Art Modern

Like Art Deco style, and sometimes combined wit it, Art Moderne was apart of the Modern movement and the rejection of historical styles. While the style is an economical one, popularized during the Great Depression, it was meant to represent the dynamic progress of the 20th century and was highlighted at the 1993 Chicago World's Fair. Its inspiration comes from the machine aesthetic of the period's industrial design, especially that of the railway car, motorcar and steamship. Hence it is a very streamlined style, giving a sense of speed and motion. Read More

International

The International style was a reaction against historicist styles of the 19th and 20th centuries. It stressed a new machine age aesthetic in which the optimum use of modern materials and technology was sought and the form of the building was to clearly follow its function. Buildings were to be rational and scientific in the organization of the plan, the arrangement of the façade and the massing of the building parts. Its name came from a 1932 New York exhibition entitled "The International Style: Architecture Since 1922". Its early champions were European architects such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. The Great Depression, World War II and a tradition of history and convention delayed its widespread adoption in Canada until the late 1940s and 1950s. Read More

Art Deco

A jazz-age style of "deco-ration" first applied to jewelry and interior design, Art Deco was most popular in the 1920s and 30s. It was closely associated with the Art Moderne style. Both were part of the Modern movement which rejected historical eclecticism. The style originated in post-1918 Europe but it was in the United States where the Art Deco skyscraper was born. In New York, zoning regulations of the 1920s encouraged a distinctive silhouette, created as the upper storeys of tall buildings were stepped back from lower storeys. Read More

Bungalow

What is commonly called the Bungalow style is the combination of a building type and a design movement. Strictly a residential style, the bungalow finds its roots as a ’bangala', the typical one-storey native dwelling found in British Bengal. Transported to Britain, it was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, which placed emphasis on the natural or "honest" expression of material and construction. The style came to North America as a vacation cottage or seasonal dwelling, but in the early 20th century The Craftsman magazine was influential in spreading both designs and the ideals of the Arts and Crafts (or Craftsman) movement. The designs for modest homes were picked up by mail-order Companies and spread across the continent. At the same time these designs were often transformed by the use of other architectural styles and countless design variations circulating in the suburban house market. Read More

Georgian Revival

Similar to other early 20th century architectural styles, the Georgian Revival attempted to restore order and a greater simplicity to architecture after the exuberant styles of the late 19th century. The design and detailing were more refined and complex than the earlier Georgian style of the Red River Settlement era. Classical elements and detailing were more pronounced. Indeed, the style is often closely affiliated with the Classical Revival. Promoted by the well-known New York architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White for affluent clients, the style has had a strong influence on even modest suburban design up to the present. Although elements of the style can be found on large buildings, it was most frequently used for smaller buildings such as houses, small offices, apartments and, sometimes, churches. Read More

Chicago School

The Chicago School, or Style, takes its name from the Chicago architects of the 1880s and 90s who took the heavy Richardsonian Romanesque warehouse and developed from it the beginnings of the modern skyscraper. Height being an ingredient of the style, it is often called the Commercial style because of its use for office towers. In Chicago, rising costs of urban real estate and the introduction of elevators had encouraged vertical building construction. New, turn-of-the-century construction techniques, such as steel framing and reinforced concrete, opened the thick masonry walls, boldly and clearly expressing the new materials. Notable among these Chicago architects was Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) who developed a more ornate, powerful high-rise vocabulary with classical overtones, called Sullivanesque. Read More

Late Gothic Revival

The flamboyant Victorian Gothic architecture of the late 19th century gave way in the early 1900s to a smoother and more subdued style referred to as the Late Gothic Revival. Because of its historic association with the church and medieval centres of education, the style was most popularly used for churches, schools and universities. In this context it is often referred to as Collegiate Gothic. The source for detailing came from the English Perpendicular Gothic of the 15th century. In domestic architecture the detail sources were generally from 16th century Tudor and Elizabethan traditions. Read More

Classical Revival

The classical tradition re-emerged as an important force in Canadian architecture at the turn of the century as a reaction to the picturesque styles of the 19th century. While the revival was based upon the classical forms of ancient Greece and Rome, the intermediate sources and shades of the style were mixed. In its simplest form it is referred to as Neo-Classical and usually follows simple Greek architecture. Beaux-Arts Classicism is named after the Parisian architecture school Ecole des beaux-arts and was very popular in the United States. The Ecole encouraged designs of a grand nature with a formal and clearly structured arrangement of parts. Edwardian or English Baroque was very popular in Great Britain and was a freer, more inventive reworking of the architecture of the 16th century Renaissance and 17th century Baroque Italy, both of which borrowed heavily from classical Greek and Roman architecture. In many buildings these three influences were merged. Read More

Queen Anne Revival

In narrow architectural terms this refers to a London-based revival of the ordinary red-brick building of the 17th and early 18th centuries. In North America, however, the term was more loosely applied to describe an eclectic style which incorporated architectural elements borrowed from a variety of historical periods. These included Elizabethan, Jacobean and American Colonial Revivals as well as the architecture of Queen Anne's reign itself (1702-1714). One phase of this style was characterized by the Eastlake decorative style, named for English architect Charles Locke Eastlake (1836-1906) and based on his furniture designs. In Manitoba, the style had its greatest effect on residential design. Read More

Romanesque Revival

Originally little more than an offshoot of the Gothic Revival, it was distinguished by the use of typically Romanesque motifs, including the round arch and decorative patterns formed by chevrons and corbels. In its later phase, American architect H.H. Richardson (1828-1886) created his own unique interpretation which became the model for a North American Romanesque-based style. Read More