Hotel Carnavalet, Paris. Designed by Francois Mansart c1560. One of the very few buildings by this architect that is still standing (though featuring a chateau roof on this building, and not a Mansard roof).

The main attribution of the Mansard style is the roofline.  The roof has two slopes, the second approaching the vertical, which is then usually pierced by windows.  There is a story that the style originally resulted from a tax evasion scheme, in which property owners were taxed by the number of floors in their building below the roof line.  The Mansard style of roof made the top floor liveable – and tax free.

The Mansard roof is usually constructed in two straight angles, but variations can be ornately curved, either in convex or concave curves, which add to a fanciful architectural concoction that the Second Empire Style can present.

Remaining primarily a French style of architecture, it was not until the 19th century and the accession of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie in 1848 that the Mansard style became widely popular.  Their reign established “the Second Empire”, the “First Empire” being that of Napoleon I from 1804 to 1814/1815.

Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie

Napoleon III was responsible for the additions to the Louvre in the 1850’s, and the reconstruction of Paris under Baron George-Eugene Hausmann that swept away the medieval street plan of Paris between 1853 and 1870 resulting in the elegant city we are familiar with today, with wide, straight boulevards lined with Mansard roofed buildings. Napoleon III insisted on the Mansard style as a political gesture, a reinforcing of an ancient French style that lent historic credence and apparent continuity to his reign.

The Louvre still dominates central Paris at top. Nearly every other building in this photograph has a Mansard roof.

Napoleon III’s additions to the Louvre c1862. Here, a combination of forms are used in the Mansard roofs that cap the centre and end pavilions. Straight angles are used in the corner towers, and a convex roof is used over the central entry. The paired columns and elaborate trimmings are hallmarks of the style.

The Napoleon III apartments at the Louvre built c.1862 – open today for visiting. Second Empire interiors emulated these apartments by the use of gilt, rich colourings and ornate plaster work.

]]> http://oldhouseliving.com/2012/01/29/the-mansard-style/feed/ 0 http://oldhouseliving.com/2012/01/29/malibu-tiles-architectural-decoration-from-california/ http://oldhouseliving.com/2012/01/29/malibu-tiles-architectural-decoration-from-california/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:42:09 +0000 admin http://oldhouseliving.com/?p=260 The history of the Malibu Potteries was short – a scant six years – but the influence of this factory was felt up and down the west coast of North America from the late 1920’s through the early years of the Great Depression.

The tiles that they produced, in bright colours and Saracen designs, were used in homes, for fountains, in automobile showrooms, on the fronts of commercial buildings and even on schools and inside City Halls.

Today, collectors vie for these bright reminders of a part of California history.

As the name implies, Malibu Potteries was situated in Malibu, California.  The factory was located just east of the famous Malibu Pier, which had originally been built in 1905 to support the operation of the Malibu Rancho, owned by Frederick Hastings Rindge.

The Malibu Pier, before it was turned into a public pleasure pier in 1934, after the closure of the Malibu Potteries.

Agricultural products were shipped from the pier, and building materials and other necessities were received at the pier for the ranch.

Just west of the pier was the Adamson House, which had a family connection to the Malibu Ranch.

The Adamson House with its star-shaped fountain decorated with Malibu Tiles

The two-story, ten-room Adamson House was designed by Stiles O. Clements and built of steel-reinforced concrete. Completed in 1930, Stiles called the house an example of modified Mediterranean-style architecture. The style can be referred to as a synthesis of Spanish Colonial Revival and Moorish Revival architecture. Sometimes the style is also referred to as “California Mission”.

The house was built for Merrit Adamsom and his wife, Rhoda Rindge, the daughter of the ranch owner, who he had met while he was employed as a foreman at the Rindge’s Malibu Ranch. The house features teak woodwork, fireplaces in several rooms, handpainted ceilings, lead-framed bottle glass windows, and wrought-iron filigree fittings over the windows.

The Adamson House is probably the best-known building that used Malibu Tiles in its construction and decoration, and is well worth a visit to see these remarkable tiles, used in imaginative ways.  The Adamson House is open to the public.  Their website is: http://www.adamsonhouse.org/.

It was decided to utilize the unique red and buff burning clays that existed in the Malibu area, as well as an abundant supply of water from a spring in Sweetwater Canyon, to establish the Malibu Potteries.

