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Victorian Architecture: The Age of “More is More” · Repcolite Home Improvement Show

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  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, thanks for tuning in. You're listening to Home
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and Progress, sponsored by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore. Now,
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  Speaker 1: on today's episode, we're going to dig into another architectural
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  Speaker 1: style in our ongoing series, and this one's got a
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  Speaker 1: fascinating story behind it. We'll be exploring Victorian architecture. You know,
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  Speaker 1: those ornate homes with turrets, spindles, gingerbread, trim bay windows,
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  Speaker 1: bold colors, you know the ones. They're impossible, absolutely impossible
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  Speaker 1: to miss. But here's what most people don't know. Victorian
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  Speaker 1: architecture isn't actually one style. It's a whole collection of
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  Speaker 1: styles from Gothic Revival to Queen Anne, all happening during
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  Speaker 1: Queen Victoria's reign from eighteen thirty seven to nineteen oh one.
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  Speaker 1: So it's actually Victorian era architecture that we're talking about
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  Speaker 1: when we talk about Victorian architecture. All right, Now, all
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  Speaker 1: of that decoration that we think of when we think
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  Speaker 1: about Victorian homes, you know, all that elaborate ornamentation that
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  Speaker 1: we associate with the houses. It wasn't just about showing off.
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  Speaker 1: The Victorians had this belief that ornament was connected to
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  Speaker 1: moral goodness. And I know that sounds a little bit
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  Speaker 1: strange to modern ears, but stick with me. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to explore exactly how that idea developed and why it
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  Speaker 1: led to some of the most maximalist architecture in history.
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  Speaker 1: So we'll talk about that. We're also going to talk
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  Speaker 1: about why just a few decades later people were so
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  Speaker 1: exhausted by all that excess that they embraced the simpler
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  Speaker 1: arts and crafts aesthetic that we covered, you know, I
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  Speaker 1: think a couple months ago. All Right. The whole thing
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  Speaker 1: is this big story about faith fire. Fires involved the
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  Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution. It's a story about moral crusades. It's a
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  Speaker 1: story about how ideas shape the buildings that we live in.
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  Speaker 1: So it's a huge story. And to understand all of it,
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  Speaker 1: or at least the part we're going to cover, we
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  Speaker 1: got to start with that fire that I talked about,
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  Speaker 1: all right, So picture London on October sixteenth of eighteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty four. There will not be a quiz on the dates,
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  Speaker 1: but October sixteen, eighteen thirty four, the medieval Palace of Westminster,
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  Speaker 1: which is home to Parliament and has been for centuries.
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  Speaker 1: That building is burning, all right. October sixteen, eighteen thirty four,
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  Speaker 1: it's on fire. Massive flames light up the Thames as
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  Speaker 1: thousands gather on bridges to watch history. You know, burn.
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  Speaker 1: It's a national disaster, but it's also an opportunity. The
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  Speaker 1: decision about what's going to rise from those ashes ends
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  Speaker 1: up defining an entire era of architecture. Okay, So before
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  Speaker 1: we get to that, though, I do need to back
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  Speaker 1: up just a little bit, because to really understand Victorian architecture,
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  Speaker 1: we need to understand the Victorians themselves, you know, what
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  Speaker 1: they believe, the world they were living in, and so on.
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  Speaker 1: So let's look back at that just briefly, and then
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  Speaker 1: we'll get back to that fire. All right, So let's
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  Speaker 1: go to like eighteen thirties, eighteen forties. At that point,
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  Speaker 1: Britain is being transformed by forces that really no other
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  Speaker 1: earlier generation could have imagined. And I think it's hard
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  Speaker 1: for us sometimes in the modern world to think about that,
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  Speaker 1: but think about your grandparents. You know, what they saw,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the changes that they saw over their lifetime
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  Speaker 1: is pretty dramatic. When you think about all the things
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  Speaker 1: that they saw. We make jokes about how they can't
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  Speaker 1: handle technology, you know, how like my grandparents can't handle technology,
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  Speaker 1: or my mom and dad struggle with technology. But think
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  Speaker 1: about it, you know, when they were little kids, I
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  Speaker 1: don't even know if paper existed at that point. And now,
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  Speaker 1: you know, just in seventy years, they've got iPhones or whatever,
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  Speaker 1: and we've expected them to figure out everything from pencils
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  Speaker 1: all the way up to laptops, and they've done a
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  Speaker 1: pretty good job. You know. I know we've got to
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  Speaker 1: get a hold of them and help them out at
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  Speaker 1: inconvenient hours when they've forgotten their passwords to everything. But
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  Speaker 1: think you know, they they mastered the pencil and now
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  Speaker 1: they're trying to mask uter the iPhone or the iPad
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  Speaker 1: or whatever. So our parents have seen a lot of changes.
