Utah's Historic Architecture 1847-1940 A Guide

Introduction

Introduction This book outlines a method for identifying and describing Utah's historic architecture. Our initial objective was to compile a basic refer­ence for the statewide architectural survey then being conducted by the Utah State Historic Preservation Office. The state surveyors needed a reasonably comprehensive guide to the major building styles in Utah from 1847, when the first Mormon settlers arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley, to around 1940, the cutoff date for the preservation survey. As we began the work it became apparent that we faced not one, but two tasks; not only did we need to assemble a catalog of Utah buildings, but we also had to create the classification system for that catalog. The problem was that no useful models existed for architectural classification at the state and local levels, nor were there any for vernacular buildings. This book, then, while specifically designed to identify the kinds of buildings found in Utah, is also intended to provide a general approach to classifying regional, state and local architecture. The cornerstone of architectural classification has traditionally been style. While rarely defined precisely, style has generally been used to mean a particular design tradition, often inspired by the work of a single architect, an architectural firm, or a school of architecture. A style differs significantly from already existing traditions and becomes generally accepted by builders for a period of time. Styles are usually described in terms of their historical origins, their basic design principles, their unique characteristics, and because they tend to change through time, their years of peak popularity. A description of the Queen Anne style in Utah, for example, begins with a discussion of its intellectual roots in England during the mid-nineteenth century and the influence of such American architects as H. H. Richardson during the 1870s. It then points out the asymmetri­cal massing associated with the style, enumerates such distinctive visual elements as the corner turret and textured wall surfaces, and concludes with a statement about the Queen Anne's popularity in Utah between 1880 and 1900. Most architectural classification systems, by extension, are based on a chronological listing of the various styles, their identify­ing features, and their dates.1 In recent years, style has continued to play an important role in both architectural history and historic preservation, but not without its detrac­tors. The most serious indictment of style as the basis of classification has been leveled by folklorists and social historians. They charge that a rigid stylistic approach to buildings robs them of their cultural content and presents a sequence of stylistic change without explanation of the cause of that change. In Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, Henry Glas-sie writes that the architectural historian who is content to divide the past into discrete stylistic episodes "often finds himself having to explain architectural change as a series of unconnected revolutions instead of the gradual development that he would find to be the case if he examined architectural wholes." Glassie adds that a preoccupation with style often obscures the important role played by individual, cultural, environmen­tal, and aesthetic concerns in the design process. If buildings are to become historically meaningful, if they are to be seen as evidence of human behavior in the past, historians must shift their attention from the objects themselves to the ideas that lie behind them.2 A second charge is that an emphasis on style ultimately leads to the creation and perpetuation of ideal style categories. Most architectural guidebooks, in defining a style, enumerate its essential features and pro­vide examples that effectively display all the requisite elements. As a result, buildings that have all the identifying features are viewed as good examples of the style; those that do not, are seen as something less. A hierarchy of architectural values is created. Anyone who has tried to use John J.-G. Blumenson's Identifying American Architecture knows the frustra- Introduction tion of trying to find buildings that look like the ones in the book. Although he states that his "emphasis is on domestic architecture of an average nature rather than the well known house-museum, public and commercial building or monument," Blumenson's illustrations neverthe­less depict the biggest, best, and most complete examples. For the student of most American communities, whether in Virginia, Indiana, or Utah, a system like Blumenson's is undermined by the presence of literally thou­sands of buildings that either do not fit readily into the defined categories, or do not measure up to the prescribed standards. Are such buildings unstylistic and therefore historically insignificant? Are they to be ignored? It is all too easy simply to conclude that some buildings have style and others do