Historic buildings, Ann Arbor, Michigan / by Marjorie Reade and Susan Wineberg.

Foreword

type by adaptation from published designs. Over time,
Greek Revival became a distinctly American architectural
expression.
Greek Revival buildings are
SI characterized by simple rectanSgular masses, low-pitched roofs,
and classical details. Such detailing usually consists of squatproportioned porch columns
and pilasters (flat columns pro3 jecting from a wall surface), a
312 S. Division
pediment (triangular area above
the porch), rectangular door and windows openings (no round or pointed arches), gable end returns, sidelights and transom (narrow windows on each side of
the door and a horizontal window over it). The most common building materials, brick and wood, sometimes stuccoed, were used in structures ranging from
pretentious porticoed mansions to small un-adorned cottages, and were almost
always painted white.
Whereas Greek Revival buildings normally have gables on the front or street
facade, many early examples of the style were really adaptations of the traditional
eastern Colonial or Federal styles. A building of this type, while having Greek
Revival features around its doorways or elsewhere, has a plan and orientation
derived from the earlier periods. The street front is the broader dimension, the
eave rather than the gable parallels the street, and there is a center doorway and
hall.
GOTHIC REVIVAL (1845-75)
The Gothic Revival style overlapped the Greek Revival chronologically,
although its peak of popularity occ-urred slightly later. It was in part a romantic
reaction to the formalism of Greek Revival and the earlier Federal style architecture.
Based on medieval architectural forms, Gothic Revival was transplanted from
England in the early 1840s. It flowered as a full-scale revival through the influence of pattern books published by important architects. Classic white forms of