Colonial architecture

“ The scarcity of examples of true Colonial architecture in the last-named section is explicable by the fact that the southern planter, when his wealth increased, chose to live in more sumptuous manner than his first built dwelling permitted. He therefore built himself a stately Georgian house, better suited to the more elegant style and equipage he now found himself able to maintain. ”

“ Indeed, the whiteness of our colonial architecture is an essential characteristic; it dazzled Dickens on his first visit to America, and made him think that all the houses had been built only yesterday. The esthetic reason for delighting in these white colonial farmhouses is simple: white and white alone fully reflects the surrounding lights; white and white alone gives a pure blue or lavender shadow against the sunlight. At dawn, a white house is pale pink and turquoise ”

“ Once we have genuinely appreciated the influence that created early colonial architecture, we see that it is irrecoverable: what we call a revival is really a second burial. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men have been hauling and tugging vigorously during the last fifty years to bring back the simple beauties and graces of the colonial dwelling, and the collectors’ hunt for the products of the Salem, Newburyport and Philadelphia cabinetmakers is a long and merry one ”

“ Americans show great good sense in clinging to their native Colonial architecture, which lends itself admirably to the simple, well-kept lawns and old-fashioned gardens. In comparison with country estates of the old world, one misses the dignity of ancient stone and trees; but gains the airy openness and many luxuries of modern comfort. ”

“ It is the greatest fallacy, however, to say, as many learned reviewers of Colonial architecture do, that its symmetry, restfulness and good proportion generally caused it to rise superior to other schools of design, because that is not true. ”

“ A great many strange and unusual things are being perpetrated in the name of old colonial architecture at this time. At the same time, a great deal that is beautiful and refined is being built in this style. ”

“ The evolution of local architecture, of course,{43} not only mirrors the social and economic development of the colonies but also presents numerous edifying variations within the confines of New England which show how strongly the course of architectural growth in the new land was influenced by conditions locally prevalent in the old home. It can oftentimes be seen how the artisans from one particular place in England perpetuated certain idiosyncrasies of craftsmanship within limited Colonial areas and that those peculiarities are found nowhere else. ”

“ All these types of Colonial architecture possess an healthy, indigenous flavour that smacks of the manly vigour and robust hardihood of{9} the pioneers who had the courage and the initiative to forsake their wonted paths of comfort and known conditions at home and face unflinchingly the dangers and difficulties of an untamed wilderness as the founders of a settlement whose future was by no means assured and of whose ultimate greatness they little dreamed. ”

“ Besides talking about colonial architecture as an important aspect of colonial history, this booklet has two special purposes. One is to interest the student in architecture itself. Some people go through their whole lives without ever being conscious about buildings they like or dislike; they do not wonder why one building looks gay, another sober, and others pompous or unpretentious. This study will provide a number of approaches to architecture. Using everyday vision, so to speak, we will see photographs of buildings from outside and inside, in long-shot and close-up. ”

“ To appreciate fully and understand the spirit and peculiarities of the earliest Colonial architecture of New England, we must seek, in the course of our examination of the subject, to find a fundamental and close correspondence between it and the architecture of old England, no matter how far the visible traces of that intimate relationship may have been obscured by subsequent alterations and additions to the original houses whose fabric affords our basis of comparison. If we keep our eyes and wits alert, we shall not be disappointed in the results of our search. ”

“ The more important structures in the Southern and Dutch colonies were of brick imported from Europe. Wood was, however, the material most commonly employed, especially in New England, and its use determined in large measure the form and style of the colonial architecture. There was little or no striving for architectural elegance until well into the eighteenth century, when Wren’s influence asserted itself in a modest way in the Middle and Southern colonies. ”

“ It is of the utmost importance, therefore, that we pay due heed to the material resources at the disposal of builders in the Colonial period. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that materials to some extent influenced architectural forms while, on the other hand, tradition and hereditary preferences, as we have seen, exerted a powerful influence upon the choice of materials and affected the way in which they were employed. ”

“ In the English colonies of North America we find, between the first settlement and the opening of the Revolution, three distinct periods or types of domestic building following each other in regular and clearly-defined sequence, from rude and massive structures of stone and timber to carefully-constructed and artistically-designed mansions.
The first period of colonial architecture embraces the greater part of the seventeenth century. Numerous edifices of this period may still be seen in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, as well as in the western portions of the State. ”

“ The Georgian period seems especially fitted for use in our homes, for it was the inspiration of our Colonial houses and furniture, which we adapted and made our own in many ways. The best examples of Colonial architecture are found in the thirteen original states. In many of these houses we find an almost perfect sense of proportion, of harmony and balance, of dignity, and a spaciousness and sense of hospitality, which few of our modern houses achieve. ”

“ The warm tone of the walls is especially pleasing. Years and weather, yes, and dirt, have imparted an exceedingly mellow tinge to the hard burned brick laid in courses of Flemish bond, and although the glazed black headers, found in so many old houses, are of rare occurrence, the hue of the Colonial bricks is peculiarly rich. Relieved as the masonry is by trimmings of native bluish marble and pencilled by weathered mortar joints, the walls have a wonderful quality of texture and colour. ”

“ The illustrations of interiors at Stenton accompanying this chapter, serve, as might many others, to show that white-painted interior woodwork, although one of the greatest charms of the Colonial house, finds its principal mission in providing the only architectural background that sets off satisfactorily the warmth of color and grace of line possessed by eighteenth-century furniture in mahogany and other dark woods. Bright and cheerful, chaste and beautiful, it emphasizes the beauties of everything before it, yet seldom forces itself into undue prominence. ”

