Early Victorian Architecture – New Georgia Encyclopedia

In the forty-five years from 1850 to 1895, architecture in Georgia progressed from simple Greek Revival forms to a massive steel-framed skyscraper. In between, architects and builders employed a myriad of styles as the country suffered catastrophic war, reconstruction, and economic depression. However, the entire post-war period was generally characterized by increased wealth due to urbanization, industrialization, expansion of cotton production, and rapid expansion of railroad service in almost all areas of Georgia. From the 1850s to the 1870s, Italianate and Second Empire buildings were erected around the state, but most church buildings were in the lesser known Gothic Revival period. From the late 1870s to 1895, Romanesque and Queen Anne revival styles prevailed. Both were soon replaced, however, by works of neoclassical design as the new century approached.

Greek revival

In 1850 the most important architectural style in the United States and Georgia was Greek Revival. Important commissions such as that of the Governor’s Mansion at Milldgeville (1838) by Charles B. Klosky helped create a demand for a Greek revival throughout the state that continued into the 1850s. The Greek Revival became popular throughout Georgia, and is characterized by large colonnaded arcades, low-pitched roofs often with triangular arches, interior naves, and rectangular/symmetrical masonry.

Savannah was the architectural center of the state, and the city’s wealthy merchants and businessmen invested their cotton fortunes in new housing and commercial buildings in a slightly altered Greek Revival style, altered to fit the narrow city spaces. With low or flat roofs, symmetrical window placement, soaring doorways, and one-story and square arcades, new buildings were often designed by recently arrived architects such as John Norris in New York. Greek Revival buildings included the US Custom House, commercial buildings along Bay Street, and row houses such as Gordon Block and Mary Marshall Row.

However, the Greek revival was not limited to Savannah in the 1850s. In 1856 Charles Schull and Calvin Fay jointly designed the State Mental Hospital (Powell Building) in Milledgeville with a three-story high portico of the Greek Ionian order. Local builders were also active in the folk style. In the far southwest corner of the state, designer/builder John Wind built the impressive Greek Revival structures for Cedar Grove Farm and Thomas County Courthouse. The rich Cotton Belt of central Georgia soon sprouted up with colossal column houses such as the John Thomas Grant Houses in Athens, now the home of the president at the University of Georgia, and Austin Leiden in Atlanta’s booming railroad hub.

Despite the predominance of Greek Revivalism, more Romantic or picturesque buildings in the Gothic Revival and Italianate styles began to appear in this booming decade. Decorative Gothic motifs were added to the Milledgeville State Capitol in the late 1820s, but this did not reflect any of the widespread use of pointed arches, asymmetrical floor plans, buttresses, trusses, steep roofs and gables, and trellis porches that were the main characteristics of the style. In the fifties of the nineteenth century. The most notable example of the Gothic style is the 1853 Green-Meldrim House in Savannah by John Norris.

Gothic revival

Not well suited to the harsh southern climate, however, Gothic revival was used primarily in church architecture during and after the Victorian era. This was partly due to the general belief that the strict medieval Christianity, which gave birth to the Gothic style, should be emulated. One of the first Gothic churches in the state was St. John’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, designed by New York architect Calvin Otis in 1850. More like a simple English country church than a grand cathedral, St. John has distinctive pointed arches, buttresses, and large buttresses on the interior Of which. After the Civil War (1861-1865), nearly all religious denominations hired an increasing number of master architects to design Gothic Revival churches. Atlanta in particular demonstrates the continued popularity of the style during the late Victorian era. William H. Parkins designed the Roman Catholic Church (later shrine) of the Immaculate Conception in a streamlined Gothic Revival style in 1869, and Edmund J. Lind established the Central Presbyterian Church in 1885.

Italian

However, the Italianate style proved more successful than the Gothic Revival style because it was easier to build and maintain. Based on Italian Renaissance buildings, the style consisted of one or more rectangular blocks sometimes grouped asymmetrically. Low sloping roofs usually have broad eaves supported by arches and often surmounted by domes or lanterns. Other decorative features included round or segmental arches, window coverings, classic details, and one-story balconies. Italianate homes can be quite elaborate, as in the stately Hay House (1855-59) in Macon or John Norris’s Mercer House (designed in 1860 but not completed until 1870) in Savannah. Other notable antebellum examples of the style can be found throughout the state, including Joel Hurt’s Dinglewood (1855) in Columbus, and Woodlands in the northwest corner of the state. Built in the early 1850s by Sir Godfrey Barnsley, the latter is an asymmetrical Italianate villa built of a series of blocks with a central tower – an almost perfect example of the most modern style of architecture at the time. Today, the grounds, known as Barnsley Gardens, are open to the public.

Little significant construction occurred in the 1860s. The civil war and poverty resulting from years of reconstruction left little time for high-style architecture. However, the railways were rebuilt and expanded with cotton production slowly returning to pre-war levels by 1882. The wealth generated by the cotton and new textile mills provided the cash needed to construct many new buildings during the years following the Depression of 1873.

