Italianate architecture
Encyclopedia
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture
. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture
, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and Neoclassicism
, were synthesized with picturesque
aesthetics. The style of architecture that was thus created, though also characterized as "Neo-Renaissance
", was essentially of its own time. "The backward look transforms its object," Siegfried Giedion wrote of historicist architectural styles; "every spectator at every period—at every moment, indeed—inevitably transforms the past according to his own nature."
The Italianate style was first developed in Britain about 1802 by John Nash
, with the construction of Cronkhill
in Shropshire
. This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the late Regency
and early Victorian
eras. The Italianate style was further developed and popularised by the architect Sir Charles Barry
in the 1830s. Barry's Italianate style (occasionally termed "Barryesque") drew heavily for its motifs on the buildings of the Italian Renaissance, though sometimes at odds with Nash's semi-rustic Italianate villas.
The style was not confined to England and was employed in varying forms, long after its decline in popularity in Britain, throughout northern Europe and the British Empire. From the late 1840s to 1890 it achieved huge popularity in the United States
, where it was promoted by the architect Alexander Jackson Davis
.
A late intimation of Nash's development of the Italianate style was his 1805 design of Sandridge Park
at Stoke Gabriel in Devon
. Commissioned by the dowager Lady Ashburton as a country retreat, this small country house clearly shows the transition between the picturesque of William Gilpin and Nash's yet to be fully evolved Italianism. While this house can still be described as Regency
, its informal asymmetrical plan together with its loggias and balconies of both stone and wrought iron; tower and low pitched roof clearly are very similar to the fully Italianate design of Cronkhill, the house generally considered to be the first example of the Italianate style in Britain. The homes were typically two to three stories in height, with flat or hip roofs, bay windows with inset wooden panels, corner boards and two over two double-hung windows.
Later examples of the Italianate style in England tend to take the form of Palladian style building often enhanced by a belvedere
tower complete with renaissance
type ballustrading at the roof level. This is generally a more stylistic interpretation of what architects and patrons imagined to be the case in Italy, and utilises more obviously the Italian Renaissance motifs than those earlier examples of the Italianate style by Nash.
Sir Charles Barry, most notable for his works on the Tudor
and Gothic
styles at the Houses of Parliament in London, was a great promoter of the style. Unlike Nash he found his inspiration in Italy itself. Barry drew heavily on the designs of the original Renaissance villas of Rome
, the Lazio and the Veneto
or as he put it: "...the charming character of the irregular villas of Italy." His most defining work in this style was the large Neo-Renaissance mansion Cliveden
(illustrated above). Although it has been claimed that one third of early Victorian country houses in England used classical styles, mostly Italianate, by 1855 the style was falling from favour and Cliveden came to be regarded as "a declining essay in a declining fashion."
Thomas Cubitt
, a London building contractor, incorporated simple classical lines of the Italianate style as defined by Sir Charles Barry into many of his London terraces. Cubitt designed Osbourne House under the direction of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and it is Cubitt's reworking of his two dimensional street architecture into this free standing mansion which was to be the inspiration for countless Italianate villas throughout the British Empire.
Following the completion of Osbourne House in 1851, the style became a popular choice of design for the small mansions built by the new and wealthy industrialists of the era. These were mostly built in cities surrounded by large but not extensive gardens, often laid out in a terrace Tuscan style as well. On occasions very similar, if not identical, designs to these Italianate villas would be topped by mansard roofs, and then termed chateauesque
. However, "after a modest spate of Italianate villas, and French chateaux" by 1855 the most favoured style of an English country house
was Gothic, Tudor, or Elizabethan.
when Fakhreddine
, the first Lebanese ruler who truly unified Mount Lebanon
with its Mediterranean coast executed an ambitious plan to develop his country.