not.3 Most people would probably agree that an architectural classifica­tion system, to be of general value, should be as comprehensive and objec­tive as possible. But how can this be accomplished? Our work in Utah suggests that style must be acknowledged as a powerful force, not just in elite circles, but in all walks of architectural life. The main argument for adopting such an expanded approach to architectural style is found in the nature of design itself. It has been customary to view architectural design in terms of a few large buildings conceived and executed by professional architects. This is because design is usually equated with the refined and cultivated taste found among the better educated members of society. A number of recent studies, however, have shown that even common buildings-buildings which at first glance may appear plain and boldly utilitarian-are also designed. Such buildings may reflect the preferences and pocketbooks of an inherently conservative and frugal middle or lower middle class, one that favors tradition and restraint over innovation and extravagance. Nonetheless, they are deliberately and thoughtfully conceived, planned, and built with deep regard for their final appearance and function. People build or buy houses that provide shelter and space for eating, sleeping, and entertaining, but they also choose designs that are pleasing to look at and that meet community standards. Not all such houses will strike the connoisseur's fancy, but they have common characteristics: they are intended to convey the owner's sense of self, their social and economic standing in the community, their ethnic or cultural affiliations, and their understanding of the community's collective aesthetic-that is, the group's prevailing concept of beauty. Expanding the concept of design to include all buildings, large and small, exceptional and typical, is crucial in achiev­ing a new and more inclusive view of architectural style.4 As with the case of design, style too has often been considered the exclusive domain of a set of buildings distinguished by their size, scale, appointments, and pedigrees. If architectural style is defined as a mode of artistic expression characterized by a particular set of aesthetic prin­ciples and by the structures that result from applying those principles, then it has been conventional practice to assume that only the most sophisticated and unabridged articulations of those principles have that style. But if we accept the idea that the aesthetic intentions of the builder exist in even the most common building, then the designation of style must be broadened as well. One fundamental criterion of design is appearance, the assumption that the completed design will accord with the prevailing architectural aesthetic, an aesthetic determined in turn by the particular style or com­bination of styles currently in vogue. The design of buildings, big and small, is largely determined by the set of stylistic principles existing at that time. Certain other considerations, such as the availability of funds, the competence of the designer and craftsman, and the cultural back­ground of the community, will ensure that the architectural landscape has great variety. But the repeated application of basic stylistic conven­tions will also produce a visual unity within each style. Viewed in this way, style becomes an integrating concept, one that binds a diversity of buildings into a consistent whole.5 Several examples of Queen Anne-style buildings are useful in seeing how style may influence a wide range of actual designs. The Edwin C Coffin house in Salt Lake City (fig. 1), designed by Frederic Albert Hale, represents a very elaborate articulation of Queen Anne conventions. In the Coffin house are found the asymmetrical composition, the variety of surface textures and materials, and the towers, turrets, decorative porches, and encircling verandas that characterize the style in its most expansive form. Such fully articulated structures are called high-style buildings and are differentiated from other buildings not by the presence or absence of style itself, but by their size, appointments, and elaboration.6 Utah has many other more common examples of the Queen Anne. The Arthur O. Clark house, another example from Salt Lake City Introduction Fig. 1: Edwin C. Coffin house, 1896, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County. This side-passage house was designed by architect Frederic Hale and is often used as the quintessential example of the Queen Anne style in Utah. Coffin was a prominent Salt Lake City businessman. (fig. 2), is generally less grand and more subdued than the Coffin house, but still retains the corner turret, the wrap-around porch, and the decora­tive woodwork associated with the Queen Anne. Another house from Ogden (fig. 3), shows most of the style's conventions: it has asymmetri­cal massing, a bay window with colored glass panels, textured, shingled walls, a circular porch, and a corner turret, but all are scaled down and simplified in