pictured: Thomas Cole, The Architect's Dream, 1840.

We are surrounded by buildings which we do well to appreciate as rich texts. A careful reading of even unprepossessing buildings reveals tantalizing bits of a community's history, and the profound and deep-seated needs, aspirations and pretensions of societies and individuals.

Formally, many of the buildings you pass every day are grounded in the cultures we will study in our course, are revivalsof ancient art and architecture. Rarely have American architectural revivals placed a premium on archeological correctness, but neither are revivals arbitrary or coincidental--if they were, buildings would not be such useful and rewarding texts. Purposefully, architects and builders have appropriated, manipulated and even combined sometimes hallowed source material.

Why are antique styles "revived"? Why are particular architectural styles applied to specific, and sometimes new, building types? What connotations (welcome associations or undesirable "baggage") do historical styles bring along with them? What does an architect hope to evoke when drawing on a style (or styles)?

Why might an American citizen in 1840 in rural Branford--or on a sod prairie in Kansas, for that matter--wish to live in a miniature Greek temple? Why might classical forms seem fitting for civic, judicial or financial edificies? Why Romanesque libraries? Why might a Congregationalist or Jewish community eschew Gothic, while a college might embrace it? In what style should skyscrapers be built?

drawing: Alexander Jackson Davis, Elevation plan for Harral-Wheeler house, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1846. Demolished in 1956.

Harral-Wheeler bedroom, now installed at Smithsonian Institution.

Dresser and nightstand, Harral-Wheeler house. Smithsonian Institution.

Harral grave marker, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Information provided by: http://www.gwctc.commnet.edu