When the Ottomans exiled Fakhreddine to Tuscany in 1613, he entered an alliance with the Medicis. Upon his return to Lebanon in 1618, he began modernizing Lebanon. He developed a silk industry, upgraded olive-oil production, and brought with him numerous Italian engineers who began the construction of mansions and civil building throughout the country. The cities of Beirut
and Sidon
were especially built in the Italianate style. The influence of these buildings, such as the ones in Deir el Qamar
, influenced building in Lebanon for many centuries and continues to the present time. For example, streets like Rue Gouraud
continues to have numerous, historic houses with Italianate influence. Buildings like the Nicolas Sursock
mansion on Rue Sursock
, which is today a major museum, attest to the continuous influence of Italianate architecture in Lebanon
.
in the 1840s as an alternative to Gothic or Greek Revival styles. Davis' 1854 Litchfield Villa
in what has become Prospect Park, Brooklyn is a splendid example of the style. It was initially referred to as the "Italian Villa" or "Tuscan Villa" style. Blandwood
, the former residence of North Carolina
Governor
John Motley Morehead
, is the oldest, surviving example of Italianate architecture in the United States. An early example of Italianate architecture, it is closer in ethos to the Italianate works of Nash than the more Renaissance inspired designs of Barry. Richard Upjohn
used the style extensively, beginning in 1845 with the Edward King House
. Other leading practitioners of the style were John Notman
, by many the first to bring the style to the United States, and Henry Austin
. Notman designed "Riverside," the first "Italian Villa" style house in Burlington, New Jersey
in 1837.
Italianate was reinterpreted again and became an indigenous style. It is distinctive by its pronounced exaggeration of many Italian Renaissance characteristics: emphatic eaves supported by corbel
s, low-pitched roofs barely discernible from the ground, or even flat roofs with a wide projection. A tower is often incorporated hinting at the Italian belvedere
or even campanile
tower. Motifs drawn from the Italianate style were incorporated into the commercial builders' vocabulary, and appear in Victorian architecture
dating from the mid-to-late 19th century.
This architectural style became more popular than Greek Revival
by the late 1860s. Its popularity was due to its being suitable for many different building materials and budgets, as well as the development of cast-iron and press-metal technology making the production of decorative elements like the brackets and cornices more efficient. However, the style was superseded in popularity in the late 1870s by the Queen Anne style and Colonial Revival style.
The popularity of Italianate architecture in the time period following 1845 can be seen in Cincinnati, Ohio
, the United States' first boomtown
west of the Appalachian Mountains
. This city, which grew along with the traffic on the Ohio River
, features arguably the largest single collection of Italianate buildings in the United States in its Over-the-Rhine
neighbourhood, built primarily by German-American immigrants that lived in the densely populated area. In recent years increased attention has been called to the preservation of this impressive collection, with large-scale renovation efforts beginning to repair urban blight. Cincinnati's neighbouring cities of Newport
and Covington, Kentucky
also contain an impressive collection of Italianate architecture.
The Garden District
of New Orleans features examples of the Italianate style. 1331 First Street, designed by Samuel Jamison, the Van Benthuysen-Elms Mansion at 3029 St. Charles Avenue and 2805 Carondelet Street (technically located a block outside the garden district).
In California the earliest Victorian
residences were wooden versions of the Italianate style, such as the James Lick Mansion
, John Muir Mansion
, and Bidwell Mansion
, before later Stick-Eastlake
and Queen Anne styles superseded. Many, nicknamed Painted Ladies
, remain and are celebrated in San Francisco. A late example in masonry is the First Church of Christ, Scientist
in Los Angeles
.
Additionally, the United States Lighthouse Board
through the work of Colonel
Orlando M. Poe produced a number of Italianate lighthouses and associated structures, chief among them being the Grosse Point Light
in Evanston, Illinois
.
The Italianate style proved to be immensely popular in Australia as a domestic style. The architect William Wardell
designed Government House in Melbourne
— now the official residence of the Governor of Victoria — as an example of his "newly discovered love for Italianate, Palladian and Venetian architecture." Cream-colored, with many Palladian features; except for its machicolated signorial tower that Wardell crowned with a belvedere
—it would not be out of place among the unified streets and squares in Thomas Cubitt's Belgravia
, London.
