Romanesque revival windows

Later in the century, American architect Henry Hobson Richardson greatly popularized Romanesque-inspired buildings. Structures that follow his designs closely are often termed "Richardsonian Romanesque" style buildings. The style remained popular in Indiana until about DNR IN. There is a great deal of ornamentation on both the interior and exterior of University College. The main doors of the building are prominent examples of the heavy ornamentation used by Cumberland and Storm. The entrance is elaborate in its decoration with columns on either side of the doors and intricate patterns carved into stone.

The Ottawa Lemieux Island Water Treatment Plant, completed in , is another example of Romanesque Revival architecture, with a prominent main corridor featuring rows of arches spaced along the length of the building, providing a sense of grandeur. Renwick allegedly submitted two proposals to the design competition, one Gothic and the other Romanesque in the style. The Smithsonian chose the latter, which was based on designs from German architecture books.

Several concurrent forces contributed to the popularizing of the Romanesque Revival in the United States. The first was an influx of German immigrants in the s, who brought the style of the Rundbogenstil with them. Second, a series of works on the style was published concurrently with the earliest built examples. Owen argued that Greek Revival architecture—then the prevailing style in the United States for everything from churches to banks to private residences—was unsuitable as a national American style.

He maintained that the Greek temples upon which the style was based had neither the windows, chimneys, nor stairs required by modern buildings, and that the low-pitched temple roofs and tall colonnades were ill-adapted to cold northern climates. To Owen, most Greek Revival buildings thus lacked architectural truth, because they attempted to hide 19th-century necessities behind classical temple facades. Not so with the second phase that influenced mainstream America so deeply.

Architect Henry Hobson Richardson took the style and innovated its basic tenets using multicolored walls, Syrian arches, Roman arches and sculpted walls. It is said that he created a Romanesque Revival style considered to be distinctly American, more Richardsonian than Romanesque, hence the name.

Because the style was so massive and the construction requirements so costly, it was mainly affordable for elite architect designed residential mansions and sometimes urban town houses. But it quickly became popular as an almost universal style for all manner of public buildings: churches, libraries, courthouses and schools. Structures are always masonry and show rough-faced square stonework ashlar. Colored stone or brick are often used to create decorative wall patterns. Wide rounded arches Roman or Syrian are the key feature of this style and occur above windows, porch supports or over entryways.

Thick, cavernous entryways with rounded arches are noted. The arches commonly sit on squat columns or massive piers or are built into the surrounding wall and can be decorated with floral or other decorative features at the column cap. Towers are common, one or two, usually with round conical roofs. Hipped roofs with one or more lower cross gables: one facing front and one to the side and resemble the more familiar Queen Anne style, but gabled side and cross as well as mansard roofs are also seen.

Dormers are most commonly parapeted gabled wall dormers, but hipped and eyebrow dormers are also seen. Deeply recessed into the masonry wall with a single pane of glass up and down. These sometimes show small decorative columns on each side.

Commonly groups of three or more arched or rectangular windows.