Houses in the early 1900s adopted and mixed earlier architectural styles.
Architecture in the early years of 20th century was marked by designs that were used in the late 1800s and carried over into the new era. Many of the dominant styles of the period used various elements from contrasting architectural designs, combining them to create new forms while remaining true to traditional roots. Does this Spark an idea?
Bungalow or Craftsman
Craftsman or Bungalow styles, which were popular from 1905 to the early 1930s, were based on ideas from the Arts and Crafts movement whose proponents encouraged the use of natural materials and simple forms. The name Craftsman came from the magazine of the same name that furniture maker Gustav Stickley started to promote the Arts and Crafts movement. Consumers often bought these houses in kits from catalogs.
Bungalows are front-gabled, cross-gabled or side-gabled. The features of the Craftsman houses are low and gently sloping roofs. These roofs have wide and overhanging eaves with exposed rafters called rafter tails under the eaves. Often these houses will have decorative brackets, a porch beneath the overhanging roofs surrounded by tapered or square columns. Hand-crafted stone and woodwork is frequently found in these houses but the interiors are simple, meant to reflect the Arts and Crafts emphasis on clean and uncluttered lines.
Folk Victorian
The most common architectural style for the early 1900s was the Folk Victorian. These houses, created for the middle class, combined and mimicked various styles of more upscale homes. Shingle, Gothic Revival, and Italianate were popular styles. Folk Victorians were wood-frame structures with clapboard siding, wide windows and decorative cedar shingles. Many of the houses used pre-cut and mass-produced ornamental elements such as spindle work and brackets on long porches.
Queen Anne
The Queen Anne style emerged in the late Victorian period in the 1880s and lasted until the middle of the 1900s. This style, in contrast to the simplicity of the Arts and Crafts architecture, was elaborate and showy. Queen Anne houses had projecting bay windows, turrets, porches on many stories, stained glass, crests in wall carvings and decorative trim. Queen Anne homes usually featured earthy tones such as hunter green, burnt yellow and deep sienna red.
Shingle Style
The Shingle style lasted from 1874 to 1910. It borrowed from other architectural movements like the Queen Anne, Tudor, Gothic, Stick and Colonial Revival. This style featured continuous wood shingles on the roof and siding with an irregular roof line. The Shingle style often borrowed the squat half-towers of the Gothic form, with a large window divided into three parts, called a Palladian or Venetian window. Stonework was a hallmark of this style, with rough-hewn stones on the lower stories, and stone arches or porches.
Tags: Queen Anne, Arts Crafts, Arts Crafts movement, Crafts movement, early 1900s, Folk Victorian, these houses