The hipped roof is concealed by a balustraded parapet
. The principal block is flanked by two lower asymmetrical secondary wings that contribute picturesque massing, best appreciated from an angled view. The larger of these being divided from the principal block by the belvedere tower. The smaller, the ballroom block, is entered through a columned porte-cochere
designed as a single storey prostyle
portico
.
The Italianate style of architecture continued to be built in outposts of the British Empire long after it had ceased to be in fashion in Britain itself. The Railway station of Albury
, New South Wales
, completed in 1881, is an example of this further evolution of the style.
In interior decoration there were direct parallels to "Italianate" architecture with free recombinations of decorative features drawn from Italian 16th-century architecture and objects, which were applied to purely 19th-century forms. Wardrobes and dressers could be dressed in Italianate detailing as well as row houses.
The spur to such commercial designs can be found in the "free Renaissance" style that was espoused by Charles Eastlake
. In 1868 he published Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and other Details which was very influential in Britain and later in the United States, where the book was published in 1872. Although the archaeology of Mr. Eastlake's volume was always careful, most of the principles in it are beyond question, and can be generally stated in a few words. The Italianate style would have no carving or moulding or other ornament glued on — such work must be done in the solid; no mitered joints, but joints made at the right angle, and secured by mortise, tenon, and pin; woods in their native colour, and unvarnished, or else painted in flat colour, with a contrasting line and a stencilled ornament at the angles; unconcealed construction everywhere, and purposes plainly proclaimed; and with veneering, round corners, and all curves weakening the grain of the wood being absolutely forbidden. The furniture that he thus proposed has straight, strong, squarely cut members equal to their intention. Its ornament is painted panels, porcelain plaques and tiles, metal trimmings, and conventionalized carvings in sunk relief, a part of the construction entering into the ornament, also in the shape of narrow striated strips of wood radiating in opposite lines, after a fashion not altogether unknown in the time of Henry III. It has the honesty and solidity, but not the attraction, of the Medieval; and if it is stiff and somewhat heavy, and fails entirely to please, it has yet a wholesome and healthy air.
Today "Italianate" furnishings are often called "Eastlake" by North American collectors and dealers, but contemporary terms for such broadly classicizing designs ranged imaginatively, and included "Neo-Grec".
Classical architecture
Classical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...
. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...
, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
, were synthesized with picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
aesthetics. The style of architecture that was thus created, though also characterized as "Neo-Renaissance
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival is an all-encompassing designation that covers many 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Grecian nor Gothic but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes...
", was essentially of its own time. "The backward look transforms its object," Siegfried Giedion wrote of historicist architectural styles; "every spectator at every period—at every moment, indeed—inevitably transforms the past according to his own nature."
The Italianate style was first developed in Britain about 1802 by John Nash
John Nash (architect)
John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...
, with the construction of Cronkhill
Cronkhill
Cronkhill, a country house in Shropshire near Shrewsbury, was designed by John Nash about 1802 for the second Lord Berwick, who lived nearby at Attingham Park...
in Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
. This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the late Regency
Regency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
and early Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
eras. The Italianate style was further developed and popularised by the architect Sir Charles Barry
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry FRS was an English architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens.- Background and training :Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster...
in the 1830s. Barry's Italianate style (occasionally termed "Barryesque") drew heavily for its motifs on the buildings of the Italian Renaissance, though sometimes at odds with Nash's semi-rustic Italianate villas.
The style was not confined to England and was employed in varying forms, long after its decline in popularity in Britain, throughout northern Europe and the British Empire. From the late 1840s to 1890 it achieved huge popularity in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where it was promoted by the architect Alexander Jackson Davis
Alexander Jackson Davis
Alexander Jackson Davis, or A. J. Davis , was one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, in particular his association with the Gothic Revival style....
.
