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THE ARCHITECTURE OF <br />COUNTRY HOUSES <br />A. J. DOWNING <br />Throughout <br />OWNING - <br />Throughout the early Victorian period American domestic architec- <br />ture was dominated by the ideas and designs of Andrew Jackson <br />Downing (1815-1852). Downing, who was America's first important <br />landscape architect, was instrurruental in establishing a tceil-styled, <br />efficient, yet low-priced house that offered ninny features which <br />previously only mansions could provide. His designs were widely <br />spread both by his books and by periodical mptihlicatiou. <br />Downings most important work was his Architecture of Country <br />Houses (1850), which passed through nine editions b)' 1866, and served <br />as the style -book for tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of homes <br />throughout the Eastern United States. It contains thirty-four designs <br />for model homes (country house in'this context simply rueaning a <br />separate house, as opposed to it town hoose), with elevations, floor <br />plans, and discussion of design, construction, and function. The <br />English country house of the period is the ground style, upon which <br />other styles are overlaid; designs showing Gothic, Drench, Italian <br />and Elizabethan styles allow the user considerable choice. In many <br />ways these designs form one of the first steps toward the modern <br />house, with avowed emphasis on function and convenience, expres- <br />sion of personality, catholicism of taste, and concord with environ- <br />ment. Decoration, of course, was not frowned upon. <br />Most valuable today is the author's full, thorough discussion of <br />many other aspects of the early Victorian house: aesthetic concerns <br />of architecture, adjustment to locality, materials, construction, costs, <br />floor plan, roofing, shingling, painting; chimneys and fireplaces, in- <br />terior woodwork, wallpapering, decoration, furnishing, ventilation, <br />sanitation, central heating, and landscaping. Since most of the houses <br />concerned have been destroyed or altered, and practically no living <br />situations have been preserved, this book is indispensable to everyone <br />interested in early American culture, interior decoration, restoration, <br />or Victorian architecture. It is far and away the richest source for <br />the period. <br />321 figures. 33 architectural designs. Introduction by J. Stewart John- <br />son, President, The Victorian Society in America. xxiv + 484pp. <br />5% x 8V2. Paperbound- <br />$12. 95 IN USA 9 7Q )43o ee) )31 <br />