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  Speaker 1: Our grandparents have seen crazy changes. Well, same thing was
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  Speaker 1: happening in the eighteen thirties eighteen forties for the Victorians.
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  Speaker 1: You know, they were seeing changes that no other generation
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  Speaker 1: really could have imagined. The Industrial Revolution. It's in full swing. Factories,
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  Speaker 1: they're roaring railways, they're connecting cities that once felt a
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  Speaker 1: world apart. You know, everything's connected now, everything's within reach.
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  Speaker 1: New technologies are flooding the market with goods that used
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  Speaker 1: to be handmade. You know, for the first time you
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  Speaker 1: can mass produce beauty. You know, carved wooden brackets, ornate
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  Speaker 1: iron railings, elaborate plaster moldings. Things that used to require
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  Speaker 1: skilled artisans can now be stamped out by machine. So decoration,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it used to be rare, it used to
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  Speaker 1: be costly. Now it's affordable. That's really important, you know,
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  Speaker 1: to consider everything that's coming At the same time. Money's
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  Speaker 1: flowing in all kinds of new directions. You know, it's
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  Speaker 1: not just the aristocracy who can build great, big, grand
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  Speaker 1: houses anymore. A whole new middle class is rising. Factory owners, merchants, professionals.
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  Speaker 1: They're all coming into their own a little bit, and
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  Speaker 1: they want their homes to reflect that success. You know,
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  Speaker 1: they're learning their knowledge, their place in the world, in society.
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  Speaker 1: But this new industrial age also is a little bit
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  Speaker 1: scary to them. It feels cold, it feels mechanical. You know,
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  Speaker 1: the air's full of smoke. The cities are expanding faster
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  Speaker 1: than anybody can really process and manage, and a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people are uneasy. So the medieval world, with its cathedrals,
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  Speaker 1: it's handcrafted goods and all of that, and its sense
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  Speaker 1: of spiritual order all of that starts to look comforting.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Romanticism is sweeping through art and literature. People
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  Speaker 1: are reading Sir Walter Scott's novels about knights and castles.
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  Speaker 1: They're looking at Gothic ruins through a haze of nostalgia,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the good old days kind of a thing.
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  Speaker 1: That's the world that young Queen Victoria inherits in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty seven, and when she takes the throne at just
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  Speaker 1: eighteen years old, and the architecture of her reign captures
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  Speaker 1: all of these contradictions. You know, modern machines, building, all
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  Speaker 1: these things that get layered and you know, crafted into
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  Speaker 1: something that almost has a medieval look. You've got industrial
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  Speaker 1: wealth wrapped up in spiritual you know, ornamentation, which I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to explain all of that in a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: You've got mass production, but it's kind of disguised as craftsmanship.
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  Speaker 1: All right, all of that's going on, all right, that's
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  Speaker 1: what the Victorian era is like, that's what these people
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  Speaker 1: are living with. Now, let's get back to that fire,
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  Speaker 1: all right, the fire on October sixteenth, eighteen thirty four,
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  Speaker 1: when Parliament is burning to the ground, all right, when
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  Speaker 1: that building burned. A design competition was launched for the
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  Speaker 1: new building. Because we burned one down, we got to
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  Speaker 1: replace it. We need a new one. Let's find one.
