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    Georgian Architectural Designs and Details: The Classic 1757 Stylebook
    Georgian Architectural Designs and Details: The Classic 1757 Stylebook
    Georgian Architectural Designs and Details: The Classic 1757 Stylebook
    Ebook223 pages45 minutes

    Georgian Architectural Designs and Details: The Classic 1757 Stylebook

    By Abraham Swan

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    About this ebook

    Among the 18th century's most influential architectural designers and writers, Abraham Swan defined many conventions of English rococo detail. This reprint of an extremely rare and classic stylebook, compiled by the English architect nearly 250 years ago, provides outstanding examples of Palladian and Georgian architecture and design in colonial America and England.
    Included are floor plans, detailed elevations, and drawings for cornices, mouldings, and other decorative elements that demonstrate Swan's unique style. Designed, in his words, more for "Gentlemen of moderate Fortunes than of great Estates who may be inclined to build Houses," Swan's designs featured such aesthetic touches as double staircases, elegant entryways, and two or three floors with spacious galleries, salons, and dressing rooms.
    Invaluable to architectural historians and designers, this splendid stylebook will delight devotees of early English Georgian and American domestic architecture and interior design, cultural historians, artists, and craftworkers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateFeb 19, 2013
    ISBN9780486140032
    Georgian Architectural Designs and Details: The Classic 1757 Stylebook

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      Georgian Architectural Designs and Details - Abraham Swan

      DOVER BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

      NEW YORK’S FABULOUS LUXURY APARTMENTS: WITH ORIGINAL FLOOR PLANS FROM THE DAKOTA, RIVER HOUSE, OLYMPIC TOWER AND OTHER GREAT BUILDINGS, Andrew Alpern. (0-486-25318-X)

      VITRUVIUS BRITANNICUS: SECOND SERIES, J. Badeslade, J. Rocque, John Woolfe and James Gandon. (0-486-46890-9)

      BARBER’S TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY HOUSES: ELEVATIONS AND FLOOR PLANS, George F. Barber & Co. (0-486-46527-6)

      THE AMERICAN BUILDER’S COMPANION, Asher Benjamin. (0-486-22236-5)

      VICTORIAN WOODEN AND BRICK HOUSES WITH DETAILS, A. J. Bicknell & Co. (0-486-45103-8)

      BICKNELL’S VICTORIAN BUILDINGS, A. J. Bicknell & Co. (0-486-23904-7)

      VICTORIAN WOODTURNINGS AND WOODWORK, Blumer & Kuhn Stair Co. (0-486-45114-3)

      OLD MEXICO: AN ARCHITECTURAL PILGRIMAGE, Alfred C. Bossom. (0-486-43638-1)

      THE GARGOYLE BOOK: 572 EXAMPLES FROM GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, Lester Burbank Bridaham. (0-486-44754-5)

      100 SMALL HOUSES OF THE THIRTIES, Brown-Blodgett Company. (0-486-44131-8)

      BEAUTIFUL BUNGALOWS OF THE TWENTIES, Building Age Publishing Corporation. (0-486-43193-2)

      VlTRUVIUS BRITANNICUS: THE CLASSIC OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH ARCHITECTURE, Colen Campbell. (0-486-44799-5)

      ELEGANT SMALL HOMES OF THE TWENTIES: 99 DESIGNS FROM A COMPETITION, Chicago Tribune. (0-486-46910-7)

      1000 TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY HOUSES: WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND FLOOR PLANS, Herbert C. Chivers. (0-486-45596-3)

      VICTORIAN HOUSE DESIGNS IN AUTHENTIC FULL COLOR: 75 PLATES FROM THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN–ARCHITECTS AND BUILDERS EDITION, 1885-1894, Edited by Blanche Cirker. (0-486-29438-2)

      COUNTRY AND SUBURBAN HOUSES OF THE TWENTIES: WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND FLOOR PLANS, Edited by Bernard Wells Close. (0-486-43631-4)

      AMERICAN COUNTRY HOUSES OF THE THIRTIES: WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND FLOOR PLANS, Lewis A. Coffin. (0-486-45592-0)

      THE POWER OF BUILDINGS, 1920-1950: A MASTER DRAFTSMAN’S RECORD, Hugh Ferriss. (0-486-46920-4)

      FLAGG’S SMALL HOUSES: THEIR ECONOMIC DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION, 1922, Ernest Flagg. (0-486-45197-6)

