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60-714: The Alexander Noble House , built in 1875, is a historic Greek Revival farmhouse located in Fish Creek , Door County, Wisconsin on Wisconsin Highway 42 . The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 23, 1996. Alexander Noble, one of the founders of Fish Creek, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1829 and moved to Fish Creek in 1863. He served the community as blacksmith, postmaster, town chairman, and county board member. Today,

120-405: A sloping cornice , a raking cornice . The trim and rafters at this edge are called rakes , rake board , rake fascia , verge-boards , barge-boards or verge- or barge-rafters . It is a sloped timber on the outside facing edge of a roof running between the ridge and the eave . On a typical house, any gable will have two rakes, one on each sloped side. The rakes are often supported by

180-569: A Selinote (1851). The controversy was to inspire von Klenze's "Aegina" room at the Munich Glyptothek of 1830, the first of his many speculative reconstructions of Greek colour. Hittorff lectured in Paris in 1829–1830 that Greek temples had originally been painted ochre yellow, with the moulding and sculptural details in red, blue, green and gold. While this may or may not have been the case with older wooden or plain stone temples, it

240-402: A box cornice. Ancient Egyptian architectural tradition made special use of large cavetto mouldings as a cornice, with only a short fillet (plain vertical face) above, and a torus moulding (convex semi-circle) below. This cavetto cornice is sometimes also known as an "Egyptian cornice", "hollow and roll" or "gorge cornice". It has been suggested to be a reminiscence in stone architecture of

300-426: A building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a pedestal, or along the top of an interior wall. A simple cornice may be formed with a crown, as in crown moulding atop an interior wall or above kitchen cabinets or a bookcase. A projecting cornice on a building has the function of throwing rainwater free of its walls. In residential building practice, this function

360-455: A common practice on houses with gentle roof slopes and wide eaves, requires lookouts to support it and provide a surface to attach the soffits securely. Box cornices often have ventilation screens laid over openings cut in the soffits to allow air to circulate within the cornice. A closed or snub cornice is one in which there is no projection of the rafters beyond the walls of the building and, therefore, no soffit or fascia. This type of cornice

420-587: A competition for a monument to the king that would promote "morality and patriotism." Friedrich Gilly 's unexecuted design for a temple raised above the Leipziger Platz caught the tenor of high idealism that the Germans sought in Greek architecture and was enormously influential on Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Leo von Klenze . Schinkel was in a position to stamp his mark on Berlin after the catastrophe of

480-473: A deliberate riposte to France, where it never really caught on. By comparison, Greek Revival architecture in France was never popular with either the state or the public. What little there is started with Charles de Wailly 's crypt in the church of St Leu-St Gilles (1773–80), and Claude Nicolas Ledoux 's Barriere des Bonshommes (1785–89). First-hand evidence of Greek architecture was of very little importance to

540-403: A series of lookouts (sometimes also called strong arms ) and may be trimmed with a rake fascia board (which is not a true fascia ) on the outside facing edge and a rake soffit along the bottom. The cornices of a modern residential building will usually be one of three types: a box cornice, a close or closed cornice, or an open cornice. Box cornices enclose the cornice of

600-413: Is actually very light and made of pressed metal. In Ancient Greek architecture and its successors using the classical orders in the tradition of classical architecture , the cornice is the topmost element of the entablature , which consists (from top to bottom) of the cornice, the frieze , and the architrave . Where a triangular pediment is above the entablature, the cornice continues all round

660-423: Is easy to construct but provides little aid in dispersing water away from the building and is sometimes considered to lack aesthetic value. In an open cornice, the shape of the cornice is similar to that of a wide box cornice, except that both the lookouts and the soffit are absent. It is a lower-cost treatment that requires fewer materials and may even have no fascia board, but it lacks the finished appearance of

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720-547: Is handled by projecting gable ends, roof eaves , and gutters . However, house eaves may also be called "cornices" if they are finished with decorative moulding. In this sense, while most cornices are also eaves (overhanging the sides of the building), not all eaves are usually considered cornices. Eaves are primarily functional and not necessarily decorative, while cornices have a decorative aspect. A building's projecting cornice may appear to be heavy and hence in danger of falling, particularly on commercial buildings, but it often

