TheItalianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history ofClassical architecture. LikePalladianism andNeoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-centuryItalian Renaissance architecture withpicturesque aesthetics. The resulting style of architecture was essentially of its own time. "The backward look transforms its object,"Siegfried Giedion wrote of historicist architectural styles;[2] "every spectator at every period—at every moment, indeed—inevitably transforms the past according to his own nature."
The Italianate style was first developed in Britain in about 1802 byJohn Nash, with the construction ofCronkhill inShropshire. This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the lateRegency and earlyVictorian eras.[3] The Italianate style was further developed and popularised by the architect SirCharles Barry in the 1830s.[4] Barry's Italianate style (occasionally termed "Barryesque")[1] drew heavily for its motifs on the buildings of theItalian Renaissance, though sometimes at odds with Nash's semi-rustic Italianate villas.
The style was employed in varying forms abroad long after its decline in popularity in Britain. For example, from the late 1840s to 1890, it achieved huge popularity in theUnited States,[5] where it was promoted by the architectAlexander Jackson Davis.
Key visual components of this style include:[6]
A late intimation ofJohn Nash's development of the Italianate style was his 1805 design ofSandridge Park atStoke Gabriel inDevon. Commissioned by the dowager Lady Ashburton as a country retreat, this small country house clearly shows the transition between the picturesque ofWilliam Gilpin and Nash's yet to be fully evolved Italianism. While this house can still be described asRegency, its informal asymmetrical plan together with its loggias and balconies of both stone and wrought iron; tower and low pitched roof clearly are very similar to the fully Italianate design ofCronkhill,[10] the house generally considered to be the first example of the Italianate style in Britain.
Later examples of the Italianate style in England tend to take the form ofPalladian-style building often enhanced by abelvedere tower complete withRenaissance-type balustrading at the roof level. This is generally a more stylistic interpretation of what architects and patrons imagined to be the case in Italy, and utilises more obviously the Italian Renaissance motifs than those earlier examples of the Italianate style by Nash.
Sir Charles Barry, most notable for his works on theTudor andGothic styles at theHouses of Parliament in London, was a great promoter of the style. Unlike Nash, he found his inspiration in Italy itself. Barry drew heavily on the designs of the original Renaissance villas ofRome, theLazio and theVeneto or as he put it: "...the charming character of the irregular villas of Italy."[11] His most defining work in this style was the large Neo-Renaissance mansionCliveden, while theReform Club 1837–41 inPall Mall represents a convincingly authentic pastiche of thePalazzo Farnese in Rome, albeit in a 'Grecian'Ionic order in place ofMichelangelo's originalCorinthian order. Although it has been claimed that one-third of early Victorian country houses in England used classical styles, mostly Italianate,[12] by 1855 the style was falling from favour and Cliveden came to be regarded as "a declining essay in a declining fashion."[13]
Anthony Salvin occasionally designed in the Italianate style, especially in Wales, at Hafod House, Carmarthenshire, andPenoyre House, Powys, described by Mark Girouard as "Salvin's most ambitious classical house."[14]
Thomas Cubitt, a London building contractor, incorporated simple classical lines of the Italianate style as defined by Sir Charles Barry into many of his London terraces.[4] Cubitt designedOsborne House under the direction ofPrince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and it is Cubitt's reworking of his two-dimensional street architecture into this freestandingmansion[4] which was to be the inspiration for countless Italianate villas throughout the British Empire.
Following the completion of Osborne House in 1851, the style became a popular choice of design for the small mansions built by the new and wealthy industrialists of the era. These were mostly built in cities surrounded by large but not extensive gardens, often laid out in a terraceTuscan style as well. On occasions very similar, if not identical, designs to these Italianate villas would be topped bymansard roofs, and then termedchateauesque. However, "after a modest spate of Italianate villas, and French chateaux"[15] by 1855 the most favoured style of anEnglish country house was Gothic, Tudor, or Elizabethan.The Italianate style came to the small town of Newton Abbot and the village ofStarcross in Devon, withIsambard Brunel's atmospheric railway pumping houses. The style was later used by Humphrey Abberley and Joseph Rowell, who designed a large number of houses, with the new railway station as the focal point, for Lord Courtenay, who saw the potential of the railway age.
An example that is not very well known, but a clear example of Italianate architecture, is St. Christopher's Anglican church inHinchley Wood, Surrey, particularly given the design of itsbell tower.[16]
Portmeirion inGwynedd, North Wales, is an architectural fantasy designed in a southern Italian Baroque style and built by SirClough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in a loose style of an Italian village. It is now owned by a charitable trust. Williams-Ellis incorporated fragments of demolished buildings, including works by a number of other architects. Portmeirion's architecturalbricolage and deliberately fanciful nostalgia have been noted as an influence on the development of postmodernism in architecture in the late 20th century.
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The Italianate revival was comparatively less prevalent inScottish architecture,[citation needed] examples include some of the early work ofAlexander Thomson ("Greek" Thomson) and buildings such as the west side ofGeorge Square.
The Italian, specifically Tuscan, influence on architecture in Lebanon dates back to theRenaissance whenFakhreddine, the first Lebanese ruler who truly unifiedMount Lebanon with its Mediterranean coast, executed an ambitious plan to develop his country.
