Built Environment : Architectural Styles :

House Styles

An Index

Style: a classification of fashionable ornament and forms for buildings & structures

Common Styles of Architectural Ornament
for Houses in the Continental United States

There are three great traditions of architectural styling:

• Classical - high-style architecture of the classical-period Mediterranean
• Medieval - high-style architecture of medieval Europe
• Modern - certain high-style architecture of the twentieth century West

I have set styles into three different types of groupings, as demanded by their context:

• Era - distinct time period
• Genré - similar, shared artistic themes; usually among competing, concurrent themes
• Ubiquitous - lack of chronological or artistic definition: Nonstyled and Vernacular variants / absence of style

• Nonstyled Architecture (ubiquitous)

  Lack of style - usually referred to (incorrectly) as "vernacular"
  
  • timeless - spans all eras
  • lower economic classes or utilitarian structures
  • ubiquitous
  
  

• Medieval & Postmedieval Era

  trickle-down of "Middle Age" religious ornament and forms
• "Gothick" or "Gothic Survival"
  • lancet windows
  • lancet-patterned tracery
  • all often somewhat naïvely overlaid on classical, postmedieval forms
• Jacobean
• Elizabethan

• Classical Era

  Reacquaintace / reacquisition of classical origins
• Georgian
• Baroque Georgian or Anglo-Baroque
• Palladian Georgian or Anglo-Palladian
• Early Classical Revival or "Jeffersonian Classical" or "Roman Revival"
  • noble: grand, symmetrical, relatively high-styling
  • portico: "a porch that goes beyond mere shelter"
  • Federal (or Georgian) styled ornament
• Federal or "Adam" or "Late Colonial"
  • attenuation: thin and stretched-out columns, greater lightness than Georgian
  • elliptical, octagonal forms
  • more accurate to prototype classicism
• Greek Revival (transitional to Romantic)
  • trabeation: insistent post-and-lintel forms; avoidance of curves
  • even more accurate to prototype classicism
  • heavier and more abundant entablatures/friezes

• Romantic (Early Victorian) Era

  Expression and exploration of emotion
• Greek Revival (transitional from Classical)
• Gothic Revival
  • fanciful medieval:
  • lancet windows
  • steep gables
  • vergeboard, tracery, pendants and finials
• Italianate
  • Italian classical:
  • circular or segmental arches
  • relatively shallow and hipped roofs
  • thick, deeply rounded moldings
  Several substyles, divided by 'Mode':
  
  [Popular] Mode:
  
  • Italianate proper
  • Second Empire - see Second Empire
  Villa Mode:
  
  • Italian Villa
  • Tuscan Villa
  Renaissance Revival Mode:
  
  • Tuscan Renaissance Revival - see [Early] Renaissance Revival
  • Northern Italian Renaissance Revival
  Source: primarily Old House Journal 1981: vol. 9 no.1 154-155
• Early Romanesque
  • Roman arches on clasical forms:
  • heavy circular arches
  • closely related to the Italianate style
• [Early] Renaissance Revival
  • Accurate Renaissance classicism:
  • massive, heavy Renaissance classical ornament
  • closely related to the Italianate style

• Victorian Era

  Conspicuous consumption empowered by technology
• High Victorian Italianate / Second Empire
• High Victorian Gothic
• Queen Anne
• Free Classic
• Spindlework
• Patterned Masonry
• Half-Timbered
• Stick
• Victorian Romanesque or [Polychrome] Romanesque
• etc.

• 'Revival' Genré

  Re-exploring classical and medieval inheritance for calmer architecture to balance out more complex culture
• Classical tradition
• Colonial Revival
• Georgian Colonial Revival
• Federal Colonial Revival
• "Greek Revival Colonial Revival"
• Classical Revival
• Neoclassical
• Beaux Arts
• Medieval tradition
• Jacobethan Revival
• Tudor Revival
• Dutch Revival or Flemish Revival
• ...
• Mixed traditions
• Minimal Traditional - stripped-down Colonial Revival
• "Neo" Styles - Colonial Revival x Postmodern
• [Modern Traditional Revival] Style - that new stuff with all the gables
• etc.

• [Late] Victorian Era...
  ...'Arts & Crafts'

  Inventing calmer architecture to balance out more complex culture
• Shingle
• Richardsonian Romanesque (vs. Victorian Romanesque)
• Adirondack or Adirondack Rustic [or Log Cabin Style]
• Craftsman
• Mission
• Prairie
• etc.

• "Modern" Genré

  Embracing "modern" technology to match culture
• Art Noveau
• Modernistic ("Art Deco")
• Streamline Modern ("Art Moderne")
• Wrightian
• Miesian
• Brutalism
• etc.

• Post-Modern Genré

  Re-interpreting classical and traditional inheritance for calmer architecture to balance out even more complex culture
• A-Frame Mode
• Geodesic Dome Mode
• Shed
• Post-Modern
• etc.