780-792: Is tempting to see the Greek Revival as the expression of Regency authoritarianism, then the changing conditions of life in Britain made Doric the loser of the Battle of the Styles , dramatically symbolized by the selection of Charles Barry 's Gothic design for the Palace of Westminster in 1836. Nevertheless, Greek continued to be in favour in Scotland well into the 1870s in the singular figure of Alexander Thomson , known as Greek Thomson. Following

840-593: The Academy and University of Athens , the Zappeion , and the National Library of Greece . The most prominent architects in this style were northern Europeans such as Christian and Theophil Hansen and Ernst Ziller and German-trained Greeks such as Stamatios Kleanthis and Panagis Kalkos . Despite the prestige of ancient Greece among Europe's educated elite, most people had minimal direct knowledge of

900-511: The Act of Union , the Napoleonic Wars , and the clamour for political reform. William Wilkins 's winning design for the public competition for Downing College, Cambridge announced the Greek style was to become a dominant idiom in architecture, especially for public buildings of this sort. Wilkins and Robert Smirke went on to build some of the most important buildings of the era, including

960-595: The Bank of Pennsylvania . Latrobe's design for the U.S. Capitol was an imaginative interpretation of the classical orders not constrained by historical precedent, incorporating American motifs such as corncobs and tobacco leaves. This idiosyncratic approach became typical of the American attitude to Greek detailing. His overall plan for the Capitol did not survive, though many of his interiors did. He also did notable work on

1020-652: The Greek War of Independence , Romantic Nationalist ideology encouraged the use of historically Greek architectural styles in place of Ottoman or pan-European ones. Classical architecture was used for secular public buildings, while Byzantine architecture was preferred for churches. Examples of Greek Revival architecture in Greece include the Old Royal Palace (now the home of the Parliament of Greece ),

1080-470: The Greek return and the soffit return (also called a boxed or box soffit return). The former includes a sloped hip shape on the inside of the cornice under the eaves, which is sheathed or shingled like the rest of the roof above it and is considered very attractive; the latter is a simple return without these features. The term cornice may also be used to describe a form of hard window treatment along

1140-686: The Monumental Church and the Washington Monument , as well as George Hadfield and Gabriel Manigault . At the same time, the popular appetite for the Greek was sustained by architectural pattern books, the most important of which was Asher Benjamin's The Practical House Carpenter (1830). This guide helped create the proliferation of Greek homes seen especially in northern New York State and in Connecticut's former Western Reserve in northeastern Ohio . The discovery that

1200-572: The Porte , British travellers, artists and architects went to Greece and Turkey in ever larger numbers to study ancient Greek monuments and excavate or collect antiquities. The Greek War of Independence ended in 1832; Lord Byron 's participation and death during this had brought it additional prominence. The style was attractive in Russia because they shared the Eastern Orthodox faith with

1260-735: The Theatre Royal , Covent Garden (1808–1809), the General Post Office (1824–1829) and the British Museum (1823–1848), the Wilkins Building of University College London (1826–1830), and the National Gallery (1832–1838). One of the greatest British proponents of the style was Decimus Burton . In London , twenty three Greek Revival Commissioners' churches were built between 1817 and 1829,

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1320-410: The architrave cornice, bracketed cornice, and modillion cornice. A cornice return is an architectural detail that occurs where a roof's horizontal cornice connects to a gable's rake. It is a short horizontal extension of the cornice that occurs on each side of the gable end of the building (see picture of Härnösands rådhus with two of these). The two most common types of cornice return are

1380-638: The French occupation ended in 1813; his work on what is now the Altes Museum , Konzerthaus Berlin , and the Neue Wache transformed that city. Similarly, in Munich von Klenze's Glyptothek and Walhalla memorial were the fulfilment of Gilly's vision of an orderly and moral German world. The purity and seriousness of the style was intended as an assertion of German national values and partly intended as

1440-515: The French, due to the influence of Marc-Antoine Laugier 's doctrines that sought to discern the principles of the Greeks instead of their mere practices. It would take until Labrouste 's Neo-Grec of the Second Empire for Greek Revival architecture to flower briefly in France. Following the travels to Greece , Nicholas Revett, a Suffolk architect, and the better remembered James Stuart in

1500-621: The Gibraltar Historical Association, Box 323, Fish Creek, WI 54212. Greek Revival With newfound access to Greece and Turkey , or initially to the books produced by the few who had visited the sites, archaeologist–architects of the period studied the Doric and Ionic orders. Despite its universality rooted in ancient Greece, the Greek Revival idiom was considered an expression of local nationalism and civic virtue in each country that adopted it, and freedom from

