The later Colonial era saw a need to replace the buildings hurriedly assembled by earlier colonists, but competent builders were difficult to find. Capable housewrights were usually well paid and many became respected and prosperous members of their communities, but craft apprenticeships and a gentlemanly taste were two of the primary requirements for becoming an architect. As the profession developed, architects in the Northeast initiated efforts to distinguish between their work and that of housewrights and builders. This work is a history of the development of architecture as a profession in the United States. It is divided into four chronological sections. Section One covers the beginnings in Colonial times before 1800 when there were no identifiable professionals. Section Two examines architecture from 1800 to the Civil War, a period during which the first architects appeared. Section Three considers the profession from the time of the Civil War to World War I and the strengthening of the profession's status. Section Four covers architecture since World War I up to the present. Each section discusses the training of architects, standards of practice, general management methods, information sources, minority participation, and other aspects of professional operation, with special attention given to the relationship between the profession's development and the social history of the periods.

This study traces the development of American architecture from the age of Jefferson to the antebellum era, providing a survey of this important period. W. Barksdale Maynard overturns the long-accepted notions that the chief theme of early 19th-century American architecture was a patriotic desire to escape from European influence and that competing styles chiefly reflected the American struggle for cultural uniqueness. Instead, deep and consistent aesthetic ties, especially with England, shaped American architecture and house designs. Maynard shows that the Greek Revival in particular was an international phenomenon, with American achievements inspired by British example and with taste taking precedence over patriotism.

In 1879, Carpentry and Building magazine launched its first house design competitionfor a cheap house. Forty-two competitions, eighty-six winning designs, and a slew ofnear winners and losers resulted in a body of work that offers an entire history of anarchitectural culture. The competitions represented a vital period of transition in delineating roles and responsibilities of architectural services and building trades. The contests helped to define the training, education, and values of "practical architects" and to solidify house-planning ideals. The lives and work of ordinary architects who competed in Carpentry and Building contests offer a reinterpretation of architectural professionalization in this time period.Cheap and Tasteful Dwellings thoroughly explores the results of these competitions, conducted over a thirty-year period from 1879 to 1909. The book outlines the philosophybehind and procedures developed for running the competitions; looks at characteristicsof the eighty-six winners of the competitions; examines the nature of architecturalpractices during the period; analyzes the winning competition designs; and providesbiographical details of competition winners and losers.A landmark book in architectural history, Cheap and Tasteful Dwellings makes a compelling case for the theory of convenient arrangement--its history, its role, its principles, its relationship to contemporary interior design education, and its meaning to American architecture. More importantly, the book explains the impact of Carpentry and Building's contests in furthering the tenets of convenient arrangement for house design. By using extensive material from the magazine, Jennings leaves little doubt as to how important this overlooked story is to the history of American architecture as a whole.

This is the first in-depth study of how the architectural profession emerged in early American history. Mary Woods dispels the prevailing notion that the profession developed under the leadership of men formally schooled in architecture as an art during the late nineteenth century. Instead, she cites several instances in the early 1800s of craftsmen-builders who shifted their identity to that of professional architects. While struggling to survive as designers and supervisors of construction projects, these men organized professional societies and worked for architectural education, appropriate compensation, and accreditation. In such leading architectural practitioners as B. Henry Latrobe, Alexander J. Davis, H. H. Richardson, Louis Sullivan, and Stanford White, Woods sees collaborators, partners, merchandisers, educators, and lobbyists rather than inspired creators. She documents their contributions as well as those, far less familiar, of women architects and people of color in the profession's early days. Woods's extensive research yields a remarkable range of archival materials: correspondence among carpenters; 200-year-old lawsuits; architect-client spats; the organization of craft guilds, apprenticeships, university programs, and correspondence schools; and the structure of architectural practices, labor unions, and the building industry. In presenting a more accurate composite of the architectural profession's history, Woods lays a foundation for reclaiming the profession's past and recasting its future. Her study will appeal not only to architects, but also to historians, sociologists, and readers with an interest in architecture's place in America today. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1999. This is the first in-depth study of how the architectural profession emerged in early American history. Mary Woods dispels the prevailing notion that the profession developed under the leadership of men formally schooled in architecture as an art during t

In this beautifully illustrated and closely argued book, a completely updated and much expanded third edition of his magisterial survey, Curl describes in lively and stimulating prose the numerous revivals of the Egyptian style from Antiquity to the present day. Drawing on a wealth of sources, his pioneering and definitive work analyzes the remarkable and persistent influence of Ancient Egyptian culture on the West. The author deftly develops his argument that the civilization of Ancient Egypt is central, rather than peripheral, to the development of much of Western architecture, art, design, and religion. Curl examines: the persistence of Egyptian motifs in design from Graeco-Roman Antiquity, through the Medieval, Baroque, and Neo-Classical periods rise of Egyptology in the nineteenth and twentieth-century manifestations of Egyptianisms prompted by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb various aspects of Egyptianizing tendencies in the Art Deco style and afterwards. For students of art, architectural and ancient history, and those interested in western European culture generally, this book will be an inspiring and invaluable addition to the available literature.

This collection of both famous and little-known nineteenth-century Boston architectural drawings offers a unique picture of the ideas behind the building of one of America's greatest cities.