Italianate style in England and Wales
Sandridge Park
Sandridge Park, near Stoke Gabriel, Devon, is an English country house in the Italianate style, designed by John Nash around 1805 for Lady Ashburton....
at Stoke Gabriel in Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
. Commissioned by the dowager Lady Ashburton as a country retreat, this small country house clearly shows the transition between the picturesque of William Gilpin and Nash's yet to be fully evolved Italianism. While this house can still be described as Regency
Regency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
, its informal asymmetrical plan together with its loggias and balconies of both stone and wrought iron; tower and low pitched roof clearly are very similar to the fully Italianate design of Cronkhill, the house generally considered to be the first example of the Italianate style in Britain. The homes were typically two to three stories in height, with flat or hip roofs, bay windows with inset wooden panels, corner boards and two over two double-hung windows.
Later examples of the Italianate style in England tend to take the form of Palladian style building often enhanced by a belvedere
Belvedere (structure)
Belvedere is an architectural term adopted from Italian , which refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view. A belvedere may be built in the upper part of a building so as to command a fine view...
tower complete with renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
type ballustrading at the roof level. This is generally a more stylistic interpretation of what architects and patrons imagined to be the case in Italy, and utilises more obviously the Italian Renaissance motifs than those earlier examples of the Italianate style by Nash.
Sir Charles Barry, most notable for his works on the Tudor
Tudor architecture
The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...
and Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
styles at the Houses of Parliament in London, was a great promoter of the style. Unlike Nash he found his inspiration in Italy itself. Barry drew heavily on the designs of the original Renaissance villas of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, the Lazio and the Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
or as he put it: "...the charming character of the irregular villas of Italy." His most defining work in this style was the large Neo-Renaissance mansion Cliveden
Cliveden
Cliveden is an Italianate mansion and estate at Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. Set on banks above the River Thames, its grounds slope down to the river. The site has been home to an Earl, two Dukes, a Prince of Wales and the Viscounts Astor....
(illustrated above). Although it has been claimed that one third of early Victorian country houses in England used classical styles, mostly Italianate, by 1855 the style was falling from favour and Cliveden came to be regarded as "a declining essay in a declining fashion."
Thomas Cubitt
Thomas Cubitt
Thomas Cubitt , born Buxton, Norfolk, was the leading master builder in London in the second quarter of the 19th century, and also carried out several projects in other parts of England.-Background:...
, a London building contractor, incorporated simple classical lines of the Italianate style as defined by Sir Charles Barry into many of his London terraces. Cubitt designed Osbourne House under the direction of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and it is Cubitt's reworking of his two dimensional street architecture into this free standing mansion which was to be the inspiration for countless Italianate villas throughout the British Empire.
Following the completion of Osbourne House in 1851, the style became a popular choice of design for the small mansions built by the new and wealthy industrialists of the era. These were mostly built in cities surrounded by large but not extensive gardens, often laid out in a terrace Tuscan style as well. On occasions very similar, if not identical, designs to these Italianate villas would be topped by mansard roofs, and then termed chateauesque
Châteauesque
Châteauesque is one of several terms, including Francis I style, and, in Canada, the Château Style, that refer to a revival architectural style based on the French Renaissance architecture of the monumental French country homes built in the Loire Valley from the late fifteenth century to the...
. However, "after a modest spate of Italianate villas, and French chateaux" by 1855 the most favoured style of an English country house
English country house
The English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a London house. This allowed to them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country...
was Gothic, Tudor, or Elizabethan.
Italianate style in Lebanon
The Italian, specifically, Tuscan, influence on architecture in Lebanon dates back to the RenaissanceRenaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
when Fakhreddine
Fakhr-al-Din II
Emir Fakhr-al-Din ibn Maan was the 1st prince of the State of Lebanon which has self-governed under the Ottoman Empire between the 17th and 19th centuries. Son of Prince Qorqmaz ibn Maan and Sit Nasab of the Tanukhi family, he was given the title "Emir" or Prince in Arabic because the Maan...
