ITALIANATE STYLE MOULDING PROFILES & GALLERY
WHAT IS ITALIANATE STYLE ARCHITECTURE?
Italianate architecture was inspired by the rural villas in the Italian countryside. It typically will include low-pitched gable roofs, with overhanging eaves supported on scroll-cut brackets, arched windows and doors, and tower forms.
ITALIANATE ARCHITECTURE CHARACTERISTICS
Homes designed in the Italianate style generally emphasize the picturesque qualities of rural Italian villas and countryside farmhouses. The style is highly versatile, allowing for large country houses to simple suburban homes. Italianate homes are rarely single-story and usually feature an “L” or “T” shaped floor plan.
Other common characteristics of Italianate architecture include:
- Square towers, topped with a decoratively bracketed cornice
- Hipped, low pitch roofs
- Tall, narrow windows with ornate hood moulds
- Quoins in brick homes
- Larger homes may have cupolas
ITALIANATE STYLE TRIM & MOULDING
Both interior and exterior Italianate style mouldings are typically elaborate combinations of shapes and profiles. Italianate moulding frequently involves standardized profiles, fretwork and turnings made by machines.
Crown and dentil moulding is common among Italianate interiors. Meanwhile, elaborate window hood moulding is a common feature of Italianate exterior designs.
HISTORY OF ITALIANATE ARCHITECTURE
Italianate architecture emerged in Britain during the early nineteenth century as part of the Picturesque movement, which sought to create buildings that blended harmoniously with the surrounding landscape rather than adhering to the rigid formality of earlier classical traditions. Inspired by the rural villas and countryside of Renaissance Italy, architects returning from the Grand Tour introduced an idealized interpretation of Italian architecture that reflected an informal elegance. Around 1802, John Nash designed Cronkhill in Shropshire, widely regarded as England’s first Italianate villa, while Sir Charles Barry later advanced the style following his extensive travels throughout Italy. The movement reached its greatest influence after the construction of Queen Victoria’s Osborne House, establishing Italianate architecture as one of Britain’s most admired architectural expressions before it gradually yielded to the Gothic Revival during the 1850s.
As enthusiasm diminished in Britain, Italianate architecture flourished across the United States, where it became the nation’s most fashionable architectural style between approximately 1850 and 1880. Much of its success can be attributed to the influential pattern books of landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing, whose published designs enabled builders throughout the expanding country to construct sophisticated homes without the direct involvement of an architect. The style quickly surpassed Greek Revival in prominence, appearing in prosperous cities, growing towns, and rural communities alike throughout the Northeast, Midwest, western states and San Francisco, in particular. The Italianate style remains an American architectural legacy, capturing the nineteenth century’s admiration for the beautiful romance of the Italian countryside.