During the 1860s and 1870s, the similar Italianate and Second Empire style with its distinct roof was frequently used in all kinds of buildings statewide. Composed of simple, symmetrical blocks, both types of construction fit in well with new post-war urban settings and can also be expanded as needed with little trouble. Ornament could be simple mantels over windows, elaborate ledges, trays, or turned columns and balustrades. Public buildings were such as the 1870 Savannah Police Barracks (architect J.H. Boggs), the Kimball House Hotel in Atlanta 1869-70 (William H. Parkins), and the 1874 Moore College Building in Athens (Lyon H. Roofs. The most elaborate was the building 1876 ​​Southern Mutual Insurance Company in Athens It had overhanging and skewed bays in the massive mass of the structure and was marked by the use of queens, heavy window moldings, and a sloping roof perforated with large dormer windows and supported by cornice brackets.

However, by the early 1880s, both Italianate and Second Empire styles were old-fashioned. New ideas, techniques, and architects established new styles of Queen Anne, Romanesque, and Neoclassical architecture. The economic boom from the late 1870s to 1893 made it possible, and often necessary, to construct new buildings with the latest fashions or the latest technological advances, such as fire-resistant construction and steel frame with hydraulic lifts. In the 1890s, skyscrapers first appeared in Atlanta (the Equity Building by John Wellborn Root and Daniel Burnham of Chicago) and Savannah (1895 Citizens Bank by J.L. Norman in the Chicago style of Louis Sullivan). It wasn’t until after 1895 that steel-structured skyscrapers became popular in Georgia.

Queen Anne

In general, architects flourished during this period. Their most popular style was Queen Anne, and stunning examples can still be found in nearly every part of the state. It features open floor plans around a large central space, wide balconies, and an exterior that reflects the irregularly sized and tidy interior rooms. Queen Anne’s residences, closely suited to the southern climate, tended to have very diverse building materials in an often intricate arrangement of spindlework, plank, brick and masonry sets, and terracotta accentuating. More elaborate homes may have spiers, turrets, belvederes (viewing areas open on a tower), Porte Cocheres, balconies at balcony corners, a variety of bay windows, and ornamental chimneys.

In 1883 J.L. Norman designed a masterpiece in the Queen Anne style for Atlanta businessman Edward C. Peters. The central mass of the house is topped with a sloping roof with spans containing high gables and peaks and adorned with large cut-out windows, half-timbered windows, carved panels, arches, turned columns, and laminated capitals. The arrangement of the interior, the irregularity of the exterior is further reflected by the massive balconies, balconies, curvy skirt-roof, and huge door opening with Romanesque arch. Surrounding the inner chambers is a gently raised staircase rising from a large central hall, and there is an open flow of rooms incorporating the large balconies with both interior and floor. Peters’ home is the best example of Queen Anne residential design in the state.

The contrast and picturesque characteristics of Victorian or Queen Anne architecture also found expression in urban commercial buildings. Constrained by the rectilinear building sites that favored the block-like shapes of Italian and Second Empire styles, architects solved the problem by using elaborate wall treatments with balconies, protruding bays, recessed porches, terracotta, patterned tilework, or stone on the wall surfaces. Meanwhile, the roof itself may contain alternating gables of various shapes, angle towers, turrets, sloping roof sections, dormer windows, and a number of chimneys. The most outstanding example of this style still surviving is the 1892 Windsor Hotel in Americus by G.L. Norrman.

Romantic Revival

However, the real tension in the competition of architectural styles at this time was between the Romanesque Revival as expressed by H.H. Richardson and a group of followers, and the Neoclassicism espoused by the followers of McKim, Mead and White of New York. In Georgia, the Romanesque Revival style showed arches of various shapes, a strong monochromatic feel using red brick and terracotta, horizontal stripes, rustic stone basements or first-floor floors, and many classical or leafy decorative features applied in a restrained manner. . Architects used Roman designs for all types of buildings. Leading preachers were J.L. Norman of Atlanta, and William J. Preston and Alfred Eichberg from Savannah. Important examples of their work remain: Atlanta Inman Park Elementary School (1892) and Stone Hall (1882) at Morris Brown College, both designed by Norman; The Schwartz Building in Savannah (1890) and J. S. Wood Residences (1891), designed by Eichberg, and Savannah Volunteer Wardens Store (1893), Preston.

neoclassical

During the 1890s, neoclassicism (including American Colonial Revival, Fine Arts, and Classical Revival) swept the nation and Georgia. Supposedly expressing patriotism and America’s emerging role as a global economic and political power, these classic-derived styles have had wide appeal. Examples include the Cotton State Buildings of 1895 and the Atlanta International Exposition. Gallery structures have generally been described as Romanesque in design. On the other hand, one of the most praised and admired buildings in the gallery was the Beaux-Arts-designed Beaux-Arts Building, a highly symmetrical classical building designed by WT Downing. Georgia’s other work in Classical Revival styles–including the 1889 State Capitol–certainly preceded this one. However, the Beaux-Arts Building foreshadowed the final eclipse of both the Queen Anne and Romanesque styles over the next decade in favor of neoclassicism and a historically more correct period revival.