An aerial view of the Malibu Potteries plant bordering Malibu Beach

Two views of the Malibu Potteries factory

 

Beginning in 1926, a profusion of brilliant tiles flowed from this establishment to hundreds of residential and public buildings throughout Southern California, and ranging as far north as Seattle and even into Canada, where examples exist in Victoria, B.C. where one of the largest extant installations is currently threatened with demolition.

Galleon design tiles produced by Malibu Potteries

Galleon Tiles designed by William de Morgan c1890.
Currently available through www.HistoricStyle.com

]]> http://oldhouseliving.com/2012/01/29/malibu-tiles-architectural-decoration-from-california/feed/ 0 http://oldhouseliving.com/2010/04/21/the-six-fireplaces-of-jolimont/ http://oldhouseliving.com/2010/04/21/the-six-fireplaces-of-jolimont/#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:39:55 +0000 admin http://localhost/oldhouseliving/2010/04/21/the-six-fireplaces-of-jolimont/

 

It is not often that an opportunity to study six fireplaces in one home is presented to us. To explore and understand what the combination of personal taste and availability of construction materials was – at one particular period in time – is a rare occurrence.

“Jolimont” is an architect-designed home in Victoria, B.C., Canada. William H. Bainbridge, a mining engineer and businessman, built the house in 1892 for his family. He asked Samuel C. Burris, an architect and business associate, to design the house. Situated on a hill and overlooking the ocean five streets away, the house was described in 1894 as “commanding one of the best and most extensive views in British Columbia”

The large house was slated for demolition 25 years ago, but was saved and has been carefully restored since then. The six fireplaces have received particular attention, as they are such features in the main rooms, and they have retained almost all of their original tiles from 1892.

Fireplace 1:

 

The main fireplace of “Jolimont” was the focal point of the 1892 Drawing Room. With a mantel and overmantel made of western red cedar, this massive piece of woodwork dominates the room. The rare feature of this fireplace is the stained glass window that penetrates the chimney over the firebox. A bit of architectural whimsy and Victorian cleverness, it poses the question: “Where does the smoke go?”. The chimney flue actually goes up to the right on an angle, and then straight to the top of the very high chimney, one of four chimneys of the house.

The Fleur de Lis design in the stained glass window – with a green jewel in the centre – harkens to the French name of the house given to it by the Bainbridge family – “Jolimont”.

The wallpaper surrounding the fireplace is William Morris’ “Vine” wallpaper, which he designed in 1873. It is available in four colourways, including this one with a rich gold background from www.HistoricStyle.com.

The tiles of the fireplace were made by Minton Hollins and Co. in England. This company was huge, with a workforce of over 1,000 in the 1890’s, and they exported tiles all over the world, including to western Canada. A rich design of green and brown majolica tiles surrounds the cast-iron fireplace insert, providing extra non-flammable fire separation between the firebox and the wooden mantelpiece.

Majolica tiles are distinguished by their molded surfaces and colorful clear lead glazes. Minton’s introduced Majolica ware, including dishes, jugs and ornaments, at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 and it gained great popularity and commercial success with the public. By 1900, the fashion for Majolica had faded, and majolica tiles are now rare and collectable. Victorian majolica tiles in fireplaces are worth preserving intact.

Cast iron fireboxes were clever, prefabricated units that slid into an existing opening in a chimney. They were already supplied with a fire chamber, two rear dampers opening into the chimney, and two front grills that could be opened to control the amount of air getting to the fire itself. The inserts were designed to burn coal, but they also can burn wood or, more effectively, pressed sawdust logs, providing good heat from a small opening.

The cast iron fireboxes came in several widths. 24” and 30” were two common sizes, and it appears that the three main floor mantelpieces of “Jolimont” were each designed to take a 30” wide fireplace insert, but only a 24” wide insert was installed in each opening, as there are two non-matching, but original, strips of 3” wide tiles down each side of the inserts, filling in the space that would be the difference between the two sizes of inserts.

 

The filler tile strips of Fireplace 1 feature a Fleur de Lis design, complementing the design of the stained glass window above.

Questions are posed. Were there no 30” wide inserts when the house was under construction? Or were the larger grates more expensive, and it was cheaper to add tiles, rather than a wider insert? Or were the 24” inserts a more pleasing design? We will never know.

The hearth of Fireplace 1 – seen below – was made of 3” x 3” tiles set on a 45 degree angle, combining three different tiles: green mottled; olive textured, and amber plain tiles. All have shiny glazes. All of the three main floor fireplaces have a black ceramic fender surrounding the hearth.