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  Speaker 1: Let's have a competition. You know. It's kind of like
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  Speaker 1: what we do. We do a lot of little competitions
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  Speaker 1: and contests. I'll explain a new one that's running at
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  Speaker 1: the end of the show. But they were doing the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: same thing, probably giving away gift certificates to Repcolite or
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: something like that. But they had a contest to see
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  Speaker 1: who was going to be designing this new building. And
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  Speaker 1: they had a couple requirements that had to be done
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  Speaker 1: in the Gothic or Elizabethan style and classic architecture, you know,
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  Speaker 1: Greek columns, Roman temples. That was banned. You know, it
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  Speaker 1: felt too pagan, it felt too French. Nobody wanted that.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody wanted it to feel too French, too pagan. Britain
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  Speaker 1: wanted something that looked distinctly English and morally upright, all right,
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  Speaker 1: So that's the contest that they're running. The winning design
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  Speaker 1: came from two men, Charles Barry, an experienced architect, and
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  Speaker 1: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. He was a young passionate Gothic revivalist,
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  Speaker 1: and I want to take just a quick second here
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  Speaker 1: to say that for any history buffs out there, go
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: subscribe to the Home in Progress podcast or at least
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: check it out. Next Tuesday, I'm going to drop a
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  Speaker 1: bonus episod so that dives into the full story but
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  Speaker 1: behind this fire plus the crazy partnership between Charles Berry
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  Speaker 1: and Augustus Pugin. I can't get into all of it here,
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  Speaker 1: but it's a great story. It's funny, it's a little
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  Speaker 1: bit funny, it's tragic, and it's honestly kind of unbelievable
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: in certain regards. Just to give you a quick teaser,
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  Speaker 1: the British Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne at the time called
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  Speaker 1: the cause of the fire one of the greatest instances
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  Speaker 1: of stupidity on records. So we'll talk about that and
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  Speaker 1: why it was so stupid, and also we'll talk about
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  Speaker 1: why the working relationship between Barry and Pugin spiraled into
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  Speaker 1: a feud that lasted nearly a century. So a ton
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  Speaker 1: of drama in that story, and we'll cover it all
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  Speaker 1: in that bonus episode next Tuesday that will drop if
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you're subscribed to the podcast. You'll get the notification automatically
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: and you won't miss it. Otherwise, you can catch it
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: anytime at repco light dot com. All right, back to
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  Speaker 1: the story at hand. As I mentioned, Charles Berry and
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  Speaker 1: Augustus Pugin worked together on this new project for the
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  Speaker 1: Palace of Westminster Barry. Charles Berry handled the layout. Pugin
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  Speaker 1: poured his heart into the whole Gothic thing, you know,
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  Speaker 1: all the detailing, the spires, the arches, the tracery. But
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  Speaker 1: he was more than a decorator. He was an absolute crusader.
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  Speaker 1: And this is really important to the story. In eighteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty six, a couple of years later, he published a
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  Speaker 1: book called Contrasts. And on one page in that book,
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  Speaker 1: and you can go find the book online and kind
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  Speaker 1: of flip through the page as it's interesting, But on
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  Speaker 1: one page he draw a medieval church, you know, soaring, spiritual,
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  Speaker 1: full of purpose, and then on the facing page he'd
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  Speaker 1: have a modern factory or you know, some utilitarian workhouse.
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  Speaker 1: It was ugly, it was soulless, it was dehumanizing, and
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  Speaker 1: his point was really really blunt. You know, the architecture
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  Speaker 1: of the Middle Ages was Christian and honest, and the
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  Speaker 1: architecture of modern industrial England was morally bankrupt, you know,
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  Speaker 1: that was his idea. He believed that architecture revealed the
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  Speaker 1: soul of a nation. So a Gothic building, he felt,
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  Speaker 1: shows its structure honestly. You know, you look at it
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  Speaker 1: and you can see the flying buttresses doing their job.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing's hidden, nothing's fake. Classical buildings, on the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes used things like even decorative columns, you know, columns
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  Speaker 1: that didn't do anything. You know, they didn't hold anything up.
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  Speaker 1: They were just there for looks. It was a lie
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  Speaker 1: in stone, as he saw it. It's interesting Pugin actually
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  Speaker 1: converted to Catholicism in eighteen thirty four, the same year,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the Palace of Westminster burned. And what's fascinating
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  Speaker 1: in that. The reason I say that's interesting is that
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  Speaker 1: his conversion was deeply architectural in nature. You know, it
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  Speaker 1: was theological too, but deeply deeply architectural. He didn't just
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  Speaker 1: study medieval churches. He found his faith in the architecture
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  Speaker 1: that they were built with. You know, to Pugin, Gothic
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  Speaker 1: architecture wasn't just beautiful. It was true, every point at arch,
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  Speaker 1: every carved detail, all of It was a visible expression
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  Speaker 1: of faith. You know. It was like praying in stone
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  Speaker 1: in a way. I know it sounds a little weird,
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  Speaker 1: but that's what was going on. He saw so much
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  Speaker 1: beauty and so much truth in it, so much power
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  Speaker 1: in that architecture and that conviction that he had, that conversion,
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  Speaker 1: and all of that shaped everything that he designed afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: so churches, altars, tiles, wallpaper, even furniture, and all of
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  Speaker 1: it came together really, really spectacularly in his work on
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  Speaker 1: the New Palace of Westminster. He worked himself to exhaustion
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  Speaker 1: over the course of his life, and he died in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two. You know, he's just forty years old,
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  Speaker 1: so workaholic. He really poured everything he had into this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: But even though he died young, his influence was massive.
