Federal architecture

Architectural style in the US / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:

Can you list the top facts and stats about Federal architecture?

Summarize this article for a 10 years old

SHOW ALL QUESTIONS

Federal-style architecture is the name for the classical architecture built in the United States following the American Revolution between c. 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was influenced heavily by the works of Andrea Palladio with several innovations on Palladian architecture by Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries. Jefferson's Monticello estate and several federal government buildings, including the White House, are among the two most prominent examples of buildings constructed in Federal style.

Charles_Bulfinch%2C_Tontine_Crescent.jpg
Central Pavilion at Tontine Crescent in Boston, built in 1793–94
Phila-elfrethsalley.jpg
Elfreth's Alley in Philadelphia, featuring Colonial and Federal-style homes, is believed to be the nation's oldest residential street.[1]
Federal_Hill_mansion_%281795%29_at_My_Old_Kentucky_Home_State_Park%2C_Bardstown_KY.jpg
Federal Hill mansion, built in 1795, at My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown, Kentucky
Salem_Town_Hall_in_Old_Town_Hall_Historic_District.jpg
Old Town Hall in Salem, Massachusetts, built in 1816–17
Hamilton_Hall_%28Salem%29.jpg
Hamilton Hall, built in 1805 by Samuel McIntire in Salem, Massachusetts
Massachusetts_State_House_1827.jpg
An 1827 illustration by Alexander Jackson Davis of Massachusetts State House in Boston, built in 1798
SC_State_House_at_evening.jpg
South Carolina State House in Columbia, South Carolina, an example of American Federal style of architecture

Federal style is also used in association with furniture design in the United States of the same time period. The style broadly corresponds to the classicism of Biedermeier style in the German-speaking lands, Regency architecture in Britain, and the French Empire style. It may also be termed Adamesque architecture. The White House and Monticello were setting stones for what Federal architecture has become.

In the early United States, the founding generation consciously chose to associate the nation with the ancient democracies of Greece and the republican values of Rome. Grecian aspirations informed the Greek Revival, lasting into the 1850s. Using Roman architectural vocabulary,[2] the Federal style applied to the balanced and symmetrical version of Georgian architecture that had been practiced in the American colonies' new motifs of neoclassical architecture as it was epitomized in Britain by Robert Adam, who published his designs in 1792.