MEDITERRANEAN REVIVAL ARCHITECTURE & MILLWORK GALLERY
MEDITERRANEAN REVIVAL STYLE MOULDINGS
The molding profiles found in Mediterranean-style buildings are the same sorts of classical profiles used from Egypt and Greece to Spain and Morrocco but carried out in stone and stucco. Wooden moldings are often limited to beams, door and window jambs, panels, and frames and almost always have a natural transparent or stained finish rather than being painted. We find plain boards, small quirk or bead moldings, carved or stenciled twists and other simple fillets, quarter rounds and eased edges rather than more elaborate ogees or complex compound molding combinations.
HISTORY OF MEDITERRANEAN REVIVAL STYLE
Stretching from Spain and southern France to Italy, Greece, North Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean, the Mediterranean Basin has fostered a rich architectural heritage shaped by geography, climate, and centuries of cultural exchange. Mediterranean Revival architecture emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as architects sought to reinterpret these historic traditions for a new era. Drawing upon architectural traditions that evolved over centuries across the Mediterranean Basin—from ancient Greece and Rome to Byzantine, Moorish, and Renaissance precedents—the style reflected a landscape where locally available materials dictated masonry and mud construction, with tile or stone roofing and only judicious use of wood. These regional building traditions also introduced rendered plaster surfaces, rubble stone masonry, sun-baked terra cotta, polychromatic paint schemes, marble mosaics, and elaborate decorative patterns, many of which were reinterpreted by Mediterranean Revival architects during the early twentieth century. Rather than replicating a single historical precedent, Mediterranean Revival blended these diverse influences.
The style gained widespread popularity in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, particularly in California and Florida, where architects found its stucco walls, clay tile roofs, shaded arcades, and open courtyards well suited to similar climates. Architects such as Bertram Goodhue, Addison Mizner, and George Washington Smith helped popularize Mediterranean Revival throughout the United States, adapting centuries-old European and Mediterranean traditions to the needs of a growing nation.