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  Speaker 1: He transformed Gothic revival from this quirky, old fashioned kind
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  Speaker 1: of thing into a moral and national cause. And the
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  Speaker 1: Houses of Parliament, you know, the new building that he designed,
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  Speaker 1: completed way after his death in the eighteen sixties, still
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  Speaker 1: stands as his monument, you know, a building that declared
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  Speaker 1: to the world that Gothic wasn't just beautiful, it was British.
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  Speaker 1: It was moral, it was official, it was upright, it
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  Speaker 1: was true, all of those things. And again, I've got
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: way more info to that story. Subscribe to the podcast
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and you'll catch that on Wednesday. A lot of really
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: interesting stuff in that, all right. So that's Pugin and
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  Speaker 1: if he made Gothic moral, John Ruskin, another guy we
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  Speaker 1: need to talk about, made it emotional. You know. He
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  Speaker 1: made beauty itself a moral good. And we're going to
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  Speaker 1: get to that and how that shook out right after.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: This Home in Progress is brought to you by Repcolite
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Paints and Benjamin Moore, Top tier paint expert advice. Your
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: next project is way easier than you think it's going
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: to be. All Right, We've looked at Augustus Pugin and
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  Speaker 1: his role. Now let's look at John Ruskin. And while
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  Speaker 1: Pugin argued that Gothic design was moral in nature, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we talked about that. While he did that, John Ruskin
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  Speaker 1: took it further and advocated that beauty and ornamentation themselves
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  Speaker 1: were moral goods. Ruskin, he wasn't an architect, He was
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  Speaker 1: an art critic. He was a social philosopher. You know.
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  Speaker 1: He was kind of like a nineteenth century influencer, you know,
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  Speaker 1: rather than creating little TikTok videos or Instagram posts. He
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  Speaker 1: was writing. And the books he wrote, The Seven Lamps
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  Speaker 1: of Architecture, the Stones of Venice. Some of these books
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  Speaker 1: were best sellers, and they do sound kind of exciting, right,
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  Speaker 1: The Seven Lamps of Architecture, you know, Sinbad and the
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  Speaker 1: Seven Lamps of Architecture, or Indiana Jones and the Stones
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  Speaker 1: of Venice. Really they could have been movies, but you know,
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  Speaker 1: movies weren't all that big back then, not like they
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  Speaker 1: are today, and so he just wrote books. But they
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  Speaker 1: were best sellers and they went and inspired generations of builders,
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  Speaker 1: artists and reformers. But the ideas in the books about ornament,
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  Speaker 1: they were radical, and they changed how people thought about
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  Speaker 1: decoration beyond just you know, in that era, it really
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  Speaker 1: changed it. You know, moving forward, we're still living with
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: some of the ideas that he was advocating in those books.
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  Speaker 1: Here's his main argument. He's floating the idea that ornament
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  Speaker 1: isn't a luxury. You know, decoration isn't just a luxury.
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  Speaker 1: It's not something that you tack on after the real
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  Speaker 1: building work is done. Ornament or decoration or whatever you
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  Speaker 1: want to call it is essential to human dignity and
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  Speaker 1: spiritual health. That's his argument. Now, why why in the
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  Speaker 1: world is this important or essential? He says, it's because
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  Speaker 1: when we create ornament, it requires creativity, it requires skill,
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  Speaker 1: and it requires joy. So when a medieval craftsman would
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  Speaker 1: carve a column, you know, the very top of the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: column or something, or when he would carve a decorative
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  Speaker 1: stone way up high on a ceiling, when he did that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, so high that nobody's really even going to
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  Speaker 1: see it, but he's still putting all this design and
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  Speaker 1: intricacy into that work. When he's doing that, he's expressing
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  Speaker 1: that craftsman is expressing his God given creativity. So that
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  Speaker 1: part's really important. And also he loved the little irregularities
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  Speaker 1: in the carvings, you know, the uneven leaves, the lopsided
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  Speaker 1: faces that show up from time to time. Those aren't
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  Speaker 1: flaws to Ruskin. They're absolute proof of human freedom. They're
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  Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful. You know, a machine makes perfect copies, and
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  Speaker 1: that's boring. A person makes variations, and those variations are
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  Speaker 1: the mark of a soul at work. So big heady
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: thinky people stuff here. You know, that's what's going on.