1560-709: The Greek Revival. These houses are characterized by their symmetrical and balanced proportions, typically featuring a bold, pedimented portico with arched openings. The symmetrical façade is divided into two equal halves. Much Greek Revival architecture used the Greek Doric order in the earlier version found in buildings leading up to the Parthenon in Athens. This contrasted significantly with later Greek Hellenistic architecture and Roman architecture . Greek Doric columns are typically rather thick, often tapering towards

1620-473: The Greeks had painted their temples influenced the later development of the style. The archaeological dig at Aegina and Bassae in 1811–1812 by Cockerell, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg , and Karl Haller von Hallerstein had disinterred painted fragments of masonry daubed with impermanent colours. This revelation was a direct contradiction of Winckelmann 's notion of the Greek temple as timeless, fixed, and pure in its whiteness. In 1823, Samuel Angell discovered

1680-500: The Greeks. The historic centre of Saint Petersburg was rebuilt by Alexander I of Russia , with many buildings giving the Greek Revival a Russian debut. The Saint Petersburg Bourse on Vasilievsky Island has a temple front with 44 Doric columns. Quarenghi 's design for the Manege "mimics a 5th-century BC Athenian temple with a portico of eight Doric columns bearing a pediment and bas reliefs". Leo von Klenze 's expansion of

1740-1011: The Supreme Court interior (1806–1807), and his masterpiece was the Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Baltimore (1805–1821). Latrobe claimed, "I am a bigoted Greek in the condemnation of the Roman architecture", but he did not rigidly impose Greek forms. "Our religion," he said, "requires a church wholly different from the temple, our legislative assemblies and our courts of justice, buildings of entirely different principles from their basilicas; and our amusements could not possibly be performed in their theatres or amphitheatres." His circle of junior colleagues became an informal school of Greek revivalists, and his influence shaped

1800-704: The Temple of Apollo on the Cycladic island of Delos , in the collection of books that he (and Stuart in some cases) produced, largely funded by special subscription by the Society of Dilettanti. See more in Terry Friedman's book The Georgian Parish Church , Spire Books, 2004. Seen in its wider social context, Greek Revival architecture sounded a new note of sobriety and restraint in public buildings in Britain around 1800 as an assertion of nationalism attendant on

1860-482: The ancient Greek civilization before the middle of the 18th century. The monuments of Greek antiquity were known chiefly from Pausanias and other literary sources. Visiting Ottoman Greece was difficult and dangerous business prior to the period of stagnation beginning with the Great Turkish War . Few tourists visited Athens during the first half of the 18th century, and none made any significant study of

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1920-512: The appeal of ancient Greece rose in the 19th century along with the growing acceptance of democracy. This made Greek architecture suddenly more attractive in both the North and the South, for differing ideological purposes: for the North, Greek architecture symbolized the freedom of the Greeks; in the South it symbolized the cultural glories enabled by a slave society. Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of

1980-455: The architectural ruins. It was not until the expedition to Greece funded by the Society of Dilettanti of 1751 by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett that serious archaeological inquiry began in earnest. Stuart and Revett's findings, published in 1762 (first volume) as The Antiquities of Athens , along with Julien-David Le Roy's Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce (1758) were

2040-597: The assembly of Greek buildings in Helsinki city centre is particularly notable. At the cultural edges of Europe, in the Swedish region of western Finland, Greek Revival motifs might be grafted on a purely Baroque design, as in the design for Oravais Church by Jacob Rijf, 1792. A Greek Doric order, rendered in the anomalous form of pilasters , contrasts with the hipped roof and boldly scaled cupola and lantern, of wholly traditional Baroque inspiration. In Austria , one of

2100-636: The beginning of the 19th century when the designs of Thomas Hope influenced a number of decorative styles known variously as Neoclassical , Empire , Russian Empire, and Regency architecture in Great Britain. Greek Revival architecture took a different course in a number of countries, lasting until the 1860s and the American Civil War and later in Scotland . Modern-day architects are recreating this design by building houses similar to

2160-731: The best examples of this style is the Parliament Building designed by Theophil Hansen . In Canada , Montreal architect John Ostell designed a number of prominent Greek Revival buildings, including the first building on the McGill University campus and Montreal's original Custom House, now part of the Pointe-à-Callière Museum . The Toronto Street Post Office , completed in 1853, is another Canadian example. While some 18th-century Americans had feared Greek democracy, sometimes called mobocracy ,