When the Ottomans exiled Fakhreddine to Tuscany in 1613, he entered an alliance with theMedici. Upon his return to Lebanon in 1618, he began modernising Lebanon. He developed a silk industry, upgraded olive oil production, and brought with him numerous Italian engineers who began building mansions and civil buildings[clarification needed] throughout the country.[17] The cities ofBeirut andSidon were especially built in the Italianate style.[18] The influence of these buildings, such as those inDeir el Qamar, influenced building in Lebanon for many centuries and continues to the present time. For example, streets likeRue Gouraud continue to have numerous, historic houses with Italianate influence.[19]
The Italianate style was popularized in the United States byAlexander Jackson Davis in the1840s as an alternative toGothic orGreek Revival styles. Davis' design forBlandwood is the oldest surviving example of Italianate architecture in the United States, constructed in 1844 as the residence of North Carolina GovernorJohn Motley Morehead.[20][21] It is an early example of Italianate architecture, closer in ethos to the Italianate works of Nash than the more Renaissance-inspired designs of Barry.[21] Davis' 1854Litchfield Villa inProspect Park, Brooklyn is an example of the style. It was initially referred to as the "Italian Villa" or "Tuscan Villa" style.[22]Richard Upjohn used the style extensively, beginning in 1845 with theEdward King House. Other leading practitioners of the style wereJohn Notman andHenry Austin.[23] Notman designed "Riverside" in 1837, the first "Italian Villa" style house inBurlington, New Jersey (now destroyed).
Italianate was reinterpreted to become an indigenous style. It is distinctive by its pronounced exaggeration of many Italian Renaissance characteristics: emphaticeaves supported bycorbels, low-pitched roofs barely discernible from the ground, or even flat roofs with a wide projection. A tower is often incorporated hinting at the Italianbelvedere or evencampanile tower. Motifs drawn from the Italianate style were incorporated into the commercial builders' repertoire and appear inVictorian architecture dating from the mid-to-late 19th century.
This architectural style became more popular thanGreek Revival by the beginning of the Civil War.[24] Its popularity was due to being suitable for many different building materials and budgets, as well as the development of cast-iron and press-metal technology making the production more efficient of decorative elements such as brackets and cornices. However, the style was superseded in popularity in the late 1870s by theQueen Anne andColonial Revival styles.
The popularity of Italianate architecture in the time period following 1845 can be seen inCincinnati, Ohio, the United States' firstboomtown west of theAppalachian Mountains.[25] This city, which grew along with the traffic on theOhio River, features arguably the largest single collection of Italianate buildings in the United States in itsOver-the-Rhine neighbourhood, built primarily by German-American immigrants that lived in the densely populated area. In recent years, increased attention has been called to the preservation of this impressive collection, with large-scale renovation efforts beginning to repair urban blight. Cincinnati's neighbouring cities ofNewport andCovington, Kentucky also contain an impressive collection of Italianate architecture.
TheGarden District ofNew Orleans features examples of the Italianate style, including:[26]
In California, the earliestVictorian residences were wooden versions of the Italianate style, such as theJames Lick Mansion,John Muir Mansion, andBidwell Mansion, before laterStick-Eastlake andQueen Anne styles superseded. Many, nicknamedPainted Ladies, remain and are celebrated inSan Francisco. A late example in masonry is theFirst Church of Christ, Scientist inLos Angeles.
Additionally, theUnited States Lighthouse Board, through the work of ColonelOrlando M. Poe, produced a number of Italianatelighthouses and associated structures, chief among them being theGrosse Point Light inEvanston, Illinois.[27]
The Italianate style was immensely popular in Australia as a domestic style influencing the rapidly expanding suburbs of the 1870–1880s and providing rows of neat villas with low-pitched roofs,bay windows, tall windows and classical cornices. The architectWilliam Wardell designedGovernment House in Melbourne—the official residence of thegovernor of Victoria—as an example of his "newly discovered love for Italianate,Palladian andVenetian architecture."[28] Cream-colored, with many Palladian features, it would not be out of place among the unified streets and squares in Thomas Cubitt'sBelgravia, London, except for itsmachicolated signorial tower that Wardell crowned with abelvedere.
Thehipped roof is concealed by abalustradedparapet. The principal block is flanked by two lower asymmetrical secondary wings that contribute picturesque massing, best appreciated from an angled view. The larger of these is divided from the principal block by the belvedere tower. The smaller, the ballroom block, is entered through a columnedporte-cochère designed as a single storeyprostyleportico.
Many examples of this style are evident around Sydney and Melbourne, notably theOld Treasury Building (1858),Leichhardt Town Hall (1888),Glebe Town Hall (1879) and the fine range of state and federal government offices facing thegardens in Treasury Place. No.2 Treasury Gardens (1874).[29] This dignified, but not overly exuberant style for civil service offices contrasted with the grand and more formal statements of theclassical styles used forParliament buildings. The acceptance of the Italianate style for government offices was sustained well into the 20th century when, in 1912,John Smith Murdoch designed the Commonwealth Office Buildings as a sympathetic addition to this precinct to form a stylistically unified terrace overlooking the gardens.
The Italianate style of architecture continued to be built in outposts of the British Empire long after it had ceased to be fashionable in Britain itself. TheAlbury railway station in regionalNew South Wales, completed in 1881, is an example of this further evolution of the style.
As in Australia, the use of Italianate for public service offices took hold but using local materials like timber to create the illusion of stone. At the time it was built in 1856, the officialresidence of the ColonialGovernor inAuckland was criticized for the dishonesty of making wood look like stone. The 1875Old Government Buildings, Wellington are entirely constructed with localkauri timber, which has excellent properties for construction. (Auckland developed later and preferred Gothic detailing.) As in the United States, the timber construction common in New Zealand allowed this popular style to be rendered in domestic buildings, such asAntrim House in Wellington, and Westoe Farm House inRangitikei[30] (1874), as well as rendered brick at"The Pah" inAuckland (1880).
On a more domestic scale, the suburbs of cities likeDunedin andWellington spread out with modest but handsome suburban villas with Italianate details, such as low-pitched roofs, tall windows, cornerquoins, and stone detailing, all rendered in wood. A good example is the birthplace of the writerKatherine Mansfield.
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