Italian architecture

Lore & Background

The Italianate style was first developed in Britain in about 1802 by John Nash, with the construction of Cronkhill in Shropshire. This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the late Regency and early Victorian eras. The style was further developed and popularised by the architect Sir Charles Barry in the 1830s. Barry's Italianate style (occasionally termed "Barryesque") drew heavily for its motifs on the buildings of the Italian Renaissance, though sometimes at odds with Nash's semi-rustic Italianate villas. The style was employed in varying forms abroad long after its decline in popularity in Britain. For example, from the late 1840s to 1890, it achieved huge popularity in the United States, where it was promoted by the architect Alexander Jackson Davis.

Reader's Guide

Key visual components of this style include low-pitched roofs, emphatic eaves supported by corbels, loggias, balconies, and towers hinting at Italian belvedere or campanile towers. In England, Sir Charles Barry's most defining work in this style was the large Neo-Renaissance mansion Cliveden, while the Reform Club 1837–1841 in Pall Mall represents a convincingly authentic pastiche of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Thomas Cubitt designed Osborne House under the direction of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which became the inspiration for countless Italianate villas throughout the British Empire. In the United States, Alexander Jackson Davis' design for Blandwood is the oldest surviving example of Italianate architecture in the United States, constructed in 1844. The style became more popular than Greek Revival by the beginning of the Civil War, but was superseded in popularity in the late 1870s by the Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles.

Did You Know?

• The Italianate style was first developed in Britain in about 1802 by John Nash with the construction of Cronkhill in Shropshire.
• Sir Charles Barry's Reform Club (1837–1841) in Pall Mall is a pastiche of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, but uses a 'Grecian' Ionic order instead of Michelangelo's original Corinthian order.
• Alexander Jackson Davis' design for Blandwood, constructed in 1844, is the oldest surviving example of Italianate architecture in the United States.
• By 1855, the Italianate style was falling from favour in England, with Cliveden regarded as 'a declining essay in a declining fashion.'
• Cincinnati, Ohio's Over-the-Rhine neighbourhood features arguably the largest single collection of Italianate buildings in the United States.

Origins and the Rise of Novelty Architecture

Novelty architecture—sometimes called programmatic or mimetic architecture—refers to structures built in deliberately unusual shapes, typically to advertise a business or to echo a famous building. Unlike architectural follies, which are purely decorative, novelty architecture demands that the structure remain fully functional and usable. While isolated precursors existed earlier, such as the ambitious but ultimately unbuilt Elephant of the Bastille in Paris, the style truly took off in the United States during the 1930s. The proliferation of automobile travel created a new landscape of roadside stops, and builders seized the opportunity to make their establishments impossible to miss. New York's Statue of Liberty, with its accessible interior and role as a tourist destination, stands as an early hybrid of sculpture and monument that prefigured this trend. From that point forward, the combination of eccentric form and practical function became a defining feature of American commercial design, eventually spreading to other countries and giving rise to an entire category of landmark structures whose very strangeness ensures they are remembered.

Mimetic Design: When Buildings Become the Product

The most recognizable branch of novelty architecture is mimetic design, in which a building takes the literal shape of the goods it sells or the theme it celebrates. Along American highways, this produced a comical parade of structures: coffee shops molded into enormous coffee pots, hot dog stands shaped like a single oversized sausage, and fruit stands sculpted as giant oranges. Specific landmarks include Tail o' the Pup, a hot dog–shaped stand; Brown Derby, a restaurant in the form of a derby hat; and Bondurant's Pharmacy, built as a mortar and pestle. The Big Apple Restaurant rises 10.7 metres as a three-dimensional apple, while the Big Duck began life as a poultry store and now operates as a gift shop. The tradition extends well beyond food: Lucy the Elephant and the Longaberger Company's head office in the United States, the High-Heel Wedding Church in Taiwan, the Mr. Toilet House in South Korea, the Elephant Building in Thailand, and Germany's Wolfartsweier Cat Kindergarten and BMW Headquarters all demonstrate how mimetic form can carry a wide range of commercial and institutional identities.

Replica Landmarks and the Architecture of Imitation

A second major category of novelty architecture involves buildings that replicate or adapt famous landmarks from around the world. This approach is especially prevalent in casinos, hotels, shopping plazas, and amusement parks, where the playfulness of imitation is intended to add to their appeal. Macau's The Venetian features a replica of St Mark's Campanile. In China, the New South China Mall in Dongguan includes a 25-metre replica of the Arc de Triomphe, a copy of Venice's St Mark's Campanile, and a 2.1-kilometre canal with gondolas. Japan's Huis Ten Bosch theme park near Nagasaki recreates Dutch landmarks, while a Kansas City shopping plaza houses a half-sized replica of La Giralda in Sevilla.

Whimsy at the Community Scale: Water Towers, Tanks, and Giant Sculptures

At a smaller, more local level, novelty architecture manifests in water towers, storage tanks, and oversized sculptures that become the visual identity of a small town or roadside stop. Water towers, often the most prominent structure in a small community, have been shaped or decorated to resemble peaches, coffee pots, teapots, corn cobs, wine bottles, sauce bottles, fishing bobbers, and strawberries. Breweries and other businesses have similarly designed their holding tanks in the form of giant beer cans or other beverage containers. Beyond functional infrastructure, giant sculptures of ordinary items scaled to building size appear at roadside parks, attractions, and museums across Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the United States. These sculptures tend to represent local wildlife such as fish, regional plants like apples or pineapples, well-known local figures such as Paul Bunyan, branded food items like the candy bars at the former Curtiss Candy Company, sporting equipment including giant bats and tires, musical instruments such as guitars, clothing like oversized boots, and popular creatures including dinosaurs. Together, these structures transform everyday objects into civic symbols, ensuring that a small town or a simple roadside stop becomes a memorable destination in its own right.