...orld. By the middle of the 18th century, architects ere designing churches, mansions, and public buildings in the current English Georgian style, named for King George I.Post-Revolutionary ArchitectureAfter the Revolutionary ar, the first attempt to create a style expressive of the ne republic as made by Thomas Jefferson. He based the design of the ne capitol building at Richmond, Va., on that of a Roman temple, the Maison Carree at Nimes, France. In so doing he laid don an American precedent of modifying an ancient building style for modern use. The Virginia State Capitol 1785-96, both building and symbol, as meant to house the kind of government envisioned by Jefferson, and the Maison Carree became a paradigm for American public structures.Jefferson as influential in setting forth the style of monumental neoclassicism that supplanted Georgian architecture ith its taint of monarchy and colonialism. Monumental neoclassicism came to represent the ne political and social entity that as the United States of America. Architects committed to neoclassicism designed not only the ne Capitol of the United States in ashington, first designed 1792 by illiam Thornton and Stephen Hallet, and other government buildings, but also factories, schools, banks, railroad stations, and hospitals, modernized by the frequent use of materials such as iron, concrete, and glass. The English-born Benjamin Latrobe, ho began his American employment orking ith Jefferson on the Richmond Capitol, brought American neoclassicism to maturity. Latrobe invented ne formal configurations for buildings as varied in function as the Bank of Pennsylvania 1798-1800 and the Centre Square Pump House 1800 both in Philadelphia and both destroyed and Baltimores Roman Catholic Cathedral 1806-21. Chosen in 1815 to supervise the rebuilding of the ashington Capitol, gutted by fire during the ar of 1812, Latrobe set about producing a truly monumental American architecture. In 1817 he procured the assistance of Charles Bulfinch, ho had just completed Bostons Massachusetts General Hospital. Together the to men completed plans for the first major building phase of the Capitol.Revival StylesLatrobe and Bulfinch ere the preeminent architects in the neoclassical mode. The generation folloing preferred Greek over Roman forms and produced the Greek Revival. A principal contribution of this style as a modification of the Greek prostyle temple columns only across the front portico for domestic and public buildings the styles influence as rapidly extended north, south, and est. Major surviving examples are illiam Stricklands Philadelphia Merchants Exchange 1832-34 and Alexander Jackson Daviss La Grange Lafayette Terrace 1832-36 in Ne York. Up to the 1850s classical revival styles led to a homogeneity in American architecture that as never to prevail again.Yet even before 1810, American architects, folloing the lead of their English contemporaries, had begun to introduce a rival style on the American scene--the Gothic Revival. It is appropriate that this movement, hich originated ith the rise of romanticism in England, should have been taken over in a country here romanticism constituted the first intellectual floering after the nations founding. Not surprisingly, the style lent itself most naturally to church architecture. Richard Upjohn, a prolific ecclesiastical architect, made his Trinity Church 1839-46 in Ne York the prototype for Gothic Revival churches. The style as also idely applied to college buildings, thus identifying those institutions ith the prestigious English universities of Oxford and Cambridge.Before the Civil ar other revival styles such as the Romanesque, the Egyptian, and the Italian villa style ere introduced, but ith less applicability. More idespread as the cottage architecture for the middle class advocated by Andre Jackson Doning. Moderate in price and ell constructed, these Doning designs exploited the possibilities of ood both as construction material and as decoration.Cast-Iron ArchitectureAn important development as the proliferation of industrial and commercial structures requiring extensive use of iron. At first engineers rather than architects ere responsible for buildings that demanded advanced technical planning. Because cast- and rought-iron columns replaced heavier masonry construction, it became possible to construct a lighter skeleton, use prefabricated modules, and introduce more glass into the facade. James Bogardus, an inventor and manufacturer of machinery, is generally credited ith the development of cast-iron architecture, as demonstrated in his Cast Iron Building Laing Stores 1848 in Ne York. In his proposed plan for the Industrial Palace of the Ne York orlds Fair 1853, also called the Ne York Crystal Palace, and his anamaker Department Store in Ne York c.1859 destroyed, he pushed this type of engineered building to the limits then possible.After the financial crash of 1857 and the Civil ar, both of hich had temporarily halted building construction, Americans gravitated to a style that demonstrably symbolized the nations rapidly increasing ealth. Mansions and government and civic buildings ere designed in the Second Empire style, promoted in France by Napoleon III to bolster his imperial ambitions and exemplified by John McArthurs massive Philadelphia City Hall 1874-1901. Also of great importance as the extension of the Gothic Revival into its Victorian phase. This movement, inspired by the ritings of John Ruskin, emphasized craft and permitted the manipulation of architectural detail to create bold ne effects. To great architects, Frank Furness and Henry Hobson Richardson, emerged from Victorian Gothic Furness created orks of idiosyncratic originality, hile Richardson created a ne vision ithin a revival style.Richardson, the most independent and imaginative architect since Latrobe, attained prominence hen he gave a ne Romanesque form to Bostons Trinity Church 1872-77. Besides churches, Richardson designed numerous residences, libraries, railroad stations, civic and commercial buildings, and even a prison, achieving models of their kind for each type. He favored the Romanesque because he believed it expressed the pervasive energy and dynamism of the American scene. But it as his Marshall Field holesale Store 1885-87 in Chicago that as to prove seminal. Its rusticated masonry and multistoried arrangement of arches, reminiscent of Romanesque and expressive of Richardsons sense of ordering masses on a large scale, ould be applied by his successors in Chicago to problems of skyscraper design.Skyscraper ArchitectureThe skyscraper, defined here as a tall commercial structure, is Americas original contribution to the history of architecture. Commercial buildings of several stories, constructed during the 1850s in Philadelphia, anticipated the skyscraper. But before it could become a reality, architects had to incorporate the elevator into the structure. This as done, beginning in the 1850s in N...
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