, the first Lebanese ruler who truly unified Mount Lebanon
Mount Lebanon
Mount Lebanon , as a geographic designation, is a Lebanese mountain range, averaging above 2,200 meters in height and receiving a substantial amount of precipitation, including snow, which averages around four meters deep. It extends across the whole country along about , parallel to the...
with its Mediterranean coast executed an ambitious plan to develop his country.
When the Ottomans exiled Fakhreddine to Tuscany in 1613, he entered an alliance with the Medicis. Upon his return to Lebanon in 1618, he began modernizing Lebanon. He developed a silk industry, upgraded olive-oil production, and brought with him numerous Italian engineers who began the construction of mansions and civil building throughout the country. The cities of Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
and Sidon
Sidon
Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. In Genesis, Sidon is the son of Canaan the grandson of Noah...
were especially built in the Italianate style. The influence of these buildings, such as the ones in Deir el Qamar
Deir el Qamar
Deir el Qamar is a village in south-central Lebanon, five kilometres outside of Beiteddine, consisting of stone houses with red-tiled roofs. During the 16th to 18th centuries, Deir el Qamar was the residence of the governors of Lebanon...
, influenced building in Lebanon for many centuries and continues to the present time. For example, streets like Rue Gouraud
Rue Gouraud
Rue Gouraud is a mixed residential and commercial street in Gemmayzeh, a neighborhood in the Achrafieh district of Beirut in Lebanon. The street, which was named after the French General Henri Gouraud, has become one of Beirut's trendiest streets with numerous high-end restaurants, French cafes,...
continues to have numerous, historic houses with Italianate influence. Buildings like the Nicolas Sursock
Sursock Museum
Sursock Museum, which is officially known as Nicolas Sursock Museum, is a modern art museum in Beirut, Lebanon. It is located in the historic street known as Rue Sursock in the Achrafieh district of Beirut. The street is home to other mansions that were built in the 18th century by Beirut's most...
mansion on Rue Sursock
Rue Sursock
Rue Sursock is a historic street in the Achrafieh district of Beirut in Lebanon. Named after one Beirut's most prominent families, the street is home to many of Beirut's beautiful historic mansions that were built in the 18th and 19th century by aristocratic families such as the Sursock and the...
, which is today a major museum, attest to the continuous influence of Italianate architecture in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
.
East coast
The Italianate style was popularized in the United States by Alexander Jackson DavisAlexander Jackson Davis
Alexander Jackson Davis, or A. J. Davis , was one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, in particular his association with the Gothic Revival style....
in the 1840s as an alternative to Gothic or Greek Revival styles. Davis' 1854 Litchfield Villa
Litchfield Villa
Litchfield Villa is an Italianate mansion built in 1854 on a large private estate that has since become part of Prospect Park, Brooklyn.The villa was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, America's leading architect of the fashionable Italianate style for railroad and real estate developer Edwin...
in what has become Prospect Park, Brooklyn is a splendid example of the style. It was initially referred to as the "Italian Villa" or "Tuscan Villa" style. Blandwood
Blandwood Mansion and Gardens
Blandwood Mansion, originally built as a four room Federal style farmhouse in 1795, is the restored home of two-term North Carolina governor John Motley Morehead in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina.-History:...
, the former residence of North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
Governor
Governor of North Carolina
The Governor of North Carolina is the chief executive of the State of North Carolina, one of the U.S. states. The current governor is Bev Perdue, North Carolina's first female governor.-Powers:...
John Motley Morehead
John Motley Morehead
John Motley Morehead was the 29th Governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1841 to 1845. He is known as "the Father of Modern North Carolina."...
