Architecture in the United States, 1800-1850 (review)

W. Barksdale Maynard's new study focuses on the derivative nature of architectural practice in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century, when American architects borrowed without shame from Europe, particularly from British traditions. In fact, an architectural critic writing in 1815 summed up the situation with this withering comment: "Our domestic architecture is for the most part copied, and often badly copied too, from the common English books" (p. 25). Because of this, the era has received less attention from architectural historians than later periods. Scholars are far more interested, for example, in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, which saw the creation of the mass-production factory and the tall office building.

Nevertheless, Architecture in the United States is a lively, readable and well-researched addition to the study of architectural practice. It is amply illustrated with more than two hundred photographs and drawings, many of which have not been published before and manage to capture even the most familiar structures in new ways. Maynard did not set out to present a comprehensive survey of the fifty-year period, but rather to examine particular facets of elite architectural activity. The first chapter, "Building the Young Republic," will be of most interest to historians of technology, as it looks at construction and engineering methods, taking into consideration such developments as fireproof construction and innovations in the use of wood and cast iron.

Maynard shows how architects began to value the concept of "utile et dulce"—the idea that a design should reflect construction materials and a building's structure. This effort to develop a "truthful" form of architecture remained a key aspect of architectural theory for the next 150 years, particularly during the growing acceptance of modernism between the world wars. The development of "structurally honest" glass and steel buildings—as illustrated by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's 1956 Seagram Building in Manhattan—grows out of these early-nineteenth-century efforts to find beauty in building technology. Maynard's subsequent chapters examine the role of picturesque theory in the creation of public buildings and gardens, the theory underpinning the design of elite and middle-class suburban housing, the development and meaning of the porch in American culture, and, finally, the Greek Revival.

While this book has much to offer scholars and lay readers, its value is significantly reduced by its central thesis—that architectural historians throughout the twentieth century have given short shift to the British influence on American architecture. Actually, the most important textbooks on the nation's architectural heritage, including those by William H. Pierson Jr., Vincent Scully, and Leland Roth, have all devoted much space to the influence of English architects. But during the past two decades, a great many architectural historians have reacted against the traditional concentration on Anglo-American building culture to tell a richer, more complex tale about the formation of the nation's built environment. In many ways, Maynard's book can be interpreted as a conservative response to these new trends in architectural history.

Maynard's conservatism is most evident in his focus on the architectural culture of males of British descent, to the exclusion of all others residing in the new nation. He supports this position by arguing that, after all, such people constituted a majority of white citizenry at the turn of the nineteenth century. But in so doing, he leaves out a great many architectural traditions, including African-American, Russian, and Dutch. "In 1800-1850," he writes, "the other [non-British] ethnic traditions were lively and interesting, but localized and not absolutely fundamental to understanding the shared architectural culture of the entire nation" (p. viii). While he calls Spanish tradition in the west "especially rich," he goes on to say that it is "not discussed here for the simple reason that the vast majority of...