2220-437: The building with what is essentially a long, narrow box. A box cornice may further be divided into either the narrow box cornice or the wide box cornice type. A narrow box cornice is one in which "the projection of the rafter serves as a nailing surface for the soffit board as well as the fascia trim." This is possible if the slope of the roof is fairly steep and the width of the eave relatively narrow. A wide box cornice,

2280-466: The city now enjoys a striking visual uniformity, and as such is sometimes whimsically referred to as "the Athens of the North". Within Regency architecture the style already competed with Gothic Revival and the continuation of the less stringent Palladian and Neoclassical styles of Georgian architecture , the other two remaining more common for houses, both in towns and English country houses . If it

2340-557: The coloured metopes of Temple C at Selinunte , Sicily and published them in 1826. The French architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff witnessed the exhibition of Angell's find and endeavoured to excavate Temple B at Selinus. His imaginative reconstructions of this temple were exhibited in Rome and Paris in 1824 and he went on to publish these as Architecture polychrome chez les Grecs (1830) and later in Restitution du Temple d'Empedocle

2400-721: The construction (1833) of the row of Greek temples at Sailors' Snug Harbor on Staten Island . These had varied functions within a home for retired sailors. From 1820 to 1850, the Greek Revival style dominated the United States, such as the Benjamin F. Clough House in Waltham, Massachusetts . It could also be found as far west as Springfield, Illinois . Examples of vernacular Greek Revival continued to be built even farther west, such as in Charles City, Iowa . This style

2460-707: The early 1750s, intellectual curiosity quickly led to a desire among the elite to emulate the style. Stuart was commissioned after his return from Greece by George Lyttelton to produce the first Greek building in England, the garden temple at Hagley Hall (1758–59). A number of British architects in the second half of the century took up the expressive challenge of the Doric from their aristocratic patrons, including Benjamin Henry Latrobe (notably at Hammerwood Park and Ashdown House ) and Sir John Soane , but it remained

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2520-484: The evolution from Doric to Corinthian was not inexorable. Both events were to cause a minor scandal. The emerging understanding that Greek art was subject to changing forces of environment and culture was a direct assault on the architectural rationalism of the day. Cornice In architecture , a cornice (from the Italian cornice meaning "ledge" ) is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns

2580-497: The first accurate surveys of ancient Greek architecture. The rediscovery of the three relatively easily accessible Greek temples at Paestum in Southern Italy created huge interest throughout Europe, and prints by Piranesi and others were widely circulated. The Napoleonic Wars denied access to France and Italy to traditional Grand Tourists, especially from Britain. Aided by close diplomatic relations between Britain and

2640-557: The first volume of The Antiquities of Athens . He never practiced in the style, but he played an important role in introducing Greek Revival architecture to the United States. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Henry Latrobe as surveyor of public building, and Latrobe designed a number of important public buildings in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia , including work on the United States Capitol and

2700-434: The full range of ornamentation, and colour, on ancient Greek temples emerged over the period. Architects were aware of the large pedimental sculptures and metope reliefs, and copied these expensive elements when funds allowed, but far less often had the full range of antefixes and akroterions . Greek temples normally had no windows except perhaps in the roof, posing a problem for modern buildings for most purposes, which

2760-668: The lax detail and frivolity that then characterized the architecture of France and Italy , two countries where the style never really took architecturally. Greek Revival architecture was embraced in Great Britain , Germany , and the United States , where the idiom was regarded as being free from ecclesiastical and aristocratic associations and was appealed to each country's emerging embrace of classical liberalism . The taste for all things Greek in furniture and interior design, sometimes called Neo-Grec , reached its peak in

2820-588: The most notable being St.Pancras church by William and Henry William Inwood . In Scotland the style was avidly adopted by William Henry Playfair , Thomas Hamilton and Charles Robert Cockerell, who severally and jointly contributed to the massive expansion of Edinburgh 's New Town , including the Calton Hill development and the Moray Estate . Such was the popularity of the Doric in Edinburgh that

2880-481: The next generation of American architects. Greek revival architecture in the United States also included attention to interior decoration. The role of American women was critical for introducing a wholistic style of Greek-inspired design to American interiors. Innovations such as the Greek-inspired "sofa" and the " klismos chair" allowed both American women and men to pose as Greeks in their homes, and also in