comparison to the high-style Coffin house. The Ogden house is not a bad example of the Queen Anne, just a less elaborate and expen­sive one. A final example is a small one-story cottage in Salt Lake City (fig. 4). It has a hipped roof and a basically square plan, but it neverthe- Fig. 2: Arthur Q Clark house, 1895, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County. Built for Salt Lake educator Arthur Clark, this is a Queen Anne style house with a side-passage plan. The design is the mirror image of fig. 9, a house built several years earlier in Nephi by Oscar Booth, a local architect. Booth worked in Salt Lake City, and he may have assisted Charles L. Thompson, a Salt Lake architect and builder, in the construction of the Clark house. less makes reference to the asymmetrical form and corner tower of the Queen Anne. Buildings like these constitute the greatest part of the built environ­ment. They are not unstylistic, but are the typical regional and local manifestations of style. These buildings form the vast body of vernacu­lar architecture in the state. In a given place, at a particular time, and within the design guidelines of a prevailing style, vernacular architec­ture is architecture that most people build, and in which most people live and work.7 The stylistic complexities of vernacular architecture suggest a second Introduction Fig. 3: Queen Anne house, c. 1895, Ogden, Weber County. This small cot­tage is a fine vernacular example of the Queen Anne style. Note in partic­ular the complexity of massing and textures, both hallmarks of the style. useful direction for architectural classification: the area of building types. Smaller and less elaborate buildings of repetitive design stem from the real need to create attractive yet affordable structures. This need is ful­filled today as in the past by the repeated use of particular designs that have proven themselves to be functional, pleasing to look at, and eco­nomical. Such designs constitute architectural types, forms that may be superficially varied without changing their basic shape. Classification sys­tems group objects according to shared attributes, but instead of focus­ing upon a collection of specific decorative features as styles do, types are based upon form. And because a building's use may vary through time, and because stylistic features and construction materials often change, a classification system based on form is essential because form "is the most persistent, the least changing of an object's components."8 Fig. 4: House, c. 1890, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County. The octagonal corner turret lends a fashionable air to this small brick cottage. The formal appearance of a building may be described by primary and secondary characteristics. Primary characteristics are those that deter­mine the form of the building (and hence, define the basic type); secon­dary characteristics are those that may change without affecting the basic form. For example, since the floor plan often determines the final shape of a building, it is considered a primary characteristic On the other hand, wall materials, decorative trim, and roof shape are secondary. The two houses in figs. 5 and 6 illustrate the diversity that can be achieved within a particular type. They are hall-parlor houses, a type defined by two rooms unequal in size arranged axially behind a symmetrical facade. Within this basic format great variation occurs. The Samuel Baker house in Mendon (fig. 5) has the typical hall-parlor plan. It is built of stone, has a plain classical cornice, and has been the recipient of a stylized East- Introduction ORIGINAL (Period 1) Period 2g Period 31 I ORIGINAL HOUSE! Fig. 5: The Samuel Baker house, 1870-75, Mendon, Cache County (6/15/82). The Baker house is a hall-parlor type with a Victorian Eclectic style porch. The porch and rear additions are from around 1890 (the shaded portion in the drawing indicates the original house). The Bakers were early converts to the Mormon church who came to Cache County in the mid-1850s. In the early 1870s, Samuel Baker married Annie Leavitt and probably built the first section of the house shortly thereafter. Fig. 6: House, c. 1890, Fountain Green, Sanpete County (4/13/79). This one-and-a-half-story brick house is a hall-parlor type with Victorian Eclectic stylistic elements. Introduction lake porch. Another hall-parlor house in Fountain Green (fig. 6) has the polychromatic brick and arched window heads associated with the Vic­torian Eclectic style. In these houses, the stylistic trim is very different, but the basic house type remains intact. Vernacular architecture, Amos Rapoport reminds us in House Form and Culture, is composed of "models and adjustments or variation," and "it is the individual specimens that are modified, not the type."9 In the above examples buildings may be seen from both aesthetic (stylistic) and formal (typological) perspectives, and it is this dual approach that is the key to the classification system used in this book (fig. 7). One of the