Misplaced Pages

#393606

80-644: The mansion could be described as a conjunction of the Greek Revival and late Federal-styles . It was built by David Crawford, who had made his fortune in Hudson River shipping in during the 1820s. Crawford was leased the land on March 8, 1830, by the Trustees of the Glebe, for a period of 900 years. His family originated from Ulster , and immigrated to America in 1731, settling Little Britain alongside

160-569: 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

240-587: 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

320-473: 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

400-453: A good home, so he designed homes for three types: villas for the wealthy, cottages for working people and farmhouses for farmers Downing believed that architecture and the fine arts could affect the morals of the owners, and that improvement of the external appearance of a home would help "better" all those who had contact with the home. The general good of America was benefited by good taste and beautiful architecture, he wrote. Downing saw that

480-615: A grant from the state in 2007 to repair the roof, chimneys, gutters, and facade. The house also received a top-to-bottom paint job. Greek Revival architecture Greek Revival architecture was a style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe , the United States , and Canada , as well as in Greece itself following its independence in 1821. It revived many aspects of

560-415: A new journal. "The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste" was first published under Downing's editorship in the summer of 1846; he remained editor of this journal until his death in 1852. The journal was his principal influence on society through horticulture , pomology , botany , entomology , rural architecture, landscape gardening, and, unofficially, public welfare in various forms. It

640-816: A plan that would redeem the Mall from its physical neglect. Downing presented his plan for the National Mall to the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution on February 27, 1851. The plan was a radical departure from the geometric, classical design for the Mall that Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant had placed in his 1791 plan for the future federal capital city (see L'Enfant Plan ). Instead of L'Enfant's "Grand Avenue," Downing envisioned four individual parks, with connecting curvilinear walks and drives defined with trees of various types. Downing's objective

720-505: A properly carved-out vergeboard . His own residence, Highland Gardens, in Newburgh, New York, was quite large with meticulous grounds and many greenhouses with plants and trees from around the world brought to him by his whaling father-in-law. Through the publication of his designs, he is credited with the popularization of the front porch. He saw the porch as the link from the house to nature. Building porches had just become easier due to

800-483: A supply for [the]... scarcity of beauty coin in our every-day pockets. He was the one person who could be sent for... to look at fields and woods and tell what could be made out of them". Downing influenced not only Vaux but also landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted ; the two men met at Downing's home in Newburgh. In 1858, their joint design, the Greensward Plan, was selected in a design competition for

880-453: Is a lengthy essay on the real meaning of architecture. He wrote that even the simplest form of architecture should be an expression of beauty, but the design should never neglect the useful for the beautiful. He went on to say that "(in) perfect architecture no principle of utility will be sacrificed to beauty, only elevated and ennobled by it." He considered landscape gardening and architecture to be an art. In Cottage Residences he published

SECTION 10

#1732791678394

960-792: 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

1040-490: Is the gatehouse at Matthew Vassar's estate, " Springside" in Poughkeepsie, New York . The gatehouse and the estate's gardens designed by Downing are a National Historic Landmark . Downing's wife and friends of the family built a monument to Downing in the shape of an urn that was at his home in Newburgh. They inscribed on it words that he had written "Plant spacious parks in your cities, and loose their gates as wide as

1120-593: 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

1200-511: 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

1280-595: 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

1360-481: The Clinton family . The Crawfords moved to Newburgh in 1806 as David's father, Francis, saw a burgeoning market for agricultural products. With Eunice Watkins of Campbell Hall , he had four sons: David, Thomas, Samuel and James. The brothers and their mother succumbed to tuberculosis , and David ameliorated his health by accepting a job as a deputy sheriff in 1810. Frequent horseback-riding built up his immunity. As

1440-1006: The Gothic Revival in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine (1846–1852). Downing is considered to be a founder of American landscape architecture. Downing was born in Newburgh, New York , to Samuel Downing, a wheelwright and later nurseryman, and Eunice Bridge. After finishing his schooling at sixteen, he worked in his father's nursery in the Town of Newburgh , and gradually became interested in landscape gardening and architecture. He began writing on botany and landscape gardening and then undertook to educate himself thoroughly in these subjects. He married Caroline DeWint, daughter of John Peter DeWint , in 1838. His official writing career started when he began producing articles for newspapers and horticultural journals in

1520-652: 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 ),

1600-686: 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

1680-572: 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

SECTION 20

#1732791678394

1760-735: 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,

1840-591: The War of 1812 broke out, Crawford enlisted in the army and formed a volunteer company which relocated to New York Harbor . He became attached to an artillery regiment and eventually promoted to captain . After spending time in the harbor, he gained an understanding of shipping and maritime trade, becoming interested in their economic benefits. In May 1822, David Crawford married Fanny C. Belknap, daughter of General Isaac Belknap. They had two daughters, Mary Elizabeth, called "Lib", and Anna. In 1825, he became involved in