 

This illustration from 1859 shows a glass case for “window gardening” but also shows heavy curtains tied back with cord and tassels

Curtains in the early Victorian period were just becoming household items that regular people could pay attention to in their homes. Wealthy people had always had curtains made out of rich fabrics, and their curtains had been made with the suggestion of visual importance.

But with the onset of the industrial revolution, and the new availability of attractive, inexpensive fabrics that were attainable by middle-class and lower class households, then a great variety of curtains became available.

Magazines such as “Godey’s Lady’s Book” in the United States, and “The Family Friend” in England carried tips on home improvement. They told people how to fit out their homes on very little money, and how taste and appropriate décor was more important than ostentatious displays that were out of keeping to the greater surroundings. Suggestions on how to make chairs out of barrels with a bit of padding and some inexpensive chintz were examples of the thrifty tips promulgated by these popular magazines.

The knowledge that sunlight can damage furnishings is nothing new. In Victorian households, with the greater use of more fugitive vegetable dyes during that time period, damage by fading was a greater threat than it is today with more light-fast colours.

In 1859, one magazine was reminding its readers that “too much light is injurious to the objects on which it falls. Every one knows that curtains and carpets are faded by the sun; it is desirable, therefore, to have the means of shutting out the light, and this we can do satisfactorily by means of different kinds of blinds and curtains.”

A window letting out to a “balcony garden” from 1853. Two layers of curtains are used here – a sheer curtain with a pattern, and heavier main curtains which are ‘puddled’ on the floor.

An 1859 book recommended that curtains be 18” to 24” longer than the height from the rod to the floor, because if this is not done “when they are looped up during the day their lower edges will be so far above the floor as to give them a very mean appearance”.

Sometimes trailing plants or vines were also used indoors as a further method of controlling light.

So, in our present day and age of colour fast materials, we have to remember that Victorian interiors looked the way that they did for a technological reason: they were trying to prevent damage to their possessions, and they, being human beings, were trying to do that in as tasteful a way that they could.

Most Victorian windows had three layers of light protection. First were blinds. Early roller blinds were not spring loaded, but instead were controlled by “rack pulleys” – a small piece of hardware attached to the side of the window frame – which stopped the tape or cord from unrolling.

The second layer were lace or sheer curtains, to block light but let some of the view and light to be seen and enjoyed.

The third layer were the curtains themselves. Changed in summer and winter, these curtains would be the fashionable, more expensive fabrics that were meant to complement the interior design of the room that they were in.

On the exterior of a house, the irregular panes of glass in a leaded window twinkle and reflect both sunlight and the building’s surroundings, adding a sparkle that contrasts wonderfully with the other materials used in the house.

A stained glass heraldic shield, surrounded by clear leaded squares of glass, and corner jewels create a rich texture on the outside of this 1897 architect-designed home.

But it is on the inside of the house that stained glass windows reign supreme. Adding colour, mystery, sparkle and surprise, stained glass windows can be simple or extravagant. They can be – for all intents and purposes – paintings set into the wall of a house, or they can be simpler decorative elements that reflect the design of the rest of the house.

Sunlight coming through stained glass can send brilliantly coloured little searchlights of colour across a room, highlighting objects with a halo of colour, and adding an unexpected and surprising dimension to your home.

Living with stained glass windows in your rooms can be an enriching experience.

This large, horizontal window was set above a dining room sideboard in a 1912 Pattern Book house in Victoria, Canada, which was built from plans from the Los Angeles-based ‘Bungalow Craft’ company.

The same house features this intricate window in the front hall. Garlands of leaves are set into squares of beveled clear glass and surrounded by strips of caramel and green glass.

Encaustic tiles were often used to replicate or reinterpret medieval tiles that were found in early churches. Those early tiles were the first to incorporate a thin layer of extra clay in another colour to impart the design in either geometric shapes or the designs showed stylized animals or plants.

The Victorians took the designs and applied mass production techniques to the manufacturing process. With encaustic tiles, they improved on the medieval tiles substantially. Medieval tiles were painted or had thinly laid on designs and the designs could wear off with heavy foot traffic. Victorian encaustic tiles were manufactured with the design running through the depth of the tile, so that if the tile wore down, so did the design contained within the tile.

