American Colonial Architecture

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Comprehensive survey of domestic and public architecture ranges from primitive cabins to Greek Revival mansions of the early 1800s. Nearly 500 illustrations. "Entertaining, vigorous, and clearly written." ? The New York Times.

The homes built in pre-revolutionary America mark the development of a new architectural and artistic style. This volume explains how the colonists, inspired by the freedom of the New World but influenced by their European roots, created an architecture that reflects their struggle both to reject and to retain the cultural, political, and social standards of Europe. Relevant quotes from the diaries, journals, and letters of the colonists offer a view of the day-to-day lives centered around their colonial homes. This volume presents the visual celebration of the spirit and evolution that produced some of America's greatest architectural icons. With more than 80 full-color photographs of North America's most stunning and historic colonial homes, this beautiful volume is a tribute to America's unique heritage.

This lavishly-illustrated volume provides an unprecedented look at twenty-eight houses (plus eleven barns and other structures) built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by Dutch colonists in the north-eastern United States, primarily in upstate New York and along the Hudson River Valley, on Long Island and Staten Island, and in New Jersey. An authoritative work-- written by eminent experts in the field-- "Dutch Colonial Homes in America" explores the homes in their broader social context by focusing on the historical and religious forces of the times. This book is the first to investigate the meaning of the home and its aesthetics for the Dutch in America, and also the first to look at these homes as a form of art and craft and, importantly, the influence this form and these people had on the shape of the American house to come. The 200 spectacular new color photographs here are beautifully styled in a manner that recalls the paintings of Vermeer and evoke what might have been the ambiance of these homes hundreds of years ago.

This book focuses on the various styles and modes of architecture that developed in the American colonies from the 17th to the 19th century. The book covers everything from Dutch colonial and pre-Georgian styles to the Georgian mode and the classic revival, as well as public buildings and churches of the colonial and post-colonial periods.

Incorporating more than 3,000 illustrations, Kornwolf's work conveys the full range of the colonial encounter with the continent's geography, from the high forms of architecture through formal landscape design and town planning. From these pages emerge the fine arts of environmental design, an understanding of the political and economic events that helped to determine settlement in North America, an appreciation of the various architectural and landscape forms that the settlers created, and an awareness of the diversity of the continent's geography and its peoples. Considering the humblest buildings along with the mansions of the wealthy and powerful, public buildings, forts, and churches, Kornwolf captures the true dynamism and diversity of colonial communities - their rivalries and frictions, their outlooks and attitudes - as they extended their hold on the land.