      CLASSIC MODERN HOMES OF THE THIRTIES: 64 DESIGNS BY NEUTRA, GROPIUS, BREUER, STONE AND OTHERS, James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford. (0-486-25927-7)

      SMALL HOUSES OF THE FORTIES: WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND FLOOR PLANS, Harold E. Group. (0-486-45598-X)

      101 CLASSIC HOMES OF THE TWENTIES: FLOOR PLANS AND PHOTOGRAPHS, Harris, McHenry & Baker Co. (0-486-40731-4)

      AUTHENTIC VICTORIAN VILLAS AND COTTAGES: OVER 100 DESIGNS WITH ELEVATIONS AND FLOOR PLANS, Isaac Hobbs. (0-486-44351-5)

      ELEGANT COUNTRY AND SUBURBAN HOUSES OF THE TWENTIES, Edited by Charles S. Keefe. (0-486-44216-0)

      100 TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY BRICK BUNGALOWS WITH FLOOR PLANS, Rogers & Manson. (0-486-28119-1)

      THE ART DECO STYLE, Edited by Theodore Menten. (0-486-22824-X)

      FLORIDA ARCHITECTURE OF ADDISON MIZNER, Addison Mizner. (0-486-27327-X)

      JAPANESE HOMES AND THEIR SURROUNDINGS, Edward S. Morse. (0-486-20746-3)

      Bibliographical Note

      This Dover edition, first published in 2005, is an unabridged republication of A Collection of Designs in Architecture, Containing New Plans and Elevations of Houses, for General Use. Vol. I. London: Printed for and Sold by the Author, near the George, in Portland-Street, Cavendish-Square; by J. Buckland, in Pater-Noster Row; and H. Webley, in High Holborn. n.d. (c. 1757), and A Collection of Designs in Architecture, Containing New Plans and Elevations of Houses, for General Use, Vol. II. London: Printed for the Author: and Sold by Henry Webley, in Holborn; and James Buckland, in Pater-Noster-Row. n.d. (c.1757). A new introduction has been specially prepared for the Dover edition.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Swan, Abraham.

      [Collection of designs in architecture]

      Georgian architectural designs and details: the classic 1757 stylebook / Abraham Swan.

      p. cm.

      An unabridged republication of: A collection of designs in architecture. London, 1757.

      9780486140032

      1. Architecture, Georgian—England—Designs and plans—Early works to 1800. 2. Architecture, Domestic—England—Designs and plans—Early works to 1800. I. Title.

      NA7328.S93 2005

      720’.941’09033—dc22

      2005049222

      Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

      44397303

      www.doverpublications.com

      Table of Contents

      DOVER BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

      Title Page

      Copyright Page

      INTRODUCTION

      BIBLIOGRAPHY

      Dover Books on Art and Art History

      Art Instruction

      Medieval Art through Eighteenth-Century Art

      Pictorial Archive

      Twentieth- Century Art

      INTRODUCTION

      The works of Abraham Swan, an English carpenter and joiner, occupy a primacy of place in the history of American architecture books. Although Swan never ventured to the New World, his works did. In fact, the earliest architecture books published in America came from his pen and plate. The first was The British Architect; or, The Builder’s Treasury of Stair-Cases, printed in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775. This book was already well known in the American colonies, having been first published in London some thirty years earlier (1745). The second was A Collection of Designs in Architecture, Containing New Plans and Elevations of Houses, etc., dedicated to none other than John Hancock and also printed in Philadelphia in 1775 (London in 1757).¹

      Swan’s Architectural Legacy

      Swan’s architectural legacy does not rest upon the small number of commissions that can be conclusively credited to him, but rather on the influence of his books. His greatest contribution is a series of well-designed Palladian architectural details, including stairs, baseboards, wainscoting, cornices, door and window casings, and, in particular, mantelpieces. Swan promoted a classical architecture that strove, in his view, to build upon the lessons of the ancient Greeks. "The closer we keep to the Rules of the ancient Grecian Orders, viz. the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian in decorating the Outside of our Buildings, the more grand is their Appearance, and, generally speaking, every Eye is the better pleased."² Thus Swan provided a wealth of beautiful and literate architectural elements that could be (and were) applied to a variety of situations: individual details or whole suites of architectural features could be adopted or adapted to fit individual needs, interests, and budgets. Examples of details derived from Swan’s work abound, and are found in England, Ireland, Australia, and America. Adaptations can be found in a range of American buildings, including some of the nation’s most distinguished works of architecture. For example, mantelpieces derived from Swan’s designs can be found in the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, Maryland and the Jeremiah Lee House in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Stair details from that same work are

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