The Victorian encaustic tiles were made in a moulded process, leaving carefully shaped holes in the tile that would later be filled with differently coloured wet – almost liquid – clay. The clay would be poured into the remaining voids in the tile. It would set, and then be scraped off level with the surface of the original tile, and then sent for firing.

Encaustic tiles were then used as decorative highlights – usually in a field of geometric tiles. Due to the hardwearing traits of encaustic tiles, they could be used in a variety of heavy foot traffic situations, either outdoors, or in public buildings and churches.

Encaustic tiles were sometimes used in residential buildings, but due to the cost involved, they were generally used as focal point tiles in grander homes of wealthy industrialists. However, in Scotland, you can frequently still see them as colourful walkways leading to the front door of a stone terrace house.

An entry path to a stone terrace house in Edinburgh made of a combination of geometric and encaustic tiles. The encaustic tiles have been used as the decorative tiles in the centres of the large diamond shapes in the centre of the walkway.

A wonderfully preserved Hardware and Ironmonger shop in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, although the blue paint job is not original. This shop still retains its geometric and encaustic tile entryways from when the shop was built in Victorian times.

One of the tile entryways to the Hardware store. The encaustic tiles are the small floral designs around the border.

Another entry area to the Hardware store with a tile floor using a combination of geometric and encaustic tiles, with a marble threshold which probably was a step up from the sidewalk pavement before rules about handicapped access were implemented.

Another shop front entry using both geometric and encaustic tiles. The small floral tiles around the border are encaustic tile as are the small brown tiles in the centre of the design.

Palace of Westminster – Home of the Houses of Parliament, London. The Central Lobby with a richly-detailed Encaustic and Geometric tile floor

The State Capitol Building in Des Moines, Iowa, which retains splendid examples of both Geometric and Encaustic floor tiles in its lavish interior.

Iowa State Capitol: The Grand Staircase pre 1904 with encaustic tile at right on the landing of the stairs.

The Grand Staircase today with the encaustic tile on the landing

A detail of the tiles on the landing – a combination of both Geometric and Encaustic tiles

A further detail

Victorian tile floors can be a major decorative feature in any building. The design and colours add a delightful richness to a splendid building.

Seen here in an 1885 view, the North-South First Floor corridor of the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines shows the vast expanse of Geometric tiles installed during construction c.1884-1885

Keep your eyes down in older public buildings and in grand residential historic house museums! You may encounter more splendid examples of Victorian floor tiling.

The skill of the tile layer allowed a wide range of patterns to be produced.

Two views of a geometric tile floor in the front hall of an 1896 brick house in Lincoln, England. With all of the decorative appeal of a carpet, the wearability of tiles for the front entrance of this home gave a practical aspect to this installation.

Each color is a separate tile. Square, triangles and rectangles of different coloured tiles are carefully fitted together in a modular fashion to make this design.

Geometric tiles were usually laid tightly together, so there were no grout joins between the tiles, giving a seamless appearance to the finished floor.

Black and White geometric tiles give an impressive entry porch to a house in Russell Square in London. Several different shapes and sizes of tile were placed to make this overall design.

A floor in a sculpture alcove on the terrace at Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s residence on the Isle of Wight in England. The floor has been made up of geometric tiles, some cut to carefully match the curve of the alcove.

They are Mosaic tile flooring, Geometric tiling, and Encaustic tiling. Each has its own appearance and they were sometimes combined together for wonderful decorative effects.

These tiles were used for a wide variety of purposes for both interior and exterior applications. They were used for front walks – especially in Scotland – and front hallways. They were used for the outside entrances for shops, and the interiors of churches. They were also used for opulent flooring for grand public buildings like City Halls, Houses of Parliament or State Capital buildings as well as for very grand private homes.

Mosaic Tile Floors

Mosaic Floors were made of small pieces of multi-coloured tiles that were planned carefully to provide a detailed design. The small pieces of tile were then imbedded into a solid bed of mortar and grouted for a fine final appearance.

Known since Roman times, mosaic tiles enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in late Victorian times, due to a combination of industrialization for manufacturing tiles, as well as an increased interest and knowledge of antique architecture. England, with its Roman history, was a particularly popular area for the revival of mosaic tiling.

Two splendid examples of Victorian mosaic flooring in shop entrances in Bowness in the Lake District in England.