1920-574: The 1830s. In 1841 his first book, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America , was published to a great success; it was the first book of its kind published in the United States. In the book, Downing talked about landscape architecture - or landscape gardening - in a way to encourage civility through the care for nature in a domestic scale. Showing that nature can be beautiful and also morally beneficial. In 1842 Downing collaborated with Alexander Jackson Davis on

2000-638: 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

2080-515: 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

2160-709: 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

2240-473: 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

2320-500: 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

2400-519: The Northeast. With his brother Charles , he wrote Fruits and Fruit Trees of America (1845), long a standard work. In the early 1850s, Downing called the "Jonathan's Fine Winter" apple the "Imperial of Keepers", which led to it being renamed the York Imperial apple. This was followed by The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), a revolutionary and influential pattern book that marked

2480-613: The Smithsonian Castle (see Andrew Jackson Downing Urn ). The most intact structure designed by Downing is his house for Joel T. Headley, " Cedar Lawn ," in New Windsor, New York , one of his first collaborations with Vaux. Other few surviving structures include the David Moore House and Dr. William A. M. Culbert House in Newburgh, however, both are altered or ruinous. Exemplifying his original vision

David Crawford House - Misplaced Pages Continue

2560-1011: 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

2640-704: 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

2720-409: The United States, and opened what was to be a thriving practice in Newburgh. Downing and Vaux worked together from fall 1850 until Downing's death in the summer of 1852. Together they designed many significant architecture and landscape projects. They designed and remodeled Hudson Valley residences for the historian Joel T. Headley , China Trade merchant Warren Delano , and brewer Matthew Vassar . As

2800-453: The advance in building methods, and these two factors together resulted in the frequency of front porches being built on residences at that time. At the same time, many people were moving from the city to the surrounding countryside because of the advent of railroad and steamship transportation. Downing believed interacting with nature had a healing effect on mankind and wanted all people to be able to experience nature. On July 28, 1852, Downing

2880-482: 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

2960-512: 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

3040-455: 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

3120-597: 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

3200-636: 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

3280-731: 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 ,

David Crawford House - Misplaced Pages Continue

3360-604: The book Cottage Residences , a highly influential pattern book of houses that mixed romantic architecture with the English countryside's pastoral picturesque, derived in large part from the writings of John Claudius Loudon . The book was widely read and consulted, spreading the so-called " Carpenter Gothic " and Hudson River Bracketed architectural styles among Victorian builders, both commercial and private. In this early stage of his career, Downing also engineered landscapes and provided horticultural makeovers to patrons throughout

3440-493: 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 the lax detail and frivolity that then characterized the architecture of France and Italy , two countries where

3520-506: The building of a steamboat to freight goods from Newburgh to New York City. The steamer Baltimore , purchased during the winter of 1829–1830, began shipping from D. Crawford & Co.'s wharf that spring. The carpenter of the house remains unknown. Architrave trim of an elaborate design gives a flaunting impression, and carved laurel details in head blocks above the doors are seen consistently. The free-standing stairs have mahogany balusters and elegant brackets. A most curious detail of

3600-466: 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

3680-445: The city. In his publication, he criticized the builders who borrowed architectural elements to imitate villa style in a cottage as having poor taste. Examples of such were temple cottage where a portico with large wooden columns were added to a small cottage, cocked-hat cottage where many gables were added to fill the cottage roof, and improper use of ornamental parts such as using " gingerbread " look sawn-out thin board instead of

3760-557: 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

3840-658: 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

3920-451: The designs for 28 houses; in addition to the house plans, the designs included the plans for the gardens, orchards, and grounds including plants to be used. In his Architecture of Country Houses , he included designs for cottages, farmhouses, and villas and commented on interiors, furniture and the best methods of warming and ventilating them. Some of his designs were simple and affordable so that all classes of society could enjoy life outside

4000-537: 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

4080-453: The end of his collaboration with Davis. Completing extensive drawings for interiors and furniture, Davis's talents as an artist engaged readers and served as early reference guides for homeowners to decorate their own spaces without hiring additional designers. By the mid-1840s Downing's reputation and celebrity were established. This brought a friendship with Luther Tucker , publisher and printer of Albany, New York, who hired Downing to edit

SECTION 50

#1732791678394

4160-451: 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. Andrew Jackson Downing Andrew Jackson Downing (October 31, 1815 – July 28, 1852) was an American landscape designer , horticulturist , writer, prominent advocate of

4240-446: The family home was becoming the place for moral education and the focus of middle class America's search for the meaning of life. Downing developed his view that country residences should fit into the surrounding landscape and blend with its natural habitat. He also believed that architecture should be functional and that designs for residences should be both beautiful and functional. In the beginning of his Architecture of Country Houses

4320-422: The firm took on more residential projects, Downing hired Frederick Clarke Withers (1828–1901) from London , who joined the firm as a draftsman in early 1852. Their most prestigious landscape commissions were the grounds of the White House and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. Vaux's work on the Smithsonian inspired an article he wrote for The Horticulturist , in which he stated his view that it

