England and Wales , designed by
John Nash, the earliest Italianate villa in England by
Palladio, 1559. The great Italian villas were often a starting point for the buildings of the 19th-century Italianate style. :
Charles Barry's Italianate,
Neo-Renaissance mansion with "confident allusions to the wealth of Italian merchant princes." A late intimation of
John Nash's development of the Italianate style was his 1805 design of
Sandridge Park at
Stoke Gabriel in
Devon. Commissioned by the dowager Lady Ashburton as a country retreat, this small country house clearly shows the transition between the picturesque of
William Gilpin and Nash's yet to be fully evolved Italianism. While this house can still be described as
Regency, its informal asymmetrical plan together with its loggias and balconies of both stone and wrought iron; tower and low pitched roof clearly are very similar to the fully Italianate design of
Cronkhill, the house generally considered to be the first example of the Italianate style in Britain. Later examples of the Italianate style in England tend to take the form of
Palladian-style building often enhanced by a
belvedere tower complete with
Renaissance-type balustrading at the roof level. This is generally a more stylistic interpretation of what architects and patrons imagined to be the case in Italy, and utilises more obviously the Italian Renaissance motifs than those earlier examples of the Italianate style by Nash.
Sir Charles Barry, most notable for his works on the
Tudor and
Gothic styles at the
Houses of Parliament in London, was a great promoter of the style. Unlike Nash, he found his inspiration in Italy itself. Barry drew heavily on the designs of the original Renaissance villas of
Rome, the
Lazio and the
Veneto or as he put it: "...the charming character of the irregular villas of Italy." His 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, albeit in a 'Grecian'
Ionic order in place of
Michelangelo's original
Corinthian order. Although it has been claimed that one-third of early Victorian country houses in England used classical styles, mostly Italianate, by 1855 the style was falling from favour and Cliveden came to be regarded as "a declining essay in a declining fashion."
Anthony Salvin occasionally designed in the Italianate style, especially in Wales, at Hafod House, Carmarthenshire, and
Penoyre House, Powys, described by Mark Girouard as "Salvin's most ambitious classical house."
Thomas Cubitt, a London building contractor, incorporated simple classical lines of the Italianate style as defined by Sir Charles Barry into many of his London terraces.
Portmeirion in
Gwynedd, North Wales, is an architectural fantasy designed in a southern Italian Baroque style and built by Sir
Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in a loose style of an Italian village. It is now owned by a charitable trust. Williams-Ellis incorporated fragments of demolished buildings, including works by a number of other architects. Portmeirion's architectural
bricolage and deliberately fanciful nostalgia have been noted as an influence on the development of postmodernism in architecture in the late 20th century.
Scotland The Italianate revival was comparatively less prevalent in
Scottish architecture, examples include some of the early work of
Alexander Thomson ("Greek" Thomson) and buildings such as the west side of
George Square.
Lebanon The Italian, specifically Tuscan, influence on architecture in Lebanon dates back to the
Renaissance when
Fakhreddine, the first Lebanese ruler who truly unified
Mount Lebanon with its Mediterranean coast, executed an ambitious plan to develop his country. When the Ottomans exiled Fakhreddine to Tuscany in 1613, he entered an alliance with the
Medici. Upon his return to Lebanon in 1618, he began modernising Lebanon. He developed a silk industry, upgraded olive oil production, and brought with him numerous Italian engineers who began building mansions and civil buildings throughout the country. The cities of
Beirut and
Sidon were especially built in the Italianate style. The influence of these buildings, such as those in
Deir el Qamar, influenced building in Lebanon for many centuries and continues to the present time. For example, streets like
Rue Gouraud continue to have numerous, historic houses with Italianate influence.
United States in
Greensboro, North Carolina United States East Coast The Italianate style was popularized in the United States by
Alexander Jackson Davis in the
1840s as an alternative to
Gothic Revival or
Greek Revival styles. Davis' design for
Blandwood is the oldest surviving example of Italianate architecture in the United States, constructed in 1844 as the residence of North Carolina Governor
John Motley Morehead. It is an early example of Italianate architecture, closer in ethos to the Italianate works of Nash than the more Renaissance-inspired designs of Barry.
Richard Upjohn used the style extensively, beginning in 1845 with the
Edward King House. Other leading practitioners of the style were
John Notman and
Henry Austin. Notman designed "Riverside" in 1837, the first "Italian Villa" style house in
Burlington, New Jersey (now destroyed). Italianate was reinterpreted to become an indigenous style. It is distinctive by its pronounced exaggeration of many Italian Renaissance characteristics: emphatic
eaves supported by
corbels, low-pitched roofs barely discernible from the ground, or even flat roofs with a wide projection. A tower is often incorporated hinting at the Italian
belvedere or even
campanile tower. Motifs drawn from the Italianate style were incorporated into the commercial builders' repertoire and appear in
Victorian architecture dating from the mid-to-late 19th century. This architectural style became more popular than
Greek Revival by the beginning of the Civil War. Its popularity was due to being suitable for many different building materials and budgets, as well as the development of cast-iron and press-metal technology making the production more efficient of decorative elements such as brackets and cornices. However, the style was superseded in popularity in the late 1870s by the
Queen Anne and
Colonial Revival styles.