2940-616: The numerous portraits of the period that show them lounging in Greek-inspired furniture. The second phase in American Greek Revival saw the pupils of Latrobe create a monumental national style under the patronage of banker and philhellene Nicholas Biddle , including such works as the Second Bank of the United States by William Strickland (1824), Biddle's home "Andalusia" by Thomas U. Walter (1835–1836), and Girard College , also by Walter (1833–1847). New York saw

3000-637: The palace that is now the Hermitage Museum is another example of the style. During the late period of the Ottoman Empire, Greek Revival Architecture had its examples in the empire. The prominent examples are Istanbul Archaeology Museums (1891) The style was generally popular in northern Europe, and not in the south (except for Greece itself), at least during the main period. Examples can be found in Poland , Lithuania , and Finland , where

3060-543: The primitive use of bound bunches of reeds as supports for buildings, the weight of the roof bending their tops out. The cavetto cornice, often forming less than a quarter-circle, influenced Egypt's neighbours and as well as appearing in early Ancient Greek architecture , it is seen in Syria and ancient Iran , for example at the Tachara palace of Darius I at Persepolis , completed in 486 BC. Inspired by this precedent, it

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3120-444: The private enthusiasm of connoisseurs up to the first decade of the 19th century. An early example of Greek Doric architecture married with a more Palladian interior, is the facade of the Revett-designed rural church of Ayot St Lawrence in Hertfordshire, commissioned in 1775 by Lord Lionel Lyde of the eponymous manor. The Doric columns of this church, with their "pie-crust crimped" details, are taken from drawings that Revett made of

3180-405: The restored Noble House contains many of its original furnishings and artifacts. The home's authentic room settings depict the period from 1875 to 1900. The house offers tours that portray life in Door County over a century ago, depicting the village as a thriving fishing and shipping village with horse-drawn wagons traveling the dirt streets. The house is run as a nonprofit institution operated by

3240-414: The top, always fluted , and have complicated rules for the entablature above the columns. Additionally, the columns go straight down to the floor ( stylobate ) with no distinct base - this last aspect was often skipped by architects who followed the other Greek conventions, for example in the Brandenburg Gate . The understanding of actual Greek architecture was based on ruined buildings, and awareness of

3300-437: The triangle, the two sides being "raking cornices". The vertical space below the cornice is typically decorated by dentils (little teeth) or the larger modillions . The soffit , or horizontal space under a projecting cornice, may be elaborately carved with vegetal designs. A rake is an architectural term for an eave or cornice that runs along the gable of the roof of a modern residential structure. It may also be called

3360-470: Was definitely not the case with the more luxurious marble temples, where colour was used sparingly to accentuate architectural highlights. Henri Labrouste also proposed a reconstruction of the temples at Paestum to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1829, decked out in startling colour, inverting the accepted chronology of the three Doric temples, thereby implying that the development of the Greek orders did not increase in formal complexity over time, i.e.,

3420-403: Was generally brushed aside. Many buildings that needed to fulfill modern functions concentrated on having an impressive temple-style front, giving the other faces of the building a more practical design up to the cornice . In Germany, Greek Revival architecture is predominantly found in two centres, Berlin and Munich . In both locales, Doric was the court style rather than a popular movement and

3480-416: Was heavily patronised by Frederick William II of Prussia and Ludwig I of Bavaria as the expression of their desires for their respective seats to become the capital of Germany. The earliest Greek building was the Brandenburg Gate (1788–91) by Carl Gotthard Langhans , who modelled it loosely on the Propylaea in Athens . Ten years after the death of Frederick the Great , the Berlin Akademie initiated

3540-440: Was then revived by Ardashir I (r. 224–41 AD), the founder of the Sasanian dynasty . The cavetto took the place of the cymatium in many Etruscan temples, often painted with vertical "tongue" patterns, and combined with the distinctive "Etruscan round moulding", often painted with scales. A typical example may be seen at the reconstructed Etruscan temple at Villa Giulia . Additional more obscure varieties of cornice include

3600-420: Was very popular in the south of the US, where the Palladian colonnade was already popular in façades, and many mansions and houses were built for the merchants and rich plantation owners; Millford Plantation is regarded as one of the finest Greek Revival residential examples in the country. Other notable American architects to use Greek Revival designs included Latrobe's student Robert Mills , who designed

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