problems with architectural classification is the widespread impres­sion that each building must fit into one particular category. In fact, much of the architectural reality is typified by eclecticism-the selection of stylis­tic elements from a variety of sources-and rarely do buildings fit neatly and precisely into a single mold. Because much of the enduring charac­ter of regional and local architecture rests in its diversity, a classification system, if it is worth anything, should be flexible enough to accommo­date such complexity. Our approach to the problem of identifying and describing Utah architecture has been to combine typological and stylistic classification systems. In the first section of the book we have identified fundamental residential, commercial, public, and apartment building types. Each type is described with a number of examples displaying the compositional diversity found within each type category. The second part is devoted to styles, and we have made every attempt to make style an inclusive concept, one that gathers together a wide variety of buildings that share basic design principles. A number of high-style and vernacular examples are included to illustrate the full range of possibilities within each style, from the smallest to the most grand. Although the types and styles are presented in separate sections, this scheme is for organizational convenience and is not meant to suggest that classification proceed from one direc­tion or the other. Our ultimate goal is the integration of these two per­spectives, and with this in mind we have cross-referenced the two sections. For example, consider the brick house built around 1880, in Holden, Millard County (fig. 8). In its basic shape and central-passage plan, the house reflects the symmetrical composition of the Classical period, although the steeply pitched roof, projecting entrance tower, pointed Styles Predominant Types Classical (1847-90) Georgian (1850-65) Federal (1847-65) Greek Revival (1847-90) Picturesque (1865-80) Gothic Revival (1865-80) Second Empire (1870-1900) Italiante (1870-95) Victorian (1880-1910) Queen Anne Eastlake Shingle Style Victorian Gothic Victorian Romanesque Revival Richardsonian Romanesque Victorian Eclectic Chateauesque Beaux Arts Second Renaissance Revival Early Twentieth Century (1900-15) Bungalow Arts & Crafts Prairie Style Period Revival (1915-35) Colonial Revival Neoclassical Byzantine Egyptian Revival English Tudor Jacobethan Revival French Norman Spanish Colonial Revival Mission Pueblo Revival Modern (1930-40) International Art Deco Art Moderne PWA Moderne single cell double cell hall-parlor central passage temple form side passage hall-parlor central passage side passage cross-wing cross-wing side passage Victorian forms bungalow foursquare period cottages not researched sufficiently Fig. 7: Diagram showing the chronological relation of styles and types. Introduction \ c ^ ] ) DJ CD \ * D , ^ \ - ' 1 t 1 Ls> I IM u ] 1 Fig. 8: House, c. 1880, Holden, Millard County (4/8/81). This two-story brick house has a central-passage plan. Such features as the projecting entrance tower, the arched tower openings, and the gable finials make this a good example of the Gothic Revival style. Fig. 9: Oscar Booth house, 1893, Nephi, Juab County (10/6/83). The Booth house is a one-and-a-half-story house with a side-passage plan in the Queen Anne style. Booth was born in 1868 and was primarily engaged in carpentry and building in Juab County until his death in 1944 (see fig. 2). Introduction arched tower windows, and gable finials reveal Gothic Revival influences. For classification purposes, the house is a central-passage type in the Gothic Revival style. The dual description of type and style is important because it reveals both the persistence of the traditional, symmetrical, central-passage form into the 1880s, and the concern for Picturesque fashion in conservative, rural, central Utah. A second example is the Oscar Booth house in Nephi, Juab County, built in 1893 (fig. 9). Booth was the architect, and his design is domi­nated by the side turret and wrap-around porch, both suggesting the Queen Anne style. Equally striking is the basic form of the house, a central block with projecting bays and a side-passage plan. This was a type popu­lar in the Victorian era. The house has a pyramidal roof with projecting gables, a turret, and textured siding, so it would be classified as a basic Victorian house type in the Queen Anne style. If the classification system presented here is to be useful, it must also overcome two basic criticisms of other classification systems: first, that they break up the artifactual world into unrelated categories, and second, that they are purely object-oriented. In addressing the first issue, we have attempted as much as possible to show basic continuities within both types and styles. Within the type headings, a range of examples has been provided in order to demonstrate the persistence of these forms through many changing styles. Also, the style sections have been