Saturday, April 28, 2012

Historic Milwaukee Architecture


Designed by H.A. Betts (1907) and Herman Buemming (1919) in the Elizabethan Revival style, the exterior of the home is limestone with a green glazed tile roof. 

Elizabethan Revival occurred initially in the 1830s, with a second revival around the 1920s. It's precedents are the architecture predominant during "the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603), regarded as within the last phase of the Tudor period, but showing the influence of European Renaissance styles, though often somewhat provincial in treatment...Late Gothic features such as large mullioned and transomed windows, the E-shaped late Tudor plan, elaborate upperworks such as arrays of tall chimneys, turrets, etc., and even the occasional spire, were mixed promiscuously with the Orders, much strapwork, grotesque ornament, and obelisks...Elizabethan architecture was often ebullient, notably in chimney-pieces, frontis-pieces, and funerary monuments." (Oxford Dictionary of Architecture)

Elements of Jacobean architecture are also evident. This refers to the "reign of King James I and VI (1603-25), not greatly differing from Elizabethan architecture, and largely continuing in the reign of Charles I (1625-49)...Essentially a melange of Flemish, French, and Italian Renaissance influences." (Oxford Dictionary of Architecture)

The combination of Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture is sometimes referred to as Jacobethan.

As Richard Perrin notes, "Scalloped gable ends are characteristic of the Jacobean period at the tail end of the Tudor period."

A Milwaukee Sentinel article from March 22, 1908 stated, "This building is of old English Style of architecture and it is expected will introduce this style generally to Milwaukee."

[North Point Historic Districts - Milwaukee. Shirley du Fresne McArthur]

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