Edwardian architecture


Edwardian architecture is a Neo-Baroque architectural style that was popular in the British Empire during the Edwardian era. Architecture up to the year 1914 may also be included in this style.

Description

Edwardian architecture is generally less ornate than high or late Victorian architecture, apart from a subset – used for major buildings – known as Edwardian Baroque architecture.
, Scotland built in 1910.
The Victorian Society campaigns to preserve architecture built between 1837 and 1914, and so includes Edwardian as well as Victorian architecture within its remit.

Characteristics

The characteristic features of the Edwardian Baroque style were drawn from two main sources: the architecture of France during the 18th century and that of Sir Christopher Wren in England during the 17th—part of the English Baroque. Sir Edwin Lutyens was a major exponent, designing many commercial buildings in what he termed 'the Grand Style' during the later 1910s and 1920s. This period of British architectural history is considered a particularly retrospective one, since it is contemporary with Art Nouveau.
Typical details of Edwardian Baroque architecture include extensive rustication, usually more extreme at ground level, often running into and exaggerating the voussoirs of arched openings ; domed corner rooftop pavilions and a central taller tower-like element creating a lively rooftop silhouette; revived Italian Baroque elements such as exaggerated keystones, segmental arched pediments, columns with engaged blocks, attached block-like rustication to window surrounds; colonnades of columns in the Ionic order and domed towers modelled closely on Wren's for the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Some Edwardian Baroque buildings include details from other sources, such as the Dutch gables of Norman Shaw's Piccadilly Hotel in London.
, England
, Newbury, design by H. Launcelot Fedden, as seen in The Building News, July 31, 1908.
Other characteristics include:

United Kingdom