A Text-Book of the History of Architecture / Seventh Edition, revised

by A. D. F. Hamlin

[CHAPTER XXVII.]

ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

Books Recommended: As before, Fergusson, Statham. Also, Chandler, The Colonial Architecture of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Cleaveland and Campbell, American Landmarks. Corner and Soderholz, Colonial Architecture in New England. Crane and Soderholz, Examples of Colonial Architecture in Charleston and Savannah. Drake, Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex. Everett, Historic Churches of America. King, Handbook of Boston; Handbook of New York. Little, Early New England Interiors. Schuyler, American Architecture. Van Rensselaer, H. H. Richardson and His Works. Wallis, Old Colonial Architecture and Furniture.

GENERAL REMARKS. The colonial architecture of modern times presents a peculiar phenomenon. The colonizing nation, carrying into its new habitat the tastes and practices of a long-established civilization, modifies these only with the utmost reluctance, under the absolute compulsion of new conditions. When the new home is virgin soil, destitute of cultivation, government, or civilized inhabitants, the accompaniments and activities of civilization introduced by the colonists manifest themselves at first in curious contrast to the primitive surroundings. The struggle between organized life and chaos, the laborious subjugation of nature to the requirements of our complex modern life, for a considerable period absorb the energies of the colonists. The amenities of culture, the higher intellectual life, the refinements of art can, during this period, receive little attention. Meanwhile a new national character is being formed; the people are undergoing the moral training upon which their subsequent achievements must depend. With the conquest of brute nature, however, and the gradual emergence of a more cultivated class, with the growth of commerce and wealth and the consequent increase of leisure, the humanities find more place in the colonial life. The fine arts appear in scattered centres determined by peculiarly favorable conditions. For a long time they retain the impress, and seek to reproduce the forms, of the art of the mother country. But new conditions impose a new development. Maturing commerce with other lands brings in foreign influences, to which the still unformed colonial art is peculiarly susceptible. Only with political and commercial independence, fully developed internal resources, and a high national culture do the arts finally attain, as it were, their majority, and enter upon a truly national growth.

These facts are abundantly illustrated by the architectural history of the United States. The only one among the British colonies to attain political independence, it is the only one among them whose architecture has as yet entered upon an independent course of development, and this only within the last twenty-five or thirty years. Nor has even this development produced as yet a distinctive local style. It has, however, originated new constructive methods, new types of buildings, and a distinctively American treatment of the composition and the masses; the decorative details being still, for the most part, derived from historic precedents. The architecture of the other British colonies has retained its provincial character, though producing from time to time individual works of merit. In South America and Mexico the only buildings of importance are Spanish, French, or German in style, according to the nationality of the architects employed. The following sketch of American architecture refers, therefore, exclusively to its development in the United States.

FORMATIVE PERIOD. Buildings in stone were not undertaken by the early English colonists. 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. The very simple and unpretentious town-hall at Williamsburg, Va., and St. Michael’s, Charleston, are attributed to him; but the most that can be said for these, as for the brick churches and manors of Virginia previous to 1725, is that they are simple in design and pleasing in proportion, without special architectural elegance. The same is true of the wooden houses and churches of New England of the period, except that they are even simpler in design.

FIG. 218.—CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.

From 1725 to 1775 increased population and wealth along the coast brought about a great advance in architecture, especially in churches and in the dwellings of the wealthy. During this period was developed the Colonial style, based on that of the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges in England, and in church architecture on the models set by Wren and Gibbs. All the details were, however, freely modified by the general employment of wood. The scarcity of architects trained in Old World traditions contributed to this departure from classic precision of form. The style, especially in interior design, reflected the cultured taste of the colonial aristocracy in its refined treatment of the woodwork. But there was little or no architecture of a truly monumental character. Edifices of stone were singularly few, and administrative buildings were small and modest, owing to insufficient grants from the Crown, as well as to the poverty of the colonies.