“ The colonists understood harmony in home decoration, and their wall hangings as well as their furniture were carefully chosen. They purchased papers to suit their apartments, and the colors were selected with a view to the best effect, so that the soft white of the woodwork might be in keeping with their pictorial value. Consistency is the keynote of the colonial interior, and it is this feature that has given to homes of this type that touch of distinction that no other period of architecture possesses. ”

“ Naturally the more expensive houses were the first to get the benefit of the architectural inspiration drawn largely from England. But now that English gables and dormers have spread so widely, now that we realize the beauty of our own colonial architecture, and that the Queen Anne craze is subsiding, so that only its best features remain, the less ambitious dwellings must not be left to the mercy of those builders whose ideas of beauty are limited to scroll-saw brackets and French roofs. ”

“ Beyond and above are many spacious rooms with excellent woodwork and handsome chimney pieces.
No handsomer Colonial façade is to be found in America. Classic in feeling and symmetrical in arrangement, it is excellently detailed in every particular. Above a slightly projecting water table the repeated horizontals of the limestone belt at the second-floor level, the heavy cornice with prominent modillions and the roof line impart a feeling of repose and stability quite apart from the character of the building material itself. ”

“ A new interest which has grown as my health has grown during the past three years, is that of Colonial architecture—the visual re-creation of the 18th century by study of its surviving landmarks—and most of my new-born strength has been utilised in the exploration of the antique towns which abound in my native New-England. ”

“ Of all the types of domestic architecture that have been either evolved or modified in America during the Colonial period, none more generally commends itself to the favourable consideration of the modern home builder than that which the Dutch settlers of Manhattan, North Jersey and Long Island worked out as the most satisfactory solution for their needs. ”

“ Much of the best Colonial domestic architecture in America is to be found in this vicinity, a great deal of it still standing in virtually its pristine condition as enduring memorials of the most elegant period in Colonial life. ”

“ Of course, these Colonial houses are Renaissance, because Renaissance, since Mediæval times, has been the connecting link history has found convenient to unite the present with the past. Yet there is not a building in either England or France or Italy like any of them. They are intensely American in every line, and express as much American history as George Bancroft was able to express in his great literary work. Architecture is not architecture which does not express history. ”

“ Ever since colonial architecture was reappreciated after the Civil War, a large amount of material has appeared on the early architecture of the colonies. Before 1900 the greater part of this was uncritical. Isham and Brown’s work on the early architecture of Connecticut and Rhode Island made a new departure, which Messrs. Cousins and Riley’s studies of the architecture of Salem and Philadelphia have carried on. Mr. Fiske Kimball’s compendious study of the Domestic Architecture of the Colonies and the Early Republic brings together a large amount of authenticated data. ”

“ In both its economic and purely technical aspects, the mode of domestic architectural expression devised in Colonial New England has many admirable features to commend it and is due partly to native Yankee mother wit and shrewd practicality quickened by the spur of necessity, and partly to the spirit of true British conservatism and attachment to long-established custom, a spirit that was strong in the early Puritans and often determined their actions in spite of themselves. ”

“ In the first place, at the beginning of the Georgian period, local conditions forbade the lavish display of carved ornamentation that marked so many houses of the same date in England. At that time there were few craftsmen in the Colonies capable of executing the elaborate carving in vogue on the other side of the Atlantic. The builders of mansions, therefore, must perforce content themselves by a close adherence to line and proportion and do without the highly wrought carved embellishment. ”

“ Surveying thus the history of architecture in America, from the beginning of the Colonial period down to the end of post-Colonial activity, a continuous and logical process of development can be traced of which each succeeding phase was a faithful exponent of contemporary local manners and modes of life. ”

“ Of this advantage the modern house-planner makes excellent use, and I have seen more than one quite modest family house which, without any sacrifice of comfort, gives one a sense of almost palatial spaciousness. An architectural exhibition which I saw the other day proved that equal or even greater care and attention is being bestowed upon the country house, in which a characteristically American style is being developed, mainly founded, I take it, upon the suave and graceful classicism of Colonial architecture. ”

“ The panelling in many of the old Colonial houses, and for that matter the same thing may be said with perfect truth of much of the panelling to be found in houses of the Georgian type, exhibits marked irregularities. Although the almost mediæval methods of the early craftsmen were gradually supplanted by other ways of treating the material, there was always a delightful personal element of originality and lack of symmetry in the panelling and woodwork generally. It is this very originality that gives it its charm and interest. It is precisely like the features of the human face. ”

“ An era of general peace and growing prosperity in the early years of the eighteenth century permitted and encouraged the colonists to pay more heed to the material amenities of life than had previously been their wont and it was but natural that, with favourable domestic conditions, they should seek to emulate the luxury and more polished manner of life obtaining in{12} the mother country, and the adoption of contemporary British architectural modes was one way in which that filial emulation found expression. ”

“ But it is rather as a revelation of the social and domestic habits of our forebears that the story of architecture in Colonial America concerns us immediately at this point. As the naturalist can reconstruct the likeness of some extinct animal from a handful of bones or tell{2} the age and aspect of a sea creature that once tenanted a now empty shell, so can the architectural historian discover much concerning the quality and mode of life of those who dwelt aforetime in the houses that form his theme. ”