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Art Deco

Overview

A creative but short-lived movement, Art Deco designs not only influenced the architecture of most American cities, but also had an impact on fashion, art and furniture, too. From 1925 to 1940, Americans embraced Art Deco architecture as a refreshing change from the eclectic and revivalist sensibilities that preceded it. The style takes its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs held in Paris in 1925 as a showcase for new inspiration.

The Art Deco style was essentially one of applied decoration. Buildings were richly embellished with hard-edged, low-relief designs, geometric shapes (including chevrons and ziggurats) and stylized floral and sunrise patterns. Shapes and decorations inspired by Native American artwork were among the archetypes of the Art Deco lexicon. Although some buildings utilized expensive hand-crafted decoration, others used machine-made repetitive decorations. To keep costs down, ornamental treatment was often limited to the most visible parts of the building.

Art Deco projects produced dynamic collaborations between architects, painters, sculptors and designers — sometimes resulting in complete Art Deco environments like Old Miami Beach, Florida.

In its day, some of what we now refer to as Art Deco architecture was often called Moderne or Art Moderne, a term used to describe the most advanced design ideas from the 1930s to the end of World War II. Being close cousins, Art Deco and Art Moderne shared stripped-down forms, but Art Moderne had a horizontal rather than vertical emphasis, rounded rather than angular corners and little surface ornamentation.

Art Deco design was first applied to public and commercial buildings in the 1920s. Although individual homes were rarely designed in the Art Deco style, architects and developers, especially in Greater Washington, D.C., found that the Art Deco style adapted quite well to apartment buildings. Most of these buildings are still in use, a testament to the city’s richly varied architectural history.

For all its panache, Art Deco architecture was immensely practical in execution. For projects on a tight budget, the simple box could be decorated with motifs and embellished with appendages that made a conceptually rudimentary structure appear fashionable and up to date. Visual interest could be further enhanced by stretching linear forms horizontally and vertically throughout the building. This was frequently done with bands of brick, canopies or copings.

A 1984 book, Washington Deco by Hans Wirz and Richard Striner, catalogs over 400 Art Deco buildings in the Washington, D.C. area. Two examples of Art Deco design are on Capitol Hill: the former Kresge Store at 666 Pennsylvania Avenue SE built in 1936 and recently expanded and the Penn Theater at 650 Pennsylvania Avenue SE built in 1935. Although the Penn Theater itself was demolished, the marquee and a portion of the façade have been incorporated into the new building.

Additional examples of Washington, D.C. Art Deco are the Kennedy-Warren Apartments at 3133 Connecticut Avenue NW, the Hecht Company warehouse on New York Avenue NE and the sign of the former Greyhound Bus Terminal on New York Avenue NW.

Characteristics

In classic Art Deco, rectangular blocky forms were often arranged in geometric fashion and broken up by curved ornamental elements. The aim of classic Art Deco was always to achieve a monolithic appearance with applied decorative motifs.

Materials

Art Deco materials included stucco, concrete, smooth-faced stone and terra cotta. Steel and aluminum were often used along with glass blocks and decorative opaque plate glass (vitrolite).

Roof

Art Deco designers adorned flat roofs with parapets, spires or tower-like constructs to accentuate a corner or entrance. Decorative curiosities such as chimneys were added to further enhance the design

Windows

Windows in Art Deco designs usually appear as punctured openings, either square or round. To maintain a streamlined appearance for the building, they were often arranged in continuous horizontal bands of glass. Wall openings are sometimes filled with decorative glass or with glass blocks, creating a contrast of solid and void forms while admitting daylight.

Many large apartment buildings found aesthetic success with decorative embossed spandrel panels placed below windows. The Kennedy-Warren Apartments is an example of Art Deco design.

Entrance

Doorways in Art Deco architecture are sometimes surrounded with elaborate pilasters and pediments and door surrounds are often embellished with either reeding (a convex decoration) or fluting (a concave decoration). The quality and extent of the decorative motifs vary by project and designer.

American Bungalow

Overview

Although the term bungalow is now commonly used to describe a small one- or one-and-a-half-story home or casual beach house, the word is actually derived from the Indian Hindustani word “bangala,” meaning “belonging to Bengal.” In fact, bungalows as we know them were first built in India in the mid-nineteenth century by the British. The intent was to design an informal, easily constructed, one-story rest house for travelers. Built low to the ground, the structure had large porches sheltered by wide overhanging eaves, a perfect way to deal with the country’s hot, sunny climate.

