Virginia Architecture in the Seventeenth CenturyForman, Henry Chandlee
History
Virginia Architecture in the Seventeenth Century
Forman, Henry Chandlee
Architecture -- Virginia -- History -- 17th century; Architecture, Colonial -- Virginia
The Old Dominion at this time was full of medieval structures, of which
there were hundreds of kinds of every description: windmills, water
mills, taverns, guest houses, coffee houses, churches, mansions,
dwellings, hovels, state houses, glebes, brew-houses, warehouses,
furnaces, stores, shops, tanneries, market houses, guard houses,
blockhouses, tenements, silk factories, and countless outhouses. Taken
as a whole, these buildings possessed Tudor features identical to those
which we find in the medieval architecture of Britain: steeply-pointed
roofs, half-timber work, the huge "pyramid" chimney, "black-diapered"
brickwork patterns of glazed brick, and casements on hinges. Others are:
separate or grouped chimney stacks, overhanging storeys, beamed
ceilings, buttresses, stair towers, and "outshuts"--wart-like additions.
These are a few of the Tudor motifs; there are many more. Generally the
overall building designs were marked by informality and naïveté. Some of
these medieval Virginia buildings, such as the "Thoroughgood House" (c.
1640), and the "One-Bay Dwelling" (c. 1670), of which we present several
illustrations, are still extant.
ii. THE JACOBEAN STYLE
Although only a little wedge at first, when it came upon the English
scene, the Early Renaissance Style of architecture slowly and gradually
developed and expanded. As we have noted, it combined two phases, first
the Elizabethan Style, and then the Jacobean, much of which was based
either directly or indirectly upon Dutch, Flemish, and German
architecture. On the other hand, in Virginia these two styles,
Elizabethan and Jacobean, are for practical purposes combined into one
style, called "Jacobean."
[Illustration: Medieval One-Bay House, with "Pyramid" Chimney]
At the same time, this Virginia Jacobean was never an important and
widespread manner of building. To all intents and purposes it was a
minor style, dominated by, or grafted upon, the Medieval Style. You may
think of it as a kind of window dressing upon the Medieval. Its chief
example extant in the Old Dominion is "Bacon's Castle" (c. 1650), in
Surry County.
[Illustration: 2nd Bruton, Williamsb'g. 1683
A Jacobean Church in Virginia Author's Restoration.]
For the most part you may recognize the Jacobean by Cupid's bow lines in
house gables, door heads, window heads, and stair balusters. Such lines
reveal the decorative and exuberant curves loved much by the Low
Countrymen and by the Englishmen who took over the curves. All in all,
Virginia saw relatively little of the Jacobean because it was a minor
style.
iii. THE TRANSITIONAL STYLE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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