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Current Talk '04 I / Re:My Dream Collinwood (or would we really want "purely American" 1790s archit
« on: March 25, 2004, 01:34:57 AM »Both houses are too boxy.
Well, as I said, if one was to strip away the columns and the porch from the Spratt house, it would have been just as boxy as any house built in the Georgian style:
In fact, it would have been far less interesting than the Lee House.
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Is there NO way that someone in New England in the 1700's would have decided to build themselves a house that looks like the Old House? I know nothing about architectural history.
It would have been extremely unlikely. Throughout the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, colonial architecture was firmly based in the current styles in England. Even after independence, everyone still looked to England for matters of styles and taste. It actually took the devastating War of 1812 (during which, the British troops burned down the new capital city of Washington) to create a distaste for borrowed English culture.
Thomas Jefferson was basically the first to begin departing from English influenced architecture when he designed and began building Monticello (in Virginia) in 1769 - and even at that, the building as we're familiar with it today wasn't completed until 1823 (he was continually making changes and additions). Jefferson ushered in the Early Classical Revival (also referred to as Jeffersonian Classical) style, which spanned a period from 1770 through 1830. (Believe it or not, there are actually exact mathematical rules and "correct" ratios for each part of the classical orders and for how they're applied to buildings of different size, shape and function - but I digress. ) Jefferson not only designed houses for his friends, but his political influence was able to insure that many buildings in Washington, D.C. were designed in the same style. Classical Revival never acheived the wide popularity of the Federal style (which was based on the British Adam style), but it did pave the way for the Greek Revival style, which spanned 1825 through 1860, and which dominated American Building from 1830 to 1850, and which Spratt House was an excellent example. However, according to the original backstory for Collinsport, the viliage was founded in the late 17th century - about 150 years before Greek Revival came into vogue! (Not to mention, Collinwood was completed in 1795!)
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Ya know, I couldn't get with Lyndhurst as Collinwood in House of DS. They just didn't look right living there. I can't get away from the Old House and Collinwood sets on the show. There's an intimacy to the rooms that is lacking in these huge rooms at these "real houses".
If it wasn't for a few lines of dialogue from NoDS and the fact that the "flashback" period took place in 1810, Lyndhurst as Collinwood and the Schoales Estate as the Old House would have made sense in the DS films. I've only seen photos of the Schoales Estate, but to me it looks like the house falls into the Early Classical style. It may not have been the original home of the Collinses in Collinsport, but at least its style predates Lyndhurst's Gothic Revival style, which spanned 1840 through 1880. However, as she's giving Quentin and Tracy the tour of the house upon their initial arrival, Carlotta explains to them (in unscripted dialogue, mind you) that, "Collinwood was built by Joshua Collins in the late 1600s." HUH?! If Collinwood had been built that early, why the hell was there a need for the Old House - and what the hell year was it supposedly built? But no matter what the answers to those questions might be, there's no way in hell a Gothic Revival house would have been built in the 1600s or a Classical Revival house would have been built in the 1600s prior to a 1600s construction of Collinwood. But hey, why should the houses in the movies make any more sense than most of the other things in the original DS universe?