The American version of the bungalow did not appear until around the turn of the century. First built in southern California, where most landmark examples of the style are found, the American Bungalow was the dominant architectural style in the United States between 1905 and 1930. Relatively few of these houses were built after 1930.

Much like its British prototype, the American Bungalow had a small interior, a low-pitched roof and ample porches. Well-suited to a warm climate, practical, and economical, the American Bungalow met the needs of young families and first-time homebuyers. For others, the appeal was more fundamental. Stylistically, the American Bungalow’s simplicity was a refreshing departure from ornate Victorian architectural designs that came the new century, somehow seemed less impressive.

Easy to build, American Bungalows could be adapted to almost any taste or region. At the height of the architectural style’s popularity, several companies even sold bungalow kits through mail-order catalogs. Sears and Roebuck & Company started selling plans and building supplies in 1895, but it was the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan that in 1906 started to offer complete design kits. All the building components for an American Bungalow (e.g., pre-cut lumber, nails, doors and plumbing) were delivered to the construction site, where local craftsmen erected the homes according to the kit instructions. This practice quickly made the American Bungalow style ubiquitous. Many bungalows built from kits can be found throughout Washington, D.C. in Chevy Chase and the Palisades area of NW. A fine example can be seen at 5400 Galena Place NW.

Characteristics

Simple design, sparse decoration and natural materials —these were the essential components of the American Bungalow style. American Bungalows always had front porches and a low sloping gable roof.

Materials

The materials used for the American Bungalows’ exterior usually suggested warmth and informality. Clapboard was the most common siding, followed by cedar shingle with the wood usually stained a natural shade of brown. Stone, brick or concrete block molded into a decorative form were also used.

Geographic location often dictated the exterior material used. For example, in the West, stucco walls and clay-tile roofs, materials indigenous to the area, were commonly used for American Bungalows.

Roof

The roof for an American Bungalow was a low-pitched gable with wide overhangs to shield the house from the sun. Exposed rafters usually extended out from the house with their ends sometimes cut-to-profile for decorative purposes. Dormers, if present, tended to be in the front with a gable roof or occasionally a shed roof and usually had low shed roofs.

Perhaps the most distinctive decorative element on an American Bungalow was the triangular knee brace that projected from the face of the front gable of the roof. Although meant to suggest the extension of the beams that supported the roof rafter, they were usually decorative and could be assembled in a variety of ways, depending on aesthetic requirements.

Windows

In American Bungalows, windows were most often double-hung with large, single panes of glass in each sash. Occasionally, the top sash had multiple panes. Some bungalows had casement windows. The windows were usually arranged as singles, grouped in pairs or for a prominent gable feature, arranged as a threesome. Window trim was always simple and flat wood.

Entrance

A front porch was a quintessential part of the American Bungalow design. Most had a unique supporting-post design, with short, square upper posts resting on massive piers or solid porch railings constructed of any one of a variety of materials, including stone, brick, concrete block, stucco, clapboard or shingle. The piers, often used in place of posts, frequently began at ground level and extended without break up to the roofline of the porch. Often they tapered as they rose, thus accentuating their structural purpose. Front doors were usually wood paneled with a small multi-paned window in the top.

Tudor

Overview

From 1890 to 1940, some American homes were built based on a medley of late Medieval and early Renaissance styles. Homes with these distinguishing characteristics were grouped under the heading of Tudor architecture. In the Washington, D.C. area, Tudor homes (along with Colonial Revival) made up the largest portion of homes built during the 1920s and 1930s.

European-trained architects, influenced by Old World styles, brought the eclectic, asymmetrical Tudor style to America toward the end of the nineteenth century. Built for wealthy homeowners, Tudor houses were of solid masonry with elaborate decorative stone and brickwork. They were sometimes called “Stockbroker Tudor” because their financially successful homeowners had frequently made their wealth in the booming 1920s stock market.

The Tudor style fell out of popularity around World War II when a resurgence of patriotism encouraged an appreciation for a more American style, that is, Colonial Revival. Tudor architecture was also expensive to build, not easily replicated and prone to maintenance issues.