An example of c1930’s mosaic flooring in a shopfront in Chichester, England. The mosaic tiles are laid in a classic ‘fan’ shape, with a contrasting border. The entry tiles are set off with marble cladding below the shop windows and a marble threshold between the sidewalk and the entry.

In this article we present – from archival photographs – two specialized structures for whiling away hot days: A large airy Pennsylvania porch from 1910 and a wonderful “Inexpensive Tent Cabin for the Summer Season” from Pasadena in 1913.

Enjoy dreaming of a simpler, quieter, more peaceful summer!

A Classically-inspired
Pennsylvania Porch

An airy front porch on a grand scale promises restful relaxation to the lucky folks who take their ease in these wicker chairs.

This porch is on a residence in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and was built in 1910 by Knickerbacker Boyd, architect.

The house itself was designed with stone walls and Classical features such as the Ionic porch columns, and Palladian windows in the stairway of the house (not visible in this photo).

The tongue and groove porch ceiling, painted in a gloss oil base paint, adds a shimmery coolness to the feeling on the porch, while the floor appears to be covered in a sisal matting, which gives a furnished, ‘outdoor room’ level of comfort to the porch, making it an ideal extension of the living space on a hot summer day.

An Inexpensive Tent-House for the Summer Season

Tent houses were popular summer places to live during the 1880 to 1920 period. They were attractive, affordable, and often used for holiday homes or for temporary ‘on-site’ accommodation while a permanent house was being built.

Construction suggestions for building a tent-cabin from 1913 included:

“A good type of tent-house consists of a wooden floor set on foundation posts, with a frame of 2” x 4” studding.

There are two variations of construction that can follow: an all-canvas option, or a combination wood/canvas method.

If the roof is of canvas, a fly is necessary for use in the summer, otherwise the heat could be oppressive. Additionally, a single layer non-waterproofed canvas cover could leak in heavy downpours.

A partial wooden alternative could be made with a partial wooden wall below and canvas above, and a shingle roof. Interior partitions were made of canvas or “art-burlap” nailed on to wooden frames.”

In 1913, in Pasadena, this summer shelter cost $ 300. to build: Lumber was
$ 100.; Labour was $ 75.; Plumbing $ 100., and Canvas was $ 25.

The exterior of the Tent-House was covered in striped canvas – probably in green and white stripes – with real windows and a screen door.

The interior of the Tent-House was furnished with cozy divans for sleeping and kerosene lamps for light. The partitions are also covered with striped canvas

Left: The porch of the Tent-House had a canvas cover and potted plants.
Right: A more complicated arrangement than first imagined is shown by the floor plan of the Tent-House.

Tent cabins, by the very nature were temporary, and ephemeral. Sometimes photographs or occasional water-colour paintings are all that is left to remind us of this delightful form of housing.

Hanging pictures from a picture moulding in a c1910 house

Homeowners were always wary about damaging plaster, with the attendant cost and mess of effecting repairs to walls that may also have wallpaper applied on them. So, methods of hanging pictures were used to prevent wall damage.

Picture spikes were sold through mail order catalogues such as the Russell and Irwin catalogue of 1865

Homes of the 1860′s and 1870’s used picture spikes to hang their paintings. These were rather clever bits of hardware. Made like a large nail – sometimes round and sometimes square-cut – the tops of the spike had a threaded top. The spike was pounded into place with a hammer, and after it was safely positioned, a decorative, and usually fragile, ‘head’ was screwed on to the threaded top of the spike.

A porcelain-headed picture spike. This spike is small. Picture spikes varied in size from 2 1/2” to 4” in length, depending on the weight of the item being supported. The brass-collared porcelain head unscrews from the spike itself, and is put back on after the spike is hammered into position.

These heads could vary widely in design. They could be a brass button, or made of silver, or glass. White porcelain – like many doorknobs in period houses – was another popular choice for a decorative ‘head’ of a picture spike.

Decorative heads of picture spikes. The ‘heads’ on the spikes range from plain white porcelain to fancy glass and brass concoctions. Available from specialist antique dealers online.

The position on a wall for a picture spike was usually unvarying. They were almost always placed at the top of a wall, so the spike would go into the solid wood top plate of the wall framing behind the plaster, to ensure a solid support for a painting. As well, the spikes were almost always positioned in the centre of short walls – on either side of, or over a mantelpiece – for example. On long walls, there could be three or more picture spikes hung along the length of a wall, but evenly spaced.

The pictures were then hung on wires from the painting to the spike in an inverted “V” shape.