A Guide to Styles Part 3

CALIFORNIAN BUNGALOW


"Californian Bungalow" 1916-1939


FEATURES:
* Rough cast walls.
* Shingled gable ends.
* Bay windows.
* Leadlight or coloured glass windows.
* Mosaic tile or marble porch and hall floors.
* Ornamental clinker brick chimneys.
* Red or blue brick walls often tuck pointed
i.e. a ridge of white or black mortar ran along the joints between the bricks.
* Massive pylons supported a flat roof or gable to the porch.
* Extensive use of verandahs and sun screen devices.

Each new house was by this stage detached and isolated in its own garden, with few exceptions. Attention to sun orientation was considered for the first time, and protection was given by a wider eave with a lower roof pitch, builders began adopting these devices as Californian Bungalow types.
The hallmark of bungalow construction were function and economy, and an attempt to portray a naturalness. The house sat low on the ground, using natural materials such as large timbers and rubble stone work complemented with rough cast pebble dash - these rough textures were soon conventional. Shingles were fixed decoratively in the wide overhanging gables with Marseilles tiles still used with walls of brick, or frequently seen rough cast and weatherboard cladding. Large gable ends, often nestled with one protruding beyond the other, became the main decorative feature and some continued to use decorative strapping imitating the roof structure.
The front porch, wether gabled or low slung across the front of the house, was supported on massive brick or rubblestone pylons. The front porch or verandah became enclosed in character, due to the low masonry walls joining the large pylons. The red roof and brickwork were complemented by green, brown, black and white paint work with some timbers decoratively stained or oiled. This period was one of minimal decoration.
Import restrictions on European timbers turned builders to local hardwoods for joinery and floors. Panels were simple and taken high up the wall. Ceilings were also often panelled and battened. The use of wallpaper was minimized, often to a mere frieze below the picture rail. The drawing room and main bedroom often had mock timber beams stained dark walnut against a white ceiling. Planning became slightly more open, with double glazed doors between the sitting and dinning rooms giving an illusion of space to this generally small house, with ceilings now lowered to around three metres. Lathe and plaster was being replaced by fibrous plaster sheeting with small stock cornices and square moulds around wall panels. Brickwork over doors and windows was carried on pre-cast concrete lintels. Attic rooms and dormer balconies were often incorporated.
Front fences surrounding neat gardens used various materials and styles, including woven wire, timber rails, low masonry (which was at times stuccoed) and pickets. The garage was becoming more popular and sat at the side or rear of the block to house the much loved motor car.
The very first example of a Californian Bungalow house was located on Gardeners Road Rosebery, the building was a pre fabricated house imported into Australia from the United States and erected just before the end of WW1. Unfortunately it was demolished in the early 60's to make way for a block of flats, so much for progress.

A Guide To Styles Part 2

"FEDERATION "
THE BIRTH OF A NATION

Federation / Edwardian 1895-1916

FEATURES:
* Red brick walls often tuck pointed
i.e. a ridge of white mortar ran along the joints between the bricks.
* Dominant roofs often broken by false gables and capped by terra cotta frilled ridges.
*Turned timber verandah columns supplemented by elaborate timber decoration.
* Extensive use of verandahs and sun screen devices.
* Bay windows.
* Leadlight or coloured glass windows.
* Mosaic tile or marble porch and hall floors.
* Often finials and cresting to the roof.
* Classical mouldings around windows, doors and brackets under eaves.
* Ornamental chimneys.
* Elaborate four panel doors.
*Plastered walls.

The thread of innovative architecture which began in the early 1880's was unified by the use of red brick and a striving for picturesque styles. It culminated in the Edwardian interpretation of Queen Anne elements and it flourished in the first decade of the 1900s. As a style, it began after the 1892-1894 depression and lasted until World War One.
Its essential qualities are red brick walls, often tuck pointed, a picturesque roof, often of slate or red interlocking Marseilles tiles with multiple gables and spires, and painted timber work that replaced cast iron on verandahs. This was a marked contrast to the slate, corrugated iron and stuccoed walls of the Victorian era. Strong colour was for the first time found in the materials used to build the house.

AUSTRALIA had finally found its own distinctive style of house.