One of the best examples of a Tudor style house in Montgomery County, Maryland is the landmark Newlands/Corby Mansion in Chevy Chase at the juncture of Chevy Chase Circle, Connecticut Avenue and Brookville Road. This Tudor home has a variety of dormer styles, window types and richly decorated chimneys that make it a highly stylized Tudor design. It has uncoursed stone, half-timbering, wide, decorated verge boards and a stone porte cochere. Just east of the mansion at Western Avenue and Brookville Road is a fine example of a more modest, but beautifully detailed, Tudor home.

Characteristics

Tudor homes are characterized by their steeply pitched gable roofs, playfully elaborate masonry chimneys (often with chimney pots), embellished doorways, groupings of windows and decorative half-timbering. The latter is an exposed wood framework with the spaces between the timbers filled with masonry or stucco.

Materials

There are several easily identifiable features of American Tudor architecture. The first is stucco walls with or without decorative wood half-timbering. A few Tudor houses of this style had weatherboard or shingled walls with stucco and half-timbered gables. Other Tudor style houses used stone for the walls often with a decorative stone trim. The most prevalent building material for American Tudor homes was brick, frequently laid out in an elaborate pattern on the first story with a second story of stucco or wood and false half-timbering in a decorative pattern.

Roof

A distinguishing feature of Tudor architecture and design was the steep gabled roof, often punctuated with small dormers and clad with slate. The main gable frequently had a secondary side or cross gable. Gable ends were often decorated with verge boards whose decoration ranged from simple to highly carved. A few variants had gables with parapets, which is very English.

Windows

Tudor style houses usually had casement windows grouped in rows of three or more framed in either wood or metal. Double-hung windows were less common. Windows were often divided into six or eight panes and were sometimes made up of rectangles and other times arranged in a diamond pattern. Windows were usually placed symmetrically in the main gable.

Entrance

A Tudor home’s entrance was part of an asymmetrical assemblage of architectural elements, some decorative and some meant to provide protection. Protection came from a thick masonry wall that allowed the door to be recessed, a projecting bay window or a small roof over the door. Renaissance embellishments included arched openings, board and batten doors, luxurious black metal door hardware and tabs of cut stone set into the brick wall, giving a quoin-like effect.

Colonial Revival

Overview

Colonial Revival is the single most popular architectural style in the United States in great part because of its richly varied vocabulary and inherent eloquence.

The name of the architectural style reflects the late 19th century fascination with homes built by the early English and Dutch settlers, an affection that intensified through the World War I and II years before peaking in the mid-1950s.

Colonial Revival architecture is essentially a mixture of styles, all uniquely American. Roof forms such as gabled, hipped and gambrel identify the style – diversity that allows a greater degree of adaptation when remodeling than the more rigidly defined architectural styles.

History

Colonial Revival homes built in the first wave of construction (1880 and 1945) tend to be professionally designed and often boast interesting architectural details fashioned from highly durable materials. The so-called Neo-Colonials built in the movement’s second wave from 1945 and on tend to dominate many of our newer suburbs. These homes tend to be plainer, less detailed and more assembled than crafted. Neo-Colonial homes reflect the common practice of constructing a brick façade on a structure otherwise wrapped in aluminum or vinyl siding.

The Basics

About one-quarter of the Washington, D.C. area Colonial Revival homes are detached two-story houses with a center hall and simple gabled roof. Another 25 percent or so feature hip roofs that slope on four sides.

The larger Colonial Revival houses often have an asymmetrical façade to accommodate a garage or porch. The effect is more complicated, but leaves a more interesting roof form. Roughly 10 percent of Colonial Revival homes are designed this way. The remaining subtypes feature variations of the primary roof forms.

Characteristics

Materials

Clapboard and shingle are often found in Colonial Revival architecture, but brick is the preferred material. This is especially true for Colonial Revival homes built after 1920 when brick veneer construction made brick more affordable. A fine example of Colonial Revival architecture executed in brick and stone is the Woodrow Wilson house at 2340 S Street NW in Washington, D.C. designed by architect Waddy Wood and built in 1915. On the corner of Newark Street and 34th Street NW, a good example of a brick center hall colonial can be found.

Roof

Gable roofs are the typical roof form found in Colonial Revival homes followed by gambrel and hip roofs. An excellent example of a Colonial Revival home design with Gambrel roof (ca. 1900) is found on Highland Street NW in Cleveland Park.  Slate shingles were commonly used until around WWII when asphalt shingles began to replace slate because of cost.