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  Speaker 1: Ruskin went so far as to claim that you could
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  Speaker 1: judge the moral health of an entire society by its architecture.
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  Speaker 1: So Medieval Venice, with its richly carved Gothic palaces, was
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  Speaker 1: a place that celebrated creativity. Renaissance Venice, with its restrained
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  Speaker 1: classical symmetry, had already started to value order and precision
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  Speaker 1: over the spirit of the craftsman. You know, that's what
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  Speaker 1: Ruskin is saying here. Ruskin also believed that ornament taught people.
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  Speaker 1: You know, a building carved with flowers, animals, figures, stories,
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  Speaker 1: you know, all of that play out on the walls
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  Speaker 1: of the building. Those things could educate, and they could uplift.
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  Speaker 1: It could bring beauty into everyday life, and it would
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  Speaker 1: make the ordinary sacred. You know. The same idea is
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: true of great, big, amazing, beautiful churches. You know, sometimes
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  Speaker 1: the argument is that they shouldn't be there, you know,
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  Speaker 1: that money should be spent on something else. And yet
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the argument that could be made against it is that
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  Speaker 1: by having it in these instances and in these buildings,
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  Speaker 1: it's free and available for anybody to experience and to enjoy.
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  Speaker 1: And we all work through our daily lives, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the grind and the mundane of it, and we can stop,
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  Speaker 1: buy some of these massively beautiful places and experience just
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  Speaker 1: a touch of the sacred in our ordinary life. You know,
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  Speaker 1: that's the notion that he's expressing. A plane wall teaches nothing.
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  Speaker 1: An ornamented wall is kind of like a public gift,
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  Speaker 1: so to Rusk, and ornamentation and decoration weren't frivolous, they
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  Speaker 1: were morally essential. Beauty wasn't a luxury, you know, it
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: was a necessity for human flourishing. You know, if we
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: wanted to become the best we could be, we need
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  Speaker 1: this beauty in our our buildings and our architecture and
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  Speaker 1: our homes. That's the idea. A plain, undecorated building, you know,
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  Speaker 1: that's not to him a sign of modesty or a
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  Speaker 1: sign of honest simplicity. It's a sign of spiritual poverty
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  Speaker 1: in a sense, and it's a denial of human creativity.
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  Speaker 1: All right. That's the beginning of the story of you know,
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  Speaker 1: Victorian architecture and all that it entails. And it's a
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: quick look at some of the key characters and the
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  Speaker 1: idea is driving them. But how do we get from
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  Speaker 1: those ideas, you know, lofty ideas about moral the moral
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: power of beauty. How do we get from that to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: the multi colored, painted lady Victorian houses that we picture
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: in our minds. Well, we're going to get to that
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: right after this. This is home in progress where the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to do list is long. And that's all right. We're
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: not crabbing at you. We're not going to yell at you.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: That's how it is. It's how ours is too. It's
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: probably supported by Repcollite Paints and Benjamin Moore because home
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: projects are easier when you've got people you can trust.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: All right, So how do we get from all of
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: that philosophy stuff, that heady stuff to the bold, extravagant,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: you know, opulent houses, the painted ladies that we think
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: about today when we think about Victorian architecture. Well, to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: get to this part of the story, we need to
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: remember a couple of things. And I hinted at him
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and talked briefly about him at the very beginning. But
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: we're in an age at this point of mass production.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: So Ruskin, you know, we specifically talked about him last segment.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: He personally hated machine made ornament, you know, that was
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: something that he absolutely detested it lacked the irregularity of
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the human hand. He hated the perfection with which these
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: things could be stamped out. But his followers and the
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: public missed that subtlety. You know, as they're processing and
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: adapting and applying his ideas, they missed the nuance there.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: They latched onto the bigger idea that decoration equals beauty
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and beauty equals virtue. But they missed the whole concept
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: that machine made ornamentation is a negative. So they're really
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: good with the idea of machine made ornamentation for reasons
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: we'll get to. And they're operating with the idea that, okay,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: decorations beauty, beauty is virtuous. So if you can afford
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: to decorate, you really should be. So now you can
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: start to see where things start to get a little exaggerated,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a little exuberant, let's say. And you know, by the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixties eighteen seventies, Ruskin's influence is showing up everywhere
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: in what we call high Victorian Gothic. You know, you're
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: getting bold, polychromatic brickwork, pointed arches and multiple colors, heavily
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: carved details, unapologetic ornament It's just gone nuts at this point.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: And there's one big reason all of this could happen.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: We've already talked about it. It's technology. You know. The
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution made it possible for people to be able
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to order decorative pieces from a catalog. You know, if
