Architecture, Colonial; Architecture, Domestic -- North Carolina; Historic buildings -- North Carolina
The scope of this booklet does not include architecture of the late
colonial and early republican times, although some of our most
distinguished “colonial” buildings date from those years. The
architectural climate of the late 18th century differed from that found
prior to 1763. First of all, following the end of the French and Indian
War the colonies were more secure. Then, there existed a large body of
earlier architecture which could be seen as accomplished fact. The
building trades were more firmly established, a few professional
architects were beginning to appear, and architectural pattern books and
design books were more available from Europe. Although the earlier
buildings were vigorous in their design, the wealthy person who wished
to build a home in later colonial times often looked on them as quaint
and a little clumsy; he wanted something better and more up-to-date.
An outstanding example of what was up-to-date in North Carolina, is
shown above, an engraving of Tryon Palace, New Bern. This structure was
begun by Governor Tryon in 1767, completed in 1770 and destroyed by fire
shortly after the Revolutionary War. The work of reconstruction, begun
in 1952 is now virtually complete, and the palace is now one of the most
widely known colonial buildings in the United States. It is a good
example for our present purposes because, as a most important and costly
building, it reflects ideas regarded as “modern” in North Carolina at
the close of the pre-revolutionary period. The engraving shown is from
_The Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution_, by Benjamin J. Lossing,
1852. Although the palace was in ruins during Lossing’s time, he made
his engraving from drawings left by the building’s architect—the same
drawings used in 1952 for its reconstruction. The palace was designed to
impress the colonial man and woman shown in the illustration in certain
ways, as will be seen presently.
The exterior of the palace exhibits something new in our study: a
three-part layout design, diagrammed in figure 72. Above in the diagram
the three structures are arranged: kitchen—PALACE—stables. Other
outbuildings which, of course, were present are hidden in the first and
main view of the palace. This is quite different from the disposition of
the outbuildings at the Palmer-Marsh house (figure 9), where they are
found informally situated at one side of the house.
At the middle of the diagram depicting the Tryon structure, the long
façade of the palace building is shown broken into three parts:
wing—CENTRAL BLOCK—wing. The central block is crowned with a pediment
and is advanced slightly forward. The Palmer house also has six windows
and a central door, but the builder of this earlier structure did not
have the idea of breaking or articulating a long wall as in the palace.
Below in the diagram, the central block of the palace shows
window—DOOR—window. That door, crowned with pediment, is the ultimate
focal point.
[Illustration: FIGURE 72.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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