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WHAT STYLE IS IT?
| SPRING 2006
SPRING 2005
WINTER 2005 |
Building Blocks
Post-Revolution America was a country in need of national identity during a period of great growth. Political leaders saw America as the inheritor of Greco-Roman traditions and sought to imbue their "New Athens" with symbols and architecture evoking this ancient democracy. Concurrently, increasing trade created a new class of wealthy merchants who required ways to show their affluence. This confluence of desires for symbolic meaning and fashionable forms flowered into the Federal style, and classical references were seen as an appropriate expression.
The discoveries of Herculaneum and Pompeii in 1719 and 1748, respectively, showed variety in Roman architecture not revealed by Palladio and sparked a new fashion in late-eighteenth-century English architecture popularized by Robert and James Adam. They translated classical motifs into a delicate style, which came to be known as the Adam style. In America the fashionable Adam style influenced the architecture and decorative arts during a period when the Federalist Party was promoting a strong federal government—so we refer to the style, spanning roughly from 1790 to 1820, as Federal.
Architecture of the Federal era moved away from the heaviness of American Georgian architecture to more vertical proportions and an overall grace and lightness. The Federal house was typically two and one-half to three stories high, with exterior walls articulated with panels or stringcourses. New room shapes were incorporated, with elliptical or circular rooms breaking through the mass of the house at times. Windows were symmetrically disposed about the entrance. (If the house was narrow with a side hall and entrance, then a tripartite window would sometimes be used.) Double- or triple-hung sash windows decreased in height from first to second to third floors, with the first-floor windows having a width-to-height ratio of 1:2, 1:2.5, or 1:3. Builders frequently used palladian, elliptical, or round windows. Sashes were commonly divided into six panes, with thin muntins, and were protected by paneled or louvered shutters.
Entrances were elaborately designed with a surround of attenuated pilasters or engaged columns framing sidelights and an arched or elliptical fanlight, both accented by delicate tracery, and frequently covered by a small porch. Ornamental motifs, richly deployed, included swags, urns, eagles, flags, and arrows. Local building materials were used—walls were clapboard, smooth-faced brick, or, on occasion, stucco scored to imitate stone. Roofs were metal, slate, or wood shingle.
With its ebullience countered by modest restraint and its use of classical motifs, the Federal style mirrored the youthful excitement of a new nation that had been forged through rational thought out of the classical tradition. One of the finest Federal houses is Homewood in Maryland, and an excellent introduction to the style is covered in Wendell Garrett's Classic America: The Federal Style and Beyond (Universe Publishing).
Christine G. H. Franck is a designer and educator who lives in New York.
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