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: you want to fancy brackets for your porch, all of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a sudden, now you can flip through some pages and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and there they are. They look good, and they're in stock.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: You know, Amazon's going to drop them right off. If
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: you want cast iron railings or you know, press tin ceilings, whatever,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: just pick your pattern from the book and it's all
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: going to be shipped to you by rail. So for
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the first time, ordinary people could afford ornament. You didn't
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: need to be wealthy to have an ornate house. You
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: just needed to be middle class. And that was a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: whole new thing going on. And if Pugen and Ruskin,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the people that, you know a lot of people were
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: aware of their writings and their thoughts, if they were
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: preaching that ornament was morally uplifting, then why wouldn't a
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: respectable middle class homeowner want as much ornamentation as possible.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I want to be as moral as possible, so I'm
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: going to put on wallpaper on top of my wallpaper. Well,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: that idea eventually finds its most vivid expression in Queen
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Anne's style. Now, I mentioned it earlier, but there's no
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: one single Victorian style of architecture. We talked about that. Instead,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the Victorian era saw numerous types of architecture arise, and
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: all of them are considered Victorian. There's Gothic Revival we
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: covered that, there's the Italianate style that took off in
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the eighteen forties, eighteen fifties, Second Empire style that arrived
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: in the eighteen sixties and eighteen seventies, and Queen Anne.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: That style came about by the eighteen eighties eighteen nineties.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: This is the style that most of us picture when
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: we hear the word Victorian. Now, the funny thing about
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Queen Ann's style is that it really doesn't have all
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that much to do, if anything, to do with the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: real Queen Anne from the early seventeen hundreds. You know,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Victorians just borrowed the name. You know, they needed something
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: that sounded respectable, that sounded historic, so they came up
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: with Queen Anne, and it gave their new style a
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: touch of old world class, right, what they actually were
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: doing was creating this style that was this huge mix
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: of everything they loved. It was absolutely as eclectic as possible.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: You know, a Queen Anne house, you can't draw it symmetrically,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: you know, on paper, you can't draw it metrically. It's
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: all towers and turrets, you know, wrap around porches, bay
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: windows and gables. You know, pretty much every single angle
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: that you look at reveal something new. You've got a
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: stained glass window over here, a big band of you know,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: fish scale shingles over there. You've got turned spindles, you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: carved brackets, intricately, intricately carved brackets, bits of trim wherever
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: you look. You know, it's just a lot going on.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: And that's just those elements, you know, those trim elements
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call them. You've got the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: color on top of that. And we've referred to these
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: houses already as painted ladies. But you know, that name's
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a name that stuck for a reason. They didn't paint
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: their house as white. We all know that, you know,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: three colors on the house. That was completely conservative at
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that point. You know, a painted lady, a true painted lady,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: might wear five six even seven colors all at once,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and each one is going to be highlighting a different detail,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: you know, the gables, the porch posts, the gingerbread trim,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the window frames. It was architectural drama made visible through paint.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: You know, they highlighted all of these different elements with
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: different colors. You know, it was crazy in that regard.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: The textures. They were just as lively as the colors.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: You know, you might have smooth clapboard siding over here,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: you know, on the first floor. Then you might have
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: patterned shingles, you know, maybe scalloped or fish scale or
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: something like that on the upper story, and then a
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: little half timbering up in the gables, different materials doing
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: different jobs, all loudly, loudly on display. Victorians weren't trying
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: to hide construction. They were celebrating every single aspect of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: their home. Now inside, the same thing happened. The same
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: thing continued through. You've got high ceilings with elaborate plaster work,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: pocket doors between parlors, built in cabinets. Every single room
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: had its own personality and its own purpose, and that
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: purpose was largely expressed through decoration. The Hacking and Hume
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: homes in Muskegan absolute, you know, stellar examples of all
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: of this. If you've never been through those homes and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you don't know what I'm talking about, look into it.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: You know, you can arrange tours. I think they're open
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: for tours from May through October. You'd have to check
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: out their website. But Hackley and Hume homes, you know,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: excellent examples of this Queen Anne style that I'm talking about.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: All Right, at the end, let's recap and put all
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: of this together and hopefully answer that big question that
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: we started with, And that's why did Victorians build this way?
