User:Carptrash/Second Empire architecture in the United States and Canada

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Philadelphia City Hall, John McArthur, Jr. architect, 1871-1901

In the United States, where the leadings architects working in the style were Alfred B. Mullett and John McArthur, Jr., large scale buildings in the style were often closer to their 17th-century roots than examples of the style found in Europe.[1] However, unlike in Europe, in the United States and Canada many of the buildings constructed in the Second Empire style were residences.

Alfred B. Mullett's former State, War and Navy Building, , Washington, D.C., begun during the Grant administration and built between 1871 and 1888.

In the United States, where the style is known as Second Empire,[2] Second Empire Baroque,[3] or French Baroque Revival,[4] or French Second Empire,[5] the Second Empire style frequently combined a rectangular tower, or similar element, with a steep mansard roof, the roof being the most noteworthy link to the style's French roots. This tower element could be of equal height to the highest floor, or could exceed the height of the rest of the structure by a story or two. The mansard roof crest was often topped with an iron trim, sometimes referred to as "cresting". In some cases, lightning rods were integrated into the cresting design, making the feature useful beyond its decorative features. Although still intact in some examples, this original cresting has often deteriorated and been removed. The exterior style could be expressed in either wood, brick or stone. More elaborate examples frequently featured paired columns as well as sculpted details around the doors, windows and dormers. There is frequently "strongly moulded string courses."[6] Corners of buildings, both monumental and relatively modest examples often feature quoins on the corners.

Floor plans for Second Empire residences could either be symmetrical, with the tower (or tower-like element) in the center, or asymmetrical, with the tower or tower-like element to one side. Virginia and Lee McAlester divided the style into five subtypes:[7]

  • Simple mansard roof – about 20%
  • Centered wing or gable (with bays jutting out at either end)
  • Asymmetrical – about 20%
  • Central tower (incorporating a clock) – about 30%
  • Town house

The architect H.H. Richardson designed several of his early residences in the style, "evidence of his French schooling".[8] These projects include the Crowninshield House (1868) in Boston Massachusetts, the H. H. Richardson House (1868) in Staten Island, New York, and the William Dorsheimer House (1868) in Buffalo, New York.

Chateau-sur-Mer, on Bellevue Avenue, in Newport, Rhode Island, was remodeled and redecorated during the gilded age of the 1870s by Richard Morris Hunt in this style.

Leland M. Roth refers to the style as "Second Empire Baroque."[9] Mullett-Smith terms it the "Second Empire or General Grant style" due to its popularity in designing government buildings during the Grant administration.[10]

The style was also used for commercial structures, and was often used when designing state institutions. Several psychiatric hospitals proved the style's adaptability to their size and functions. Prior to the construction of the Pentagon during the 1940s, the Second Empire–style Ohio State Asylum for the Insane in Columbus, Ohio, was reported to be the largest building under one roof in the U.S., though the title may actually belong to Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, another Kirkbride Second Empire asylum.

Second Empire was succeeded by the revival of the Queen Anne Style and its sub-styles, which enjoyed great popularity until the beginning of the "Revival Era" in American architecture just before the end of the 19th century, popularized by the architecture at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.


Selected examples in the United States and Canada[edit]

Gallery[edit]

  1. ^ Copplestone, p. 311.
  2. ^ Minnesota History, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Winter 2012-13)
  3. ^ Roth, Leland M., A Concise History of American Architecture, ICON Editions, Harper & Row, Publishers, New York 1980 pp. 128-132
  4. ^ Dorsey, John and James D. Dilts, A Guide to Baltimore Architecture, Tidewater Publishers, Centerville, Maryland, 1981, p. 86
  5. ^ Gebhard, David, Montgomery, Winter, Woodbridge, Woodbridge, revised by Gebhard, Sandweiss, Winter, The Guide to Architecture in San Francisco and Northern California, Peregrine Smith Books, Salt Lake City, 1985 p. 561
  6. ^ Maitland, Leslie, Jacqueline Hucker, & Shannon Ricketts, “A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles, Broadview Press Ltd., Peterborough, Ontario 1992 p. 64
  7. ^ McAlester p. 241 .
  8. ^ Ochsner, [page needed].
  9. ^ Roth p.128.
  10. ^ Mullett-Smith p. 29.
  11. ^ Someplace Like Home: An eerily familiar house rises in many American landscapes by Paul Bochner. The Atlantic Monthly, May 1996.
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