Other U.S. regions in
Martinez, California The popularity of Italianate architecture in the time period following 1845 can be seen in
Cincinnati, Ohio, the United States' first
boomtown west of the
Appalachian Mountains. This city, which grew along with the traffic on the
Ohio River, features arguably the largest single collection of Italianate buildings in the United States in its
Over-the-Rhine neighbourhood, built primarily by German-American immigrants that lived in the densely populated area. In recent years, increased attention has been called to the preservation of this impressive collection, with large-scale renovation efforts beginning to repair urban blight. Cincinnati's neighbouring cities of
Newport and
Covington, Kentucky also contain an impressive collection of Italianate architecture. The
Garden District of
New Orleans features examples of the Italianate style, including: • 1331 First Street, designed by Samuel Jamison, • the Van Benthuysen-Elms Mansion at 3029 St. Charles Avenue, and • 2805 Carondelet Street (technically located a block outside the Garden District). In California, the earliest
Victorian residences were wooden versions of the Italianate style, such as the
James Lick Mansion,
John Muir Mansion, and
Bidwell Mansion, before later
Stick-Eastlake and
Queen Anne styles superseded. Many, nicknamed
Painted Ladies, remain and are celebrated in
San Francisco. A late example in masonry is the
First Church of Christ, Scientist in
Los Angeles. Additionally, the
United States Lighthouse Board, through the work of Colonel
Orlando M. Poe, produced a number of Italianate
lighthouses and associated structures, chief among them being the
Grosse Point Light in
Evanston, Illinois.
Australia , completed in 1876 in
Darlington, Sydney The Italianate style was immensely popular in Australia as a domestic style influencing the rapidly expanding suburbs of the 1870–1880s and providing rows of neat villas with low-pitched roofs,
bay windows, tall windows and classical cornices. The architect
William Wardell designed
Government House in Melbourne—the official residence of the
governor of Victoria—as an example of his "newly discovered love for Italianate,
Palladian and
Venetian architecture." Cream-colored, with many Palladian features, it would not be out of place among the unified streets and squares in Thomas Cubitt's
Belgravia, London, except for its
machicolated signorial tower that Wardell crowned with a
belvedere. The
hipped roof is concealed by a
balustraded
parapet. The principal block is flanked by two lower asymmetrical secondary wings that contribute picturesque massing, best appreciated from an angled view. The larger of these is divided from the principal block by the belvedere tower. The smaller, the ballroom block, is entered through a columned
porte-cochère designed as a single storey
prostyle portico. Many examples of this style are evident around Sydney and Melbourne, notably the
Old Treasury Building (1858),
Leichhardt Town Hall (1888),
Glebe Town Hall (1879) and the fine range of state and federal government offices facing the
gardens in Treasury Place. No.2 Treasury Gardens (1874). This dignified, but not overly exuberant style for civil service offices contrasted with the grand and more formal statements of the
classical styles used for
Parliament buildings. The acceptance of the Italianate style for government offices was sustained well into the 20th century when, in 1912,
John Smith Murdoch designed the Commonwealth Office Buildings as a sympathetic addition to this precinct to form a stylistically unified terrace overlooking the gardens. The Italianate style of architecture continued to be built in outposts of the British Empire long after it had ceased to be fashionable in Britain itself. The
Albury railway station in regional
New South Wales, completed in 1881, is an example of this further evolution of the style.
New Zealand As in Australia, the use of Italianate for public service offices took hold but using local materials like timber to create the illusion of stone. At the time it was built in 1856, the official
residence of the Colonial
Governor in
Auckland was criticized for the dishonesty of making wood look like stone. The 1875
Old Government Buildings, Wellington are entirely constructed with local
kauri timber, which has excellent properties for construction. (
Auckland developed later and preferred Gothic detailing.) As in the United States, the timber construction common in New Zealand allowed this popular style to be rendered in domestic buildings, such as
Antrim House in Wellington, and Westoe Farm House in
Rangitikei (1874), as well as rendered brick at
"The Pah" in
Auckland (1880). On a more domestic scale, the suburbs of cities like
Dunedin and
Wellington spread out with modest but handsome suburban villas with Italianate details, such as low-pitched roofs, tall windows, corner
quoins, and stone detailing, all rendered in wood. A good example is the birthplace of the writer
Katherine Mansfield. ==Image galleries==