A Concise History of American Architecture (1980)

Style Chronology
Any attempt to show the development and interrelationship of styles is certain to incorporate generalizations and simplifications that do not express adequately the complexities of’ historical fact.. Nonetheless this chronology is presented in the hope that it. may dramatize the many options that have existed for American architects since the early seventeenth century.
The style entries for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries describe ethnic and regional developments whereas those for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are not geographical in organization since the rapid dispersal of’ architectural ideas increasingly erased regional distinctions. It should be remembered that virtually all building in the seventeenth century was vernacular in expression and relatively unselfconscious, while designers thereafter were increasingly selfconscious. The style entries of’ the nineteenth and twentieth centuries show those modes employed by architects, but they indicate little of the far larger volume of important vernacular building.

The dates at which a style emerges or later passes from use are often difficult to pinpoint, for Although it is sometimes known when the first of a type appeared, vernacular variations on a style or expression often continued in outlying areas well after its use had subsided in the area of origin, The dates shown here, therefore, should he considered approximate not absolute.

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY REGIONALISM
Provincial Spanish Baroque (Southwest and Florida) c.1600-1840
Provincial Jacobean (Virginia, Carolinas) 1607-1695
Late English Gothic Vernacular (New England) 1620-c.1700
Provincial Dutch Renaissance (New Netherlands) 1624-c.1750
Swedish Vernacular (Delaware, Pa.) c.1638-1665
English Vernacular (New York) 1664-c.1700
English Vernacular (Delaware, Pa.) 1664-c.1700

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GEORGIAN
Early Georgian (in the middle 1680s isolated early Georgian buildings appeared in Boston and Philadelphia)

French Colonial (Mississippi Valley) c.1700-c.1805
Provincial Spanish Baroque 1768-c.1840

Georgian (Maryland, Virginia, Carolinas) 1695-c.1775
Georgian (Middle Colonies) 1703-c.1775
Georgian (New England) 1706-c.1775
Gibbsian Georgian (New England) 1754-c.1790
Gibbsian Georgian (Maryland, Virginia, Carolinas) 1756-c.1799
Gibbsian Georgian (Middle Colonies) 1760-c.1795

ASSOCIATIONAL ECLECTICISM: 1770-c.1820
Jeffersonian Classicism 1770-c.1820
“Gothick” 1799-c.1830

SYNTHETIC ECLECTICISM: 1790-c.1825
Adamesque Federalist 1787-c.1820
Federalist 1790-c.1820

ECLECTIC REVIVALS: 1818-c.1860
Greek 1818-c.1850
Early Medieval 1821-c.1850
Gothic 1839-c.1870
Egyptian 1834-c.1850
Renaissance, Italianate and Italian Villa 1837-1860
Romanesque 1845-1875

Downing-Davis Cottage 1842-1890
The Octagon Mode 1848-c.1860

CREATIVE ECLECTICISM I: c.1860-c.1885
Second Empire Baroque 1855-1880
High Victorian Gothic 1860-1880

Stick Style 1862-c.1880
Eastlake 1872-c.1885
Queen Anne 1875-c.1890
Shingle Style 1879-c.1900

Richardson Romanesque 1880-1895
Francois 1er 1880-1900
Chicago Commercial (Chicago School) 1880-1915

CREATIVE ECLECTICISM II: c.1885-c.1930
Renaissance 1887-1930
Beaux-Arts 1890-1920
Gothic 1885-1930

TWENTIETH-CENTURY PLURALISM
Craftsman Bungalow 1895-1940
Bay Area Group (San Francisco) 1900-1915
Prairie School 1900-1920
Northwest Regionalism 1935-1950
Suburban & Regional Eclecticism 1910-1940
Art Deco 1925-1940
Early Modern (International Style) 1929-1940
International Style (Mies and the Second Chicago School) 1940-c.1970
Formalism 1957-
Expressionism 1957-
Brutalism 1959-
Post-Modernism (Creative Eclecticism III) 1964-

Glossary

Sources Cited

Roth, Leland M. A Concise History of American Architecture. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1980.

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