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: You know, why all the layers, why the flourishes, why
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the sense that no surface should be left untouched and undecorated. Well,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: five things to take take away from this. First off,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: they did that because they believed that beauty mattered. You know,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: it wasn't luxury, it was essential. Augustus Pugin, we talked
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: about him. He taught that honest ornament was morally right.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Ruskin taught that it reflected human creativity and dignity. So
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: if you could make something beautiful, they would argue that
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: you should. A plane building wasn't noble. It was almost
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: a failure of goodness itself. So they did it because
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: beauty mattered. Second, they did it because they could for
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the first time. You know, we talked about that industry
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: was making beauty affordable. The moral urged to build beautifully
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: lined up perfectly. You know, everything came together with the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: ability to be able to do it. Third, they built
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: this way because in this new industrial society, your home
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: mattered more than ever as a statement of who you were.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: You know, it's always been true to some degree, but
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: now at this point, the middle class could finally afford to,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: you know, make a literal statement, you know, with their homes.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: They could talk about who they were through their homes.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: And in a fast growing city full of newcomers, family
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: names didn't mean as much anymore. But your house that
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: did that could tell people exactly who you were and
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: how you fit into society. You know. The style of
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the home, its ornament, its color, all of it communicated
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: taste and education and refinement. So they built that way
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: because it was important in that regard. A fourth reason
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: they did it is because they were anxious. You know,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: we talked about it. Life was fast at that point,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: it was noisy, it was uncertain, and they did what
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: we do. You know, we look back to what we
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: call the good old days, you know, the quieter times,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the time when there weren't eight million people on the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: road trying to go exactly where I want to go.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: You know, we remember those days when man, maybe the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: roads had a biker or two on them, you know,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and that was a pedal biker, not even a motorcycle rider.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It was just quiet and we could go wherever we wanted.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: They were living the same way back then. They were
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: inundated with the whole Industrial Revolution and a lot of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: growth that happened very fast, a lot of noise, a
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: lot of busyness, and they just started looking back to
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: historical stuff and saying, man, those good old days, sure
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: do like that. And that's how Gothic and Italianate and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Queen Anne, all of those styles kind of came to be,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: and they gave people a sense of comfort and continuity
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and a link to the past, you know, something solid
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to the good old days. Fifth reason they built this way,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and this one's a no brainer. They did it because
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: they thought it looked good. You know, they really did
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: find beauty in this. You know, we might see clutter,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: but they saw craftsmanship and care, they saw beauty in
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: all of that. So that's the story behind the growth
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of what we refer to as the Victorian era in architecture.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: But there's one more important part to the story that
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I want to cover, and that's its decline. You know,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: why did it all drop off? When? And when did
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: that happen? We're going to get to that right after this.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Home in Progress, where the projects are real,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the mistakes, they're educational, sometimes painful, mostly educational. And the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: only thing more stubborn than that old wallpaper on your
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: bathroom wall is your determination to get it fixed. Proudly
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: sponsored by Repcolite Paints and Benjamin Moore Paint with a purpose,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: people who care, and everything you need to get the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: job done right. All right, let's wrap this conversation up
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: by looking at the eventual decline of the Victorian style. Now,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: by the time Queen Victoria died in nineteen oh one,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the style that bore her name was already fading. You know, interestingly,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the same currents of thought that helped create it, you know,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: especially Ruskin's love of honest handcraft, you know, handcrafted goods,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: that idea you know, the love of those handcrafted items
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: was turning against the movement, the Arts and crafts movement.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: We talked about it a few weeks about ago, but
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: it was led by figures like William Morris, and that began.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: That movement began as a kind of moral correction for
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the Victorians. Morris agreed with Ruskin that medieval craftsmanship, you know,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: literally making things by hand, represented honesty and dignity, and
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: it was the better way to go. He completely rejected
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the mass produced ornamentation that was filling up these late
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Victorian homes. Now we talked about it already, but Ruskin
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: himself wasn't big on how people adopted these mass produced items.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: He didn't like that either. He did like that handcrafted
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: goodness at hand crafted goodness. But Morris, you know, he
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: took it to a new level. He was a loud voice,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: and he steered things in a completely new direction. You know,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: he advocated for simplicity, for restraint, for visible, honest construction,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: actual handcrafted work. And if you'd like more info on that,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: go back again to the podcast and check out episode
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: four twenty four where I really dig into William Morris
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and why he was so important. It's a really good segment,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and it'd be really nice to pair that one with