, is the oldest, surviving example of Italianate architecture in the United States. An early example of Italianate architecture, it is closer in ethos to the Italianate works of Nash than the more Renaissance inspired designs of Barry. Richard Upjohn
Richard Upjohn
Richard Upjohn was an English-born architect who emigrated to the United States and became most famous for his Gothic Revival churches. He was partially responsible for launching the movement to such popularity in the United States. Upjohn also did extensive work in and helped to popularize the...
used the style extensively, beginning in 1845 with the Edward King House
Edward King House
The Edward King House, is a monumentally scaled residence in Newport, Rhode Island. It was designed for Edward King in the "Italian Villa" style by Richard Upjohn and was built between 1845 and 1847, making it one of the earliest representations of the style. It was the largest and grandest house...
. Other leading practitioners of the style were John Notman
John Notman
John Notman was a Scottish-born American architect, who settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is remembered for his churches, and for popularizing the Italianate style and the use of brownstone.-Career:...
, by many the first to bring the style to the United States, and Henry Austin
Henry Austin (architect)
Henry Austin was a prominent and prolific American architect based in New Haven, Connecticut. He practiced for more than fifty years and designed many public buildings and homes primarily in the New Haven area...
. Notman designed "Riverside," the first "Italian Villa" style house in Burlington, New Jersey
Burlington, New Jersey
Burlington is a city in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States and a suburb of Philadelphia. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 9,920....
in 1837.
Italianate was reinterpreted again and became an indigenous style. It is distinctive by its pronounced exaggeration of many Italian Renaissance characteristics: emphatic eaves supported by corbel
Corbel
In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
s, low-pitched roofs barely discernible from the ground, or even flat roofs with a wide projection. A tower is often incorporated hinting at the Italian belvedere
Belvedere (structure)
Belvedere is an architectural term adopted from Italian , which refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view. A belvedere may be built in the upper part of a building so as to command a fine view...
or even campanile
Campanile
Campanile is an Italian word meaning "bell tower" . The term applies to bell towers which are either part of a larger building or free-standing, although in American English, the latter meaning has become prevalent.The most famous campanile is probably the Leaning Tower of Pisa...
tower. Motifs drawn from the Italianate style were incorporated into the commercial builders' vocabulary, and appear in Victorian architecture
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
dating from the mid-to-late 19th century.
This architectural style became more popular than Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
by the late 1860s. Its popularity was due to its being suitable for many different building materials and budgets, as well as the development of cast-iron and press-metal technology making the production of decorative elements like the brackets and cornices more efficient. However, the style was superseded in popularity in the late 1870s by the Queen Anne style and Colonial Revival style.
Mid-west and California
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
, the United States' first boomtown
Boomtown
A boomtown is a community that experiences sudden and rapid population and economic growth. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although the term can also be applied to communities growing very rapidly for different reasons,...
west of the Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
. This city, which grew along with the traffic on the Ohio River
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
, features arguably the largest single collection of Italianate buildings in the United States in its Over-the-Rhine
Over-the-Rhine
Over-the-Rhine, sometimes shortened to OTR, is a neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is believed to be the largest, most intact urban historic district in the United States. Over-the-Rhine was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 with 943 contributing buildings...
neighbourhood, built primarily by German-American immigrants that lived in the densely populated area. In recent years increased attention has been called to the preservation of this impressive collection, with large-scale renovation efforts beginning to repair urban blight. Cincinnati's neighbouring cities of Newport
Newport, Kentucky
Newport is a city in Campbell County, Kentucky, United States, at the confluence of the Ohio and Licking rivers. The population was 15,273 at the 2010 census. Historically, it was one of four county seats of Campbell County. Newport is part of the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio Metro Area which...
and Covington, Kentucky
Covington, Kentucky
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 43,370 people, 18,257 households, and 10,132 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,301.3 people per square mile . There were 20,448 housing units at an average density of 1,556.5 per square mile...
also contain an impressive collection of Italianate architecture.
The Garden District
Garden District, New Orleans
The Garden District is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Central City/Garden District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: St. Charles Avenue to the north, 1st Street to the east, Magazine Street to the south and Toledano Street to the...
of New Orleans features examples of the Italianate style. 1331 First Street, designed by Samuel Jamison, the Van Benthuysen-Elms Mansion at 3029 St. Charles Avenue and 2805 Carondelet Street (technically located a block outside the garden district).
