Architecture of the United States
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Architecture |
The United States has a history of architecture that includes a wide variety of styles.
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Indigenous
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The oldest structures on territory that is now the United States are Pueblo villages of New Mexico. The Tiwa speaking people have inhabited Taos Pueblo continuously for over 1000 years. The related Chacoan civilization built extensive public architecture in northwestern New Mexico from CE 700 - 1250 until drought forced them to relocate. Another related culture, now best known as the Anasazi, created distinctive cliff dwellings in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona from the twelfth through fourteenth centuries.
Images of local Algonquonian villages Pomeiooc and Secoton in what later became coastal North Carolina survive from the late sixteenth century. Artist and cartographer John White stayed at the short-lived Roanoake colony for 13 months and recorded over 70 watercolor images indigenous people, plants, and animals.
Hawaii's late entry to the United States gives it a substantial history of precolonial architecture. Late nineteenth century Hawaiian architecture shows European influence. Earlier structures reflect Polynesian heritage.
Colonial
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The earliest continuously occupied European settlement in the United States is St. Augustine, Florida founded in 1565. The Castillo de San Marcos fort 1672-1695 is its oldest surviving structure. Spanish colonists left a greater imprint later in what was then called Alta California (later the United States state of California) with an extensive and well preserved network of missions dating from 1769-1823. The missions had a significant influence on later regional architecture.
Excavation at the first permanent English speaking settlement, Jamestown, Virginia (founded 1607) has unearthed part of the triangular James Fort and numerous artifacts from the early seventeenth century. Nearby Williamsburg was Virginia's colonial capital and is now a tourist attraction as a well preserved eighteenth century town.
The the oldest remaining building of Plymouth, Massachusetts is the Harlow House built 1677 and now a museum. The Balch House (1636) in Beverly, Massachusetts is the oldest remaining wood frame house in North America. Several notable colonial era buildings remain in Boston [1]. Boston's Old North Church built 1723 in the style of Sir Christopher Wren became an influential model for later United States church design.
Fires in 1788 and 1794 destroyed original Spanish structures in New Orleans. Many of the city's present buildings date to late eighteenth century rebuilding efforts. Graceful wrought iron balconies are a characteristic local style.
Federal architecture
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Thomas Jefferson was a skilled amateur architect who designed the original buildings at the University of Virginia and his estate Monticello. Work commenced in 1768 and modifications continued until 1809. This North American variation on Palladian architecture borrowed from British and Irish models and revived the portico. This interest in Roman elements appealed in a political climate that looked to the ancient Roman republic as a model.
The Federal style was popular along the Atlantic coast from 1780 to 1830. Characteristics of the federal style include neoclassical elements, bright interiors with large windows and white walls and ceilings, and a decorative yet restrained appearance that emphasized rational elements. Other significant federal style architects include Asher Benjamin, Charles Bulfinch, Samuel McIntire, Alexander Parris, and William Thornton.
Frontier vernacular
The Homestead Act of 1862 brought property ownership within reach for millions of citizens, displaced native peoples, and changed the character of settlement patterns. The law offered a modest farm free of charge to any adult male who cultivated the land for five years and built a residence on the property. This established a rural pattern of isolated farmsteads in the Midwest and West instead of the European influenced villages of the northeastern states. Settlers built homes from local materials, often erecting log cabins in the forested eastern states or sod houses in the treeless prairie. A few original log cabins remain, most of which have been concealed by clapboard facades. Related Straw-bale construction, pioneered in Nebraska with early baling machines, has endured as a modern building material.
Rural residents preferred homes built from milled lumber and constructed these instead of sod or log homes when they could afford the materials. Railroads delivered building supplies to the nearest town. Grant Wood's famous American Gothic painting takes its name from the upper window in the farmhouse behind the couple. The arched window was a popular 1880s design element sometimes known as "carpenter gothic."
The Sears Catalog Home that sold from 1908 to 1940 supplanted the remaining sod homes and most of the log homes. These complete homebuilding kits included lumber and plans. The "balloon style" framing architecture could be erected with a small construction team of family members and friends. Decorative elements were conservative, reminiscent of late Victorian esthetics. The double hung sash windows of the Sears Catalog homes are the most common residential window type in the United States. Sears Catalog homes remain popular for their better than average quality.
