beautiful scenery of an unsuccessful playRomantic revival in American Architecture
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
The beautiful scenery of an unsuccessful play
Romantic Revival in American Architecture
In the 19th century, more precisely from around 1820, people in America started to turn towards the Gothic Style hoping for a welcome change from the stately, symmetrical architecture of the day. The Gothic Revival was only the first of the many styles that had come into fashion during the so called Romantic Revival and soon houses resembled churches, convents and storybook castles everywhere.
The architecture of this era may appeal to one and may be despised by others, but undoubtedly one is intrigued to find the reasons that had led to the birth of such a strange and controversial style, that was "somewhat like architecture, a little more than scenery, a little less than solids" according to Mumford.
Technically, it was Sir Horace Walpole in England who had come up with the idea of redoing his country-home with pseudo-Gothic details in the mid-1700s. Strawberry Hill became the model for Medievalism not only in England but on the other side of the Atlantic as well. Houses, especially, in rural areas began to sport gothic garb.
However, no style is picked up so fast and becomes successful in such a short time without massive reasons. In America, one of the reasons was that romanticism simply coincided with industrialism and the second should be sought in the fact that the country we are talking about is one with relatively short history of its own.
Unavoidably, the architecture of the early 19th century was unavoidably touched by industrialism. New mills and factories popped out of the ground everywhere and these edifices were not more than packing boxes lacking light and ventillation...