In California the earliest Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
residences were wooden versions of the Italianate style, such as the James Lick Mansion
James Lick Mansion
The James Lick Mansion, in Santa Clara, California, is the estate of James Lick, who was the richest man in California at the time of his death in 1876. The estate is listed on the National Register of Historic Places...
, John Muir Mansion
John Muir National Historic Site
The John Muir National Historic Site is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, in Martinez, Contra Costa County, California. It preserves the 14-room Italianate Victorian mansion where the naturalist and writer John Muir lived, as well as a nearby tract of native oak woodlands and grasslands...
, and Bidwell Mansion
Bidwell Mansion State Historic Park
Bidwell Mansion, located at 525 Esplanade in Chico, California, was the home of General John Bidwell and Annie Bidwell from the late 1868 until 1900, when Gen. Bidwell died. Annie continued to live there until her death in 1918...
, before later Stick-Eastlake
Stick-Eastlake
The Stick style was a late-19th-century American architectural style. According to McAlester, it served as the transition between the Carpenter Gothic style of the mid-19th century, and the Queen Anne style that it evolved into and superseded it by the 1890s....
and Queen Anne styles superseded. Many, nicknamed Painted Ladies
Painted ladies
"Painted ladies" is a term used for Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book...
, remain and are celebrated in San Francisco. A late example in masonry is the First Church of Christ, Scientist
First Church of Christ, Scientist (Los Angeles, California)
The former First Church of Christ, Scientist, built in 1912, is an historic Christian Science church edifice located at 1366 South Alvarado Street, in Los Angeles, California...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
Additionally, the United States Lighthouse Board
United States Lighthouse Board
The United States Lighthouse Board was the agency of the US Federal Government that was responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of all lighthouses in the United States...
through the work of Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Orlando M. Poe produced a number of Italianate lighthouses and associated structures, chief among them being the Grosse Point Light
Grosse Point Light
The historic Grosse Point Light is located in Evanston, Illinois. Following several shipping disasters near Evanston, residents successfully lobbied the federal government for a lighthouse. Construction was completed in 1873. The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places on...
in Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
.
Italianate style in Australia
William Wardell
William Wilkinson Wardell was a Civil Engineer and Architect, notable not only for his work in Australia, the country to which he emigrated in 1858, but also for having a successful career as a surveyor, and an ecclesiastical architect in England and Scotland before his departure.In Australia,...
designed Government House in Melbourne
Government House, Melbourne
Government House, Melbourne is the office and official residence of the Governor of Victoria. It is set next to the Royal Botanic Gardens and surrounded by Kings Domain in Melbourne. It was the official residence of the Governor-General of Australia from 1901 to 1930...
— now the official residence of the Governor of Victoria — as an example of his "newly discovered love for Italianate, Palladian and Venetian architecture." Cream-colored, with many Palladian features; except for its machicolated signorial tower that Wardell crowned with a belvedere
Belvedere (structure)
Belvedere is an architectural term adopted from Italian , which refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view. A belvedere may be built in the upper part of a building so as to command a fine view...
—it would not be out of place among the unified streets and squares in Thomas Cubitt's Belgravia
Belgravia
Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Noted for its immensely expensive residential properties, it is one of the wealthiest districts in the world...
, London.
The hipped roof is concealed by a balustraded parapet
Parapet
A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
. The principal block is flanked by two lower asymmetrical secondary wings that contribute picturesque massing, best appreciated from an angled view. The larger of these being divided from the principal block by the belvedere tower. The smaller, the ballroom block, is entered through a columned porte-cochere
Porte-cochere
A porte-cochère is the architectural term for a porch- or portico-like structure at a main or secondary entrance to a building through which a horse and carriage can pass in order for the occupants to alight under cover, protected from the weather.The porte-cochère was a feature of many late 18th...
designed as a single storey prostyle
Prostyle
Prostyle is an architectural term defining free standing columns across the front of a building, as often in a portico. The term is often used as an adjective when referring to the portico of a classical building which projects from the main structure...
portico
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...