4400-434: 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

4480-427: 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

4560-426: The following year. Today it is the headquarters of the society, which operates as a seasonal museum open to the public on Sundays and for special events. Its collection of historical artifacts, particularly boat prints and models, relate to Crawford's business in an exhibit on his life. The collection also features a Gothic chimney rescued from the demolished mansion of A. J. Downing . The historical society obtained

4640-487: The forms and styles of ancient Greek architecture , in particular the Greek temple . A product of Hellenism , Greek Revival architecture is looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture , which was drawn from Roman architecture . The term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as an architecture professor at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1842. With newfound access to Greece and Turkey , or initially to

4720-434: 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

4800-444: The house was scheduled for a public auction. Many feared the nearby funeral home would purchase and demolish it to make room for a parking lot . On September 28, the Historical Society of Newburgh Bay & The Highlands decided to purchase the house. The Ossoli Club, Trustees of Washington's Headquarters and the Daughters of the American Revolution also contributed to the purchase as well as subsequent fundraising. Period furniture

4880-401: The morning, to the whole people." Another of Downing's surviving structures in the Italianate style, the Robert Dodge House, which stands today in Georgetown, D.C. , significantly altered. The Dodge House was an exact opposite of the Francis Dodge House, also a Downing and Vaux design, aside from the windows, fenestration, and decorative ornaments. In 1889, the city of Newburgh commissioned

SECTION 60

#1732791678394

4960-412: 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

5040-412: The new Central Park in New York City. In 1860, Olmsted and Vaux proposed that a bust of Downing be placed in the new park as an "appropriate acknowledgment of the public indebtedness to the labors of the late A. J. Downing, of which we feel the Park itself is one of the direct results." The monument was never built in the park, but a memorial urn honoring Downing stands in the Enid A. Haupt Garden near

5120-417: 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

5200-482: 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

5280-455: 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

5360-474: The plan was never entirely completed. However, federal agencies developed several naturalistic parks within the Mall over the next half century in accordance with Downing's plan. The parks remained until replaced by features that the McMillan Plan of 1902 described (see History of the National Mall ). Downing's building designs were mostly for single family rural houses built in the Picturesque Gothic and Italianate styles. He believed every American deserved

5440-444: 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

5520-441: The staircase is the iconic newel post , a carved dolphin head. It is thought to be the work of a New York City furniture carver or Massachusetts ship figurehead maker. The doors of the upstairs floor, and most on the main floor, are pine , painted with faux bois . Perhaps the house's most imposing element is its large pediment, centered with a Palladian window , supported by four 40' ionic columns . On October 3, 1953,

5600-429: 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

5680-414: 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

5760-524: 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.,

5840-591: Was donated for the interior, including a Duncan Phyfe sofa. Senator Thomas C. Desmond donated a period knocker. An inlaid white holly table was donated by Mary Roe Zeigler, wife of Lee Woodward Zeigler . It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in on September 27, 1972, and became a contributing property when the Montgomery-Grand-Liberty Streets Historic District was established

5920-403: 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

6000-652: 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

6080-672: Was in this journal that Downing first argued for a New York Park, which in time became Central Park. In it, Downing argued for state agricultural schools, which eventually gave rise. Downing worked to educate and influence his readers in his view of refined taste regarding architecture, landscape design, and even moral issues. In 1845, Downing was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician. In 1850, as Downing traveled to England, an exhibition of continental landscape watercolors by Englishman Calvert Vaux captured his attention. He encouraged Vaux to emigrate to

6160-703: Was time the government should recognize and support the arts. In 1846, the Smithsonian Institution was established, and soon a building to house the new institution was started on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. James Renwick 's Norman-style building stimulated a move to landscape the Mall in a manner consistent with the romantic character of the Smithsonian's building. President Millard Fillmore commissioned Downing to create

6240-427: Was to form a national park that would serve as a model for the nation, as an influential example of the "natural style of landscape gardening" and as a "public museum of living trees and shrubs." President Fillmore endorsed two-thirds of Downing's plan in 1851, but Congress found it to be too expensive and released only enough funds to develop the area around the Smithsonian. In 1853, Congress cut off all funds so that

6320-783: Was traveling on the steamer Henry Clay with his wife and extended family. A fire broke out amidships when the ship was just south of Yonkers, New York , on the Hudson River . A boiler explosion quickly spread flames across the wooden vessel and Downing was killed along with 80 others. A few ashen remains and his clothes were recovered days later. Downing's remains were interred first in Old Town Cemetery , but later transferred to Cedar Hill Cemetery, in his birthplace of Newburgh, New York. Following Downing's death, Withers and Vaux took over his architectural practice. After his death, writer and friend Nathaniel Parker Willis referred to Downing as "our country's one solitary promise of

6400-524: 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

#393606