Windows

Windows were designed simple, although never reproducing the original Colonial style primarily because by then glass manufacturers had learned how to produce larger windowpanes that were too convenient and functional to ignore. Thus, most windows in the Neo-Colonial are rectangular with double-hung sashes, each one consisting of six, eight, nine or even twelve panes. Multipane sashes with only a single sheet of glass serving as the lower pane are also common.

Entrance

Colonial Revival homes frequently present a notable decorative entrance. This may consist of a paneled front door flanked by sidelights, a broken pediment over the door, a modest portico with columns and perhaps a pediment supported by pilasters.

Queen Anne

Overview

The peak period of Queen Anne architecture was 1880–1900, although the style persisted for another decade. The Queen Anne style was named and popularized in England by the architect Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912) and his followers. The term inaccurately implies aesthetic ideas from the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714). However, Queen Anne architectural design was actually based on much earlier English buildings, mainly those constructed during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras (Elizabeth I reigned 1558–1603; James I, 1603–1625).

In 1874–75, the first important expression of the Queen Anne style by an American architect rose in Newport, Rhode Island, where H.H. Richardson designed the Watts-Sherman house. However, many Americans first saw the Queen Anne design in 1875 at the Philadelphia Centennial, where the British government built several houses in the Queen Anne style.

As with other ornate Victorian-era architecture, the Queen Anne style found its most complete expression in detached homes that showcased its sculptural shapes and ornamented skin. These houses were typically built of wood, allowing the designer unfettered artistic expression in the patterns and details that define the Queen Anne style. Bold and unconventional color schemes were also a Queen Anne design trait of which San Francisco’s famous Painted Ladies are an example.

The decorative details on most Queen Anne homes in Washington, D.C. and other large eastern cities tended to be more subdued because of the urban preference for patterned brick and carved stone. Thanks to a building boom during the late nineteenth century, many Queen Anne townhouses were built in Washington, D.C. and fortunately, many of those buildings survive today. Round towers and broad decorative gables, as well as elaborate Queen Anne chimneys, dormers and windows are showcased on homes throughout Capitol Hill, Georgetown, Dupont Circle and elsewhere. There is a wonderful detached Queen Anne home at 36th Street NW on Macomb Street NW and others on Newark Street NW in the Cleveland Park area.

The historic district around West Montgomery Avenue in Rockville, Maryland boasts excellent examples of detached Queen Anne homes sited on generous lots.

Characteristics

Eclecticism, asymmetry, contrast and even excess were the hallmarks of the Queen Anne style. Every building sported a variety of surface textures. Elaborate motifs decorated gables, spandrel panels and, indeed, almost any flat surface. Newark Street NW in Cleveland Park features many highly decorative examples.

Materials

The Queen Anne style was achieved in a variety of ways with an array of materials that included patterned brick or stone, wood shingles and clapboard, slate, occasionally stucco and sometimes, terracotta panels. Decorative stone panels were frequently set into the wall, as were custom-molded and colored bricks, allowing some variation and detailing. Wood buildings could assume the full range of color and design with paint.

Roof

Steeply pitched and complex, Queen Anne roofs provided visual interest and variety with gables, dormers and turrets or towers often all in one roof.

Towers

Queen Anne towers — square, round or polygonal — were a favorite feature among architects designing Queen Anne homes. In some Queen Anne homes, instead of a tower, a turret supported by a corbel, projected from the second floor. The towers and turrets were capped with a conical, tent, domed or other artfully shaped roof and finished off with slate shingles and a copper finial ornament.

Windows

Typically, Queen Anne homes were embellished with bay windows and oriels. Sometimes the latter was part of a turret. Window surrounds were, as a rule, simple. Lower window sashes usually had only a single pane of glass. The upper sash may have followed suit, although it was frequently multi-paned or framed by small square panes. More elaborate window sashes featured stained glass in the upper portion of a double-hung window or in a transom.

Curved glass is unique to Queen Anne architecture, occasionally found in round bays and towers.

Entrance

Single-story, wrap-around porches were essential to detached Queen Anne style homes. Frequently, the porch was framed by decorative columns, brackets or applied ornaments. In urban areas, townhouses often featured a second-story porch, sometimes recessed into gables or towers. Several good examples of Queen Anne homes with upper-level porches can be found on townhouses along the 600 block of East Capitol Street NE on Capitol Hill.

Queen Anne doors may have delicately carved decorations, surrounding a single large pane set into the upper portion of the door.