Making a home in Canada: Early settler domestic architecture w/Jessica Mace

It’s a familiar sight. A big, old, classical-looking house, built of either red-brick or of painted wood. As a fashionable architectural typology from the early-19th century, nearly every town in English-speaking Canada has one of these Georgian or Palladian-inspired houses. But why were they so popular? Where did they come from? How do they fit into architectural history more broadly?

This interactive teaching demonstration will uncover their long history and precedents—from 16th-century Renaissance Italy, to 18th-century classical revivals in England and the United States—revealing the complex ways in which the ideas took hold in the Canadian settler context in the 19th century. Together, we will think through design choices and learn to identify key features of this typology. We will also consider how these buildings point to bigger questions for student research. In short, this session will help to better understand the built environment that surrounds us, and show that there is more than meets the eye to these seemingly simple buildings.