1852 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996);

Robert K. Sutton, Americans Interpret the Parthenon: The Progression of Greek Revival Architecture from the East Coast to Oregon, 1800–1860 (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1992).