Skyscrapers
The most notable United States architectural innovation has been the skyscraper. Several technical advances made this possible. In 1853 Elisha Otis invented the first safety elevator. This prevented a cab from falling down the shaft if the suspending cable broke.
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Elevators allowed buildings to rise above the four or five stories that people were willing to climb by stairs for normal occupancy. An 1868 competition decided the design of New York City's six story Equitable Life Building, which would become the first commercial building to use an elevator. Construction commened in 1873. Other structures followed such as the Auditorium Building, Chicago in 1885 by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. This adopted Italian palazzo design details to give the appearance of a structured whole: for several decades American skyscrapers would blend conservative decorative elements with technical innovation.
Soon skyscrapers encountered a new technological challenge. Load bearing stone walls become impractical as a structure gains height, reaching a technical limit at about 20 stories. Professional engineer William LeBaron Jenney solved the problem with a steel support frame in Chicago's 10 story Home Insurance Building, 1885. Arguably this is the first true skyscraper. The use of a thin curtain wall in place of a load bearing wall reduced the building's overall weight by two thirds.
Another feature that was to become familiar in twentieth century skyscrapers first appeared in Chicago's Reliance Building, designed by Charles B. Atwood and E.C. Shankland, Chicago, 1890 - 1895. Because outer walls no longer bore the weight of a building it was possible to increase window size. This became the first skyscraper to have plate glass windows take up a majority of its outer surface area.
One culturally significant early skyscraper was New York City's Woolworth Building designed by architect Cass Gilbert, 1913. Raising previous technological advances to new heights, 792 ft (241 m), it was the world's tallest building until 1930. Frank Woolworth was fond of gothic cathedrals. Cass Gilbert constructed the office building as a cathedral of commerce and incorporated many Gothic revival decorative elements. The main entrance and lobby contain numerous allegories of thrift, including an acorn growing into an oak tree and a man losing his shirt. Security concerns following the attack on the nearby World Trade Center have closed the lobby to public viewing. The popularity of the new Woolworth Building inspired many Gothic revival imitations among skyscrapers and remained a popular design theme until the art deco era. Other public concerns emerged following the building's introduction. The Woolworth Building blocked a significant amount of sunlight to the neighborhood. This inspired the New York City setback law that remained in effect until 1960. Basically the law allowed a structure to rise to any height as long as it reduced the area of each tower floor to one quarter of the structure's ground floor area.
Another significant event in skyscraper history was the competition for Chicago's Tribune Tower. Although the competition selected a gothic design inflenced by the Woolworth building, some of the numerous competing entries became influential to other twentieth century architectural styles. Second place finisher Eliel Saarinen submitted a modernist design. An entry from Walter Gropius brought attention to the Bauhaus school.
The Reliance Building's move toward increased window area reached its logical conclusion in a New York City building with a Brazilian architect on land that is technically not a part of the United States. United Nations headquarters, 1949-1950, by Oscar Niemeyer has the first complete glass curtain wall.
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Some of the most graceful early towers were designed by Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), America's first great modern architect. His most talented student was Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), who spent much of his career designing private residences with matching furniture and generous use of open space. One of his best-known buildings, however, is a public one: the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
European architects who emigrated to the United States before World War II launched what became a dominant movement in architecture, the International Style. Perhaps the most influential of these immigrants were Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) and Walter Gropius (1883-1969), both former directors of Germany's famous design school, the Bauhaus. Based on geometric form, buildings in their style have been both praised as monuments to American corporate life and dismissed as "glass boxes." In reaction, younger American architects such as Michael Graves (1945- ) have rejected the austere, boxy look in favor of postmodern buildings with striking contours and bold decoration that alludes to historical styles of architecture.
Suburbs
The 1944 G. I. Bill of Rights was another federal government decision that changed the architectural landscape. Government backed loans made home ownership affordable for many more citizens. Affordable automobiles and popular preference for single family detached homes led to the rise of suburbs. Simultaneously praised for their quality of life and condemned for architectural monotony, these have become a familiar feature of the United States landscape.
See also
- United States
- Architecture
- Architectural style
- Culture of the United States
- Hawaiian architecture
- Chicago school (architecture)
- List of bridges in the United States
External links
Template:Link FAes:Arquitectura en Estados Unidos fr:Architecture aux États-Unis zh:美國建築