Architecture

By Our Architecture Shall We Be Known
Introduction, architectural notes and photos by Nic Lambooy

Architectural styles of the 1900s are reflections of people's identities, more than in any previous century. The most persistent style was the basic symmetrical "Georgian" style. This was the "Box plus Roof " building with 1 or 1 1/2 or 2 storeys, adapting itself very well to the style changes of the century.

The first change came as the "Revival Greek and Roman" styles, which added pedimented porticoes to residences. The "Regency" cottage style added beautiful one-tiered verandahs to rural residences.

Public buildings received their Palladian facades and the "Dome upon Drum" central features. Toward the 1850s the romantic "Italianate" style gave the box-like Georgian buildings a larger roof overhang and asymmetrical facades, which also affected their interior plans. At that time the "Revival Gothic" style from the 1200s became prominent not only for churches but also for residences with their steep roofs and dormers.

New technological inventions of larger glass panes, cast iron elements, steel columns and beams and even prefabricated buildings introduced modernity into architecture. Toward the end of the century the "Revival" styles of Gothic, Renaissance, Second Empire and the newly discovered 10th-century Romanesque, shaped the colourful Victorian architecture.

These changes to architecture in the 1900s were, above all, largely due to the inventiveness of individual builders, who produced numerous variations to these styles under the banner of "Vernacular" architecture.

[.View the annotated gallery of Hastings County architecture in the maps and photos section]