Where to look for decorative details Matters of style Style is a late 18 th century word that slowly replaced the equivalent termstaste or fashionin describing architectural objects These are the conditions ID: 262999
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Slide1
Styles of Architectural Detailing
Where to look for decorative detailsSlide2
Matters of style
Style
is a late 18
th
century word that slowly replaced the equivalent terms—taste, or fashion—in describing architectural objects.
These are the conditions
of any building that may contribute to a stylistic determination are:
Building Form (ground plans and elevations)
Proportion (a design issue)
Scale (domestic or monumental)
Ornamentation (decorative details)
Of these four conditions ornamentation is the most often used primary component of style analysis, principally on the exterior of buildings.Slide3
Why does style matter?
Buildings are studied both within their historical context and comparatively across time.
As a social function within a consumer society of changing values style is almost completely equivalent to fashion in other objects.
Style analysis is an
architectural history
consideration, not an activity of the trades that erect buildings.
Style analysis creates a
typology
in which the stylistic types do not overlap. A structure is either one style or another.
“Style embraces the specific identifying characteristics of a building both as the building appears to the eye and as it is known to exist in design and structure. The study of style focuses on the
conspicuous
characteristics which related buildings.” (William Pierson)Slide4
Location of decorative details
w
indow casing
(surround)
wall cornice
frontispiece (door surround)
e
dges of
w
alls, surfaces
r
elieving arch
d
oors and windows
George Wythe House
Williamsburg, Va., c1755
string course
Water tableSlide5
Bilateral
Tripartite
Tripartite
Aligned
Symmetry in FormSlide6
roof verge (edge)
Stepped brick cornice
chimney cap
Chimney stack shape and edges
Lynnhaven
House, Princess Anne Co,
Va
c
a 1724
What they saw 1934
What Bond?Slide7Slide8
Referential architectural details
In
referential styles
the decorative details recall (but may not duplicate) an earlier formula of building, often in a different region or country.
Tudor Revival StyleSlide9
814 Cornell Street, Fredericksburg,
VaSlide10
Italian Villa Style
Buildings categorized as fitting a particular style have
primary
characteristics that
define
the
style-type
, and
secondary
features that are shared among buildings of a time or region.Slide11
Non-stylistic elements
Traditions
(characteristic features that are employed over a long period of time in a region) may lead some scholars to speak of “regional style”.
Communities’ conservative tastes do allow for typological comparison although this is distinct from what is usually meant by “style” as equivalent to fashion, which would be social status conferring elements that are
horizons
(rapid changes over short periods of time and large areas).
Many elements of community taste (a preference for wood, or stone for exterior building material, or the rhythm of windows and doors in buildings exist with clusters of primary features of different styles and are not stylistic.Slide12
Non-stylistic arrangement of voids
These Fredericksburg dwellings are stylistically distinct, but share the tradition of side entry facades.
Lafayette Blvd
Weedon
Street
George StreetSlide13
Vernacular is not a style
Barns and other agricultural buildings as well as non-domestic, non-commercial architecture are often built to community preferences. These buildings may described as
vernacular
because of their lack of fashionable detailing, or area specific forms and details. To analyze a building as vernacular does not place it in a stylistic (i.e. fashionable) category.