.
The Italianate style of architecture continued to be built in outposts of the British Empire long after it had ceased to be in fashion in Britain itself. The Railway station of Albury
Albury, New South Wales
Albury is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia, located on the Hume Highway on the northern side of the Murray River. It is located wholly within the boundaries of the City of Albury Local Government Area...
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, completed in 1881, is an example of this further evolution of the style.
Interior decoration
The spur to such commercial designs can be found in the "free Renaissance" style that was espoused by Charles Eastlake
Charles Eastlake
Charles Locke Eastlake was a British architect and furniture designer. Trained by the architect Philip Hardwick , he popularised William Morris's notions of decorative arts in the Arts and Crafts style, becoming one of the principal exponents of the revived Early English or Modern Gothic style...
. In 1868 he published Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and other Details which was very influential in Britain and later in the United States, where the book was published in 1872. Although the archaeology of Mr. Eastlake's volume was always careful, most of the principles in it are beyond question, and can be generally stated in a few words. The Italianate style would have no carving or moulding or other ornament glued on — such work must be done in the solid; no mitered joints, but joints made at the right angle, and secured by mortise, tenon, and pin; woods in their native colour, and unvarnished, or else painted in flat colour, with a contrasting line and a stencilled ornament at the angles; unconcealed construction everywhere, and purposes plainly proclaimed; and with veneering, round corners, and all curves weakening the grain of the wood being absolutely forbidden. The furniture that he thus proposed has straight, strong, squarely cut members equal to their intention. Its ornament is painted panels, porcelain plaques and tiles, metal trimmings, and conventionalized carvings in sunk relief, a part of the construction entering into the ornament, also in the shape of narrow striated strips of wood radiating in opposite lines, after a fashion not altogether unknown in the time of Henry III. It has the honesty and solidity, but not the attraction, of the Medieval; and if it is stiff and somewhat heavy, and fails entirely to please, it has yet a wholesome and healthy air.
Today "Italianate" furnishings are often called "Eastlake" by North American collectors and dealers, but contemporary terms for such broadly classicizing designs ranged imaginatively, and included "Neo-Grec".
Elements of the style
Key visual components of this style include:- Low-pitched or flat roofs; roof is frequently hippedHip roofA hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
- Projecting eaves supported by corbelCorbelIn architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
s - Imposing corniceCorniceCornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
structures - PedimentPedimentA pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
ed windows and doors - Arch-headed, pedimented or Serlian windows with pronounced architraveArchitraveAn architrave is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of the columns. It is an architectural element in Classical architecture.-Classical architecture:...
s and archivoltArchivoltAn archivolt is an ornamental molding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch. It is composed of bands of ornamental moldings surrounding an arched opening, corresponding to the architrave in the case of a rectangular opening...
s - Tall first floor windows suggesting a piano nobilePiano nobileThe piano nobile is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of classical renaissance architecture...
- Angled bay windows
- Attics with a row of awning windows between the eave brackets
- Glazed doors
- BelvedereBelvedere (structure)Belvedere is an architectural term adopted from Italian , which refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view. A belvedere may be built in the upper part of a building so as to command a fine view...
or machicolatedMachicolationA machicolation is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones, or other objects, could be dropped on attackers at the base of a defensive wall. The design was developed in the Middle Ages when the Norman crusaders returned. A machicolated battlement...
signorial towers - CupolaCupolaIn architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
s - QuoinsQuoin (architecture)Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
- LoggiaLoggiaLoggia is the name given to an architectural feature, originally of Minoan design. They are often a gallery or corridor at ground level, sometimes higher, on the facade of a building and open to the air on one side, where it is supported by columns or pierced openings in the wall...
s - Balconies with wrought-iron railings, or Renaissance balustrading
- Balustrades concealing the roof-scape
- About 15% of Italianate houses in the United States include a tower