Colonial Expansion Impact on Architecture and Design

   The US is a country made up primarily of immigrants; people coming from all around the world.  Appropriately called the "melting pot" of the world, the US prides itself on being a country made up of many different people, cultures, and ideas, all with one thing in common- freedom.  It was because of freedom that the first immigrants came from Europe to America to escape religious persecution and make a new life for themselves.  With this transition, people brought over crops, disease, and the knowledge and experience they had previously acquired to build a new world.

Conch Style House in Key West, FL

    Since the expansion, the US began to acquire new buildings that sang distant songs of familiar buildings to the newly transitioned European peoples.  One example of colonial expansion affecting architecture is the conch style, known for wrought iron porches and a spanish style, found mostly today in Florida, the Carribean, and the spanish area of the French Quarter in New Orleans, LA.  The conch style is thought to stem from Spanish influence.  The name came from the origin of the mortar used to build the houses, where people used burned conch shells in the mortar mix.  The houses are found plentifully in southern Florida because they are built to withstand rough weather conditions.

Presidio de Santa Barbara

 


     In the late 18th century the Spanish began building small presidios, small forts, in Northern California to resist Russian and English colonization.  These presidios were built in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco.  Today, the presidios that are still standing are open for visitors and educational purposes.

Examples of minimal wooden structures in Jamestown, VA

 
      The Spanish were not the only influential architects, as many of the settlers of the colonies were from England.  The English influence on architecture was recognized by simple structures, reminiscent of farm and small village homes.  The homes and buildings were made up of materials readily available to the settlers; wood for the houses and brick or stone for the chimneys.  Houses had small windows due to the unavailability of glass to the New World, even after England began manufacturing glass America did not catch on to expanding windows for another hundred years.  Because the houses were so bland and minimal, residents decorated their houses by creating decorations with nails on their front doors; the more nails, the more elaborate the decoration.

Massachusetts State House

      In 1773 the Congress of the US issued the Declaration of Independence, but it was not until 1783 that the Treaty if Paris Recognized the new states.  Though ties to England were not as strong as they had once been, the Georgian influence of architecture was still heavily influencing the new states.  When federal buildings began to be built, the Georgian influence showed through the use of columns, domes, and pediments.  With the wave of freedom came a new wave of living like you are staying, rather than building new things and developing colonies, with the introduction of architectural magazines into circulation.  The federal style began to create its own path, branching away from the Georgian style and moving towards a newly developed American style.  The American style of architecture was seen through elongated rectangular houses, with subtle decorative details like garlands and urns.  The federal style of architecture was constituted through white wash walls, bright interiors, high ceilings, emphasized rational elements as well as domes inside with paintings or gilded ceilings.  The federal style reminds me of a Greek or Roman influenced style, with less focus on the wide open spaces and more focus on the power the style resinates.
     Colonial expansion is the reason the US is so diverse in everything it does, whether it be culture, food, architecture, style of dress, mannerisms, whatever it is, it was probably adapted from somewhere else.  It is the combination is mixing of the many styles from around the world that makes America so unique and a place of vacation for people around the world.  And we thought we were the melting pot because of our skin colors!



Photo Sources:

http://www.boatclassifieds.us/c/1553/Houseboats.html
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~robert/JohnArvine.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mass_statehouse_eb1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_of_Santa_Barbara