All of these blinds are of heavy construction, having top and lock rails
about the same width as the stiles, and bottom rails about double width.
Except for heavy louvers instead of panels, they are much like shutters.
The frame is of the same thickness, with mortise and tenon joints
doweled together.
A picturesque feature of Philadelphia window treatment is the quaint
wrought-iron fixtures with which shutters and blinds are hung and
fastened. As clearly shown by the accompanying detail photograph of a
window of the Morris house, outside shutters are generally hung by means
of hinges to the frame of the window. As these frames are set back in
the reveal of the masonry, these hinges are necessarily of special
shape, being of large projection to enable the shutters to fold back
against the face of the wall. They were strap hinges tapering slightly
in width, corresponding in length to the width of the shutter and
fastened to it by means of two or three bolts. Small pendant rings on
the inside of the meeting stiles were provided for pulling the shutters
together and closing them. They were fastened together by a long
wrought-iron strap, usually bolted to the left-hand shutter, that
projects to overlap the opposite shutter five or six inches when the
shutters are closed. Near the projecting end of the strap a pin at right
angles to it sticks through a hole in an escutcheon plate in the lock
rail of the opposite shutter, and an iron pin, suspended by a short
length of chain to prevent loss, is inserted through a vertical drilling
in the pin. Later, sliding bolts were used, as seen on the shutters at
Number 128 Race Street and the blinds at Number 6105 Germantown Avenue,
Germantown.
Shutters and blinds were held back against the face of the wall in an
open position by quaint wrought-iron turn buckles or gravitating catches
and other simple fasteners. That on the shutters of the Perot-Morris
house is the most prevalent pattern. The scroll at the bottom is longer
and heavier than the round, flattened, upper portion, so that the
fixture is kept in position by gravity. In this instance it is placed in
the masonry wall near the meeting stile of the shutter. A similar
fastener on the Chew house is placed in the window sill near the outer
stile of the shutter. Another type of turning fastener that was quite
popular is seen at Number 6043 Germantown Avenue, Germantown. It is
held in place by a long iron strap screwed to the window sill, and the
weight of the gravitating catch consists of a casting representing a
bunch of grapes. More primitive and less satisfactory in use and
appearance is the spring fastener bearing against the edge of the
shutter seen at Wyck. Crude as these fixtures were, they have hardly
been improved upon in principle, and similar designs of more finished
workmanship are still used in modern work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account