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The range of styles available to the Victorian architect helped underline the
separateness and individuality of the larger Victorian house. From the 1830s,
Gothic emerged as the greatest challenge to the dominance of Classical styles.
Through the influence of Pugin whose ‘True Principles of Gothic Architecture’
was published in 1841, a more serious and analytical approach to the use of
medieval Gothic architecture emerged. Then in 1851-3, the art critic, John
Ruskin, published ‘The Stones of Venice’. This became a key text for the High
Victorian Gothic of the middle decades of the century and through Ruskin’s
influence elements of the Italian Gothic including pointed arched window
surrounds, elaborate polychrome brickwork and carved stone decoration, was
brought into the leafy suburbs of Victorian Britain. Italian architecture of the
sixteenth century was another style which was widely used for large suburban
houses in the middle of the century. It had its roots in Regency architecture
when Nash had experimented with a semi rustic Italianate villa style and was
further developed and popularised in the 1830s by Sir Charles Barry who drew
heavily on the buildings of the Italian Renaissance. Osborne House, on the Isle
of Wight, designed by Cubitt, for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and completed
in 1851 was the grandest example and provided the inspiration for many large
villas built in the 1850s and 1860s. Typical features included a square,
‘belvedere’ tower, deep projecting eaves, roof balustrades and round arched
windows. Other styles found included the Northern European – typified by the use
of the curved or Dutch gable – the French Baroque – which contributed the
mansard roof - and Elizabethan and Jacobean which contributed features borrowed
from the typical ‘Jacobethan’ large house, including towering chimneys,
mullioned windows and four pointed arched front door ways.
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