Italianate

"Italianate" describes the style of villas introduced in the United States by Alexander Jackson Davis in the 1840s as an alternative to Gothic or Greek Revival styles, featuring a low-pitched or flat roof with a wide, emphatic eave supported by brackets, often with a contrasting tower feature at one corner. Similar designs were being adopted by English architects in the 1840s for simple rural structures.

Related Topics:
Villa - Alexander Jackson Davis - Gothic - Greek Revival

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Motifs drawn from the Italianate style were incorporated into the commercial builders' vocabulary, and appear in American Victorian architecture dating from the mid to late 1800's.

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This style includes (among many elements) exterior ornamentation involving roof brackets with extended exterior cornice moldings, quoins, portico and floral designs. Examples of this design can be seen all across the United States, most notably in San Francisco.

Related Topics:
Cornice - Quoins - Portico

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This architectural style was soon overcome in the late 1870's by the Queen Anne style and Colonial Revival styles.

Related Topics:
Queen Anne style - Colonial Revival

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Key visual components of this style include:

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• low-pitched or flat roof
• large eave brackets under the roof
• dramatic cornice structures
• windows with one or two panes and heavy surrounds
• tall, arched windows with hoods or "eyebrows"
• paired windows, arched and curved windows
• tall first floor windows
• angled bay windows
• attics with a row of awning windows between the eave brackets
• large panes of glass in doors
• square or rectangular towers
• cupolas
• quoins
• long porches or arcades
• balustrade balconies
• cast-iron railings and facades
• two or three stories (rarely one story)
• rectangular plan, sometimes square
 
Italianate: See also ►