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Content Blueprint STANDARDS: The material in this unit may be used to address the following Social Studies Standards:
BACKGROUND: Colonial Revival is a broad stylistic term used to describe buildings that truly resemble real colonial buildings, as well as what was far more common -- a conventional house type fitted up with a few "colonial" details such as classical columns, elliptical arches, etc. Buildings did not have to literally date from the colonial period to be a source of inspiration. Anything old and venerable could be dubbed "colonial." So inspiration ranged from the medieval-looking homes of the Pilgrim fathers, to George Washington's Mt. Vernon, even to 1840s Greek Revival plantation houses. Architects began studying colonial buildings in the 1870s, but scholars disagree upon exactly when the first fully developed Colonial Revival house appeared. As previously mentioned in the discussion of the Victorian Era Queen Anne Revival, Colonial Revival motifs were mixed with the Queen Anne during the early years of the Colonial Revival's popularity. Eventually the Queen Anne's reign ended and the Colonial Revival gained in Americans' esteem. The style probably reached its apex in the 1920s, but Colonial Revival motifs are still occasionally found on ranch style houses today. A number of factors contributed to the Colonial Revival's popularity. These included:
CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE: Colonial Revival exteriors were restrained compared to those of the Victorian Era. Identifying features include:
LOUISIANA CONNECTIONS: Louisiana contributed to the rise of the Colonial Revival through its state pavilion -- a replica of a stereotypical old Southern plantation house -- at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Louisianians did not revive their own quite different colonial past (French). Instead, the state's Colonial Revival buildings for the most part look much like those found in other Deep South states, with one notable exception: the shotgun house. A new group of Colonial Revival style shotguns developed in New Orleans. Facades on these houses feature round classical columns and, on occasion, highly ornamented entablatures. Like other southern states, Louisiana revived the white columned look of Old South plantation houses (termed "Southern Colonial (2nd View )" by architectural historians). Indeed, to a layman it is hard to tell a c. 1915 "Southern Colonial" house from a real antebellum plantation house. The popularity of the Colonial Revival style eventually made Americans more concerned about preserving historic buildings and neighborhoods. New Orleans became one of the first cities in the nation to pass a historic preservation law when it created the Vieux Carre Commission in 1936. EXAMPLES: Cottingham
House, Rapides Parish PRINTABLE
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