Colonial American Architecture

Colonial American Architecture

A trip across the United States will show you stunning architecture from coast to coast. However, during the 1780s, the most popular architectural style was the American Colonial.

The houses were mostly constructed by wealthy Anglo Americans and came in a variety of styles depending on where you lived.These homes, also known as Colonial Georgian homes, were the first to grace the United States' colonies.

A saltbox is a prime example of early American Colonial architecture. The Saltbox is essentially a wooden frame house with a steeply pitched roof that slopes down to the back.

Its flat front has two stories while the back has only one, making the sides unequal but distinctly resembling an old salt box, which was a wooden box with a lid where salt was kept.

A simple name for a simple home style The chimney was generally centrally located, giving the house the appearance of a box with a lid and a handle to lift it from a distance.

Other distinguishing features of American Colonial architecture include the square, symmetrical shape; the front door located directly in the center of the house; and the even, straight line of windows throughout.

An entryway and a staircase are usually found inside the front door. All other rooms branch off of these. Typically, they were built of brick with wood trim, but with homes like the Saltbox, they were also timber frame homes built with woodworking joints rather than metal nails because metal nails were expensive. Wood siding was also used on saltbox houses.

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Architecture by Adobe

Architecture by Adobe

Adobe's architecture was used in some of the first structures.Adobe is a fibrous material composed of sand, clay, straw, dung, or other fibrous materials.

The adobe is then formed into bricks with frames and sun-dried. The structures become extremely durable, similar to cob or mud bricks. They are primarily used in hot, arid climates because they keep cool in the summer and slowly release heat in the winter.

The same mixture, minus the straw, is used as mortar when assembling dried adobe bricks to form a structure. Some cultures even discovered that lime-based cement could be used to make plaster to protect against the wet months.

The thickness of the adobe bricks plays an important role in the architecture. It is primarily responsible for keeping the structures cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

The Bam Citadel was the largest structure ever built from Adobe. However, it was severely damaged by an earthquake in 2003.

The Huaca del Sol in Peru is another magnificent adobe structure made of over 100 million signed bricks.

The citadel of Arg-e Bam, built as recently as 500 BCE, may be the world's largest adobe architecture structure.

The Bam Citadel covers an area of 180,000 square meters and is surrounded by walls that are 6-7 meters high and 1815 meters long, all made of Adobe. No human or animal could enter the city once the gates were closed. The city was self-contained, with wells, gardens, and cattle all contained within its walls.

When it came to putting a roof on the structure, adobe architecture was a little different. Roofs were typically constructed from lengths of wood or metal. Then, over the top of a support structure, rows of dried adobe bricks are laid and plastered into place with more adobe.

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