Rough cast render, wooden shingles, decoratively cut weatherboards and terra cotta ridging were used extensively. Timber fretwork and bracketing, which was geometric prior to 1900, became infused with the sinuous curves of Art Nouveau, which also appeared in the leadlights of fanlight and casement windows and front door glazed panels. Floors and turned posts off verandahs were entirely of timber, bay windows were used almost without exception, tessellated tiles appeared on verandahs and in bath rooms and wash houses.
Gables were either shingled or half timbered with stucco infill, with the timber strapping imitating the Rising Sun symbol. Timber as external decoration was used creatively and copiously - a style that has since been unmatched.
Fretted timber was also used inside as replacements for Victorian plaster arches in hallways and bay windows. Entry halls meandered to various rooms in a less formal style, ceilings still featured plaster cornices and decorative roses, and Wunderlich's pressed metal panels were used as dado panels and ceiling decoration.
Joinery was painted in creams and browns, grained or stained, and interiors were less crammed with ornamentation and trimmings. Fireplaces were often set into the corners of rooms at 45 degrees, giving a different approach to furniture layout. Fencing was typically either pickets around 1.2m ( 3 feet ) high, or flat boards set two up two down, they housed ornate gates, that when you passed thru you came across very well laid out formal gardens.
If you are fortunate enough to own a Federation house then there is a wealth of books available to you, such titles as "Getting the Details Right", "Towards the Dawn" and "The Federation Garden" just to name a few are all available at any large bookstore or there is a very good publication called Conservation of Federation Houses available from the Department of Planning's Heritage Department 175 Liverpool St Sydney to help you restore your treasure.

A Guide To Styles Part 1

The VICTORIAN PERIOD

Victorian
1850-1900

FEATURES:

• Asymmetrical.
• Larger windows with larger panes.
• Wider use of building materials including decorative cast iron, corrugated roofing iron,plaster and timber weatherboards.
• Ornamental chimneys.
• Extensive use of verandahs and sun screen devices.
• Often bay windows.
• Often finials and cresting to the roof.

Victorian Italianate 1850-1880

FEATURES:

• Classical mouldings around windows, doors and brackets under eaves.
• Often a square tower to one side.
• Often multi - storied.
• Ornamental chimneys.
• Elaborate four panel doors.
• Mosaic tile or marble porch and hall floors.
• Coloured and etched glass windows.
• Plastered walls.

" Victorian " 1845-1892

The Victorian period was dominated mainly by Italian influences, and is the most common style seen in the suburbs that developed in this era. The asymmetrical front was a welcome change from the colonial styles. The picturesque Gothic Revival styles, also with a projecting front room, were in direct competition to this classical approach. The use of timber balloon frames, clad in weatherboards and often rebated to imitate stone, spread as the suburbs sprawled along railway lines. Shingles gave way to hipped corrugated iron roofs, with slate used on more pretentious houses. Cast iron lacework was now being made locally in quantities to satisfy demand. Stone and polychrome brick mansions appeared on large elevated allotments, while the working classes belonged to the lower elevations. Nonetheless, new technology played an important role in Victorian architecture, and a wide variety of repetitive ornament became available at the lower end of the market for the first time.
Joinery shops could supply ready made components such as sash windows with large panes of glass, moulding’s, doors, pickets, scrolls and brackets, decorative weatherboards, posts, finials, keyholse fretwork, fascias, rosettes and all types of plaster mouldings and cast cement. The eaves, window and door surrounds, chimneys and quoins became increasingly elaborate as the period progressed. The introduction of cavity walls, plate glass and improved water and sewerage systems all fed the impetuous of building growth. In opposition to the tall , decorated Gothic gables, low pitched hipped roofs, bracketed eaves and arched windows were common features. As the style advanced, bay windows and offset verandahs complemented the asymmetry, with the verandahs roofed in corrugated iron in a Regency sweep or bullnose, often painted in a wide stripe to imitate canvas.
During the 1880s, as the boom developed, extremely elaborate parapets and an almost unrestrained use of stuccoed ornament became the hallmark of the Boom style. The parapet was often balustraded and crowned by urns. External colour was becoming much more bolder, in the inner suburbs os Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, terrace houses were built mainly for the working class and as rental investments, they displayed the ornament without the scale. Interiors were characterised by a central arched passage up to 2.4m wide with a four panel front door surrounded by lead light and etched glass. A heavily moulded cornice separated the ceiling from the walls, which displayed small patterned wallpaper finishing at the picture rail with a heavily coloured frieze above. An abundance of furniture, ornaments, pictures and trimmings filled the front rooms with japaned floors and rich oriental rugs. Gardens evoked a romantic feeling and were boarded by pallisade iron or picket fencing with a variety of decorative tops, combined at times with hedges.
This is the first guide to the various styles of architecture that can be found around Rockdale, in following Posts we will try to cover them all.