grouped in longer periods when particular ideas of appearance and propriety predominated. Six such stylistic periods occurred in Utah: the Classical, the Picturesque, the Victorian, the Early Twentieth Century, the Period Revival, and the Modern. In addressing the second issue, we can only say that while the book is based on the premise that there is a fundamental relationship between buildings and people, between material and culture, and that the role of architectural history is to explain this relationship, our task here is more limited. Our goal lies in description, and we have intentionally con­fined ourselves to the objects themselves, their forms, their materials, and their styles. Why particular designs are executed, how they change, and what such changes tell us about social and cultural movements are topics that cannot be addressed here. Careful description must precede analysis, however, and we hope that this work will be a first step in a larger quest to understand Utah's architectural history. Notes 1. The standard reference works are Marcus Whiff en, American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1969); S. Allen Chambers, John Poppeliers, and Nancy B. Schwartz, What Style Is It? A Guide to American Architecture (Washing­ton, DC: The Preservation Press, 1977); and John J.-G. Blumenson, Iden­tifying American Architecture: A Pictorial Guide to Styles and Terms, 1600-1945 (Nashville, Tenn.: American Association for State and Local History, 1977). Utah architectural styles are discussed in Peter L. Goss, "The Architectural History of Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 43 (Summer 1975): 208.-39; and Karl T. Haglund and Philip F. Notarianni, The Avenues of Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1980): 52-66. 2. Henry Glassie, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia (Knoxville: Univer­sity of Tennessee Press, 1975), 8. Glassie's work has been instrumental in shaping a new culturally oriented perspective in American architec­tural studies. For a useful summary of Glassie's specific contributions and of the vernacular architectural movement in general, see Dell Upton, "The Power of Things: Recent Studies in American Vernacular Architecture," in Material Culture: A Research Guide, ed. Thomas J. Schlereth (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1985): 57-78. 3. Blumenson, Identifying American Architecture, vii. 4. A number of studies have contributed to the sweeping reevalua-tion of the design concept. See in particular Henry Glassie, "Folk Art," in Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction, ed. Richard M. Dorson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972): 253-80; Henry Glassie, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, 19-40, 66-113; Kenneth L. Ames, Beyond Necessity: Art in the Folk Tradition (Winterthur, Del.: The Win-terthur Museum, 1977); David Pye, The Nature and Aesthetics of Design (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978); Thomas Hubka, 'Just Folks Designing: Vernacular Designers and the Generation of Form," Journal of Architectural Education 32 (1979): 27-29; and Thomas Carter, "Folk Design in Utah Architecture, 1849-90," in Utah Folk Art: A Catalog of Material Culture, ed. Hal Cannon (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young Univer­sity Press, 1980): 35-60. Introduction 5. Useful discussions of the meaning of "style" can be found in Meyer Shapiro, "Style," in Anthropology Today: An Encyclopedic Inventory, ed. A. L. Kroeber (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 287-312; Richard W. Longstreth, 'The Problem with 'Style,'" Newsletter of the Society of Architectural Historians, 29 (June 1985), 5-8, and Dell Upton, Holy Things and Profane: Anglican Parish Churches in Colonial Vir­ginia (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1986), 101-2. 6. Folklorists have been most interested in defining high style or aca­demic architecture as a means of differentiating it from folk architec­ture. See Henry Glassie, "Artifacts: Folk, Popular, Imaginary and Real," in Icons of Popular Culture, ed. Marshall Fishwick and Ray Brown (Bowl­ing Green, Ky.: Bowling Green Press, 1970), 103-19; and Warren E. Roberts, "Folk Architecture," in Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction, ed. Richard M. Dorson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 281-83. 7. Our understanding of vernacular architecture has been influenced by the following works: Eric Mercer, English Vernacular Houses (Lon­don: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1975), 1-3; Dell Upton, "Early Ver­nacular Architecture in Southeastern Virginia" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Brown University, 1980), 1-3. 8. Henry Glassie, Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1969), 8. 9. Amos Rapoport, House Form and Culture (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969), 4. The idea of primary and secondary characteris­tics is introduced in Glassie, Pattern in Material Folk Culture.