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: this one, you know, so after catching this one, go
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: check out that one, episode four twenty four. It's like
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: pairing the right meal with the right wine or something
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: like that. That's how wonderful these two would be together. Anyway,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: William Morris kind of kicked against the Victorian opulence as
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: he saw it, and he wasn't alone. You know, people
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: were growing tired of the excess, you know, the layers
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: upon layers, the seven color paint schemes. They wanted something,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you know, more authentic, less busy. They wanted colors that
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: they could member when they needed to repaint. I'm convinced
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: of that, you know, I'm looking at this from a
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: practical point of view. You know, think about it. You
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: paint your bathroom right, and then three years later, you know,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: unless you save the can or wrote the color down,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: none of us have any idea what that color actually
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: was anymore, right? Can you imagine doing that with seven
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: colors on the outside of your home and then on
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the inside. You know, I did mention the heckleyan humehouses
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: in Muskegan in the last segment the exteriors of those
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: houses have thirteen or fourteen different colors on each one,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: and the insides, you know, the insides of the homes.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I think in there there's over I believe it's over
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: one hundred different colors, you know, all kinds of stencil work.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: It's nuts, it's amazing. You know, our Meskegan Repcolite has
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: helped with a lot of the color matching through the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: years at those houses, so I know the numbers are
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: insane for the amount of colors, the number of different
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: colors in those homes. And one more thing about the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Heckley and Hume homes. The Hackley house features more handcarved
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: ornamentation the Hume home because money was a little more
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: of a consideration. That home is going to feature more
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: machine produced ornamentation. And I could be slightly off on that.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: It's been quite a while since I've been there, but
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: I think I'm right. And more importantly, just go check
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: those homes out. But my bigger point of bringing those
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: up again is to say check them out, but also
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: to talk about the number of colors. You know, can
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: you imagine one hundred and some colors in your interior?
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: You would need a full time person just to catalog
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: and chronicle which colors were used where and which color
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: was needed when a repaint was necessary. Well, people were
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: sick of that. They didn't have money for all these
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: extra people to catalog their colors. They didn't want to
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: have to go through all of that create databases in
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: order to figure out what was in the bathroom, you know,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: color wise. They wanted simplicity, They wanted to move away
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: from all of that busyness, and so people like William
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Morris their idea started to catch on. New modernist thinkers
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: were declaring things like ornament is crime. You know, ornament
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: was beauty not even too long from this point, but
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: now it's completely flipped on its head, and ornament is
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: crime and something, you know, another mantra that came out
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: of this era. It's something that we still hear today.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Less is more, you know, that's where that idea comes from,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: a direct reaction to the Victorian era. But even so,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: with all of that said, it's really important to point
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: out that the Victorians left us with something really amazing.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: You know, their architecture shaped our cities in tons of ways.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: You know, they filled all of our cities with imagination.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: You know, they're row houses, their churches, their their their
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: train stations, whatever their public buildings. They're still among the
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: most recognizable and beloved buildings in the world. You know,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: we love looking at Victorian homes as we drive around
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: through neighborhoods. It's just it's so intriguing. It's so amazing,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: you know, to see all of what's going on in them.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: So even though we may don't maybe don't want that
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: for ourselves, it's still wonderful to see that, and it
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: really creates a lot of interest. They left a powerful
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: idea behind, you know, that architecture isn't just engineering, it's communication.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: You know. It should be expressive, it should be varied,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: it should be meaningful, It should tell stories, it should
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: evoke emotions, you know, and that's an idea that we
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: still hold on to and one that will never go
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: away and shouldn't go away. You know, we talk about
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: it at Repcolite with paint colors, you know, the paint
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: colors you choose, that that should tell a story. It
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: shouldn't just be well that tan matches with whatever tan
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: in your couch. You know, that's important, but having that
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: vision for where you want to go with a room,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the story you want that room to tell. It sounds crazy,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: but the paint color can help you get there. And
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that idea doesn't necessarily start with the Victorian movement, but
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: it really really came to the four you know, the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: forefront in the Victorian era. All Right, speaking about telling
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: your story with color, I want to talk briefly about
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Moore's new color of the Year for twenty twenty six,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and I don't have much time left, but I want
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to say that they revealed it last week, and if
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: you don't know, it's silhouette. It's a brown color with
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: hints of charcoal in it. It's really earthy. It's pretty
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: much what a lot of people were predicting, at least
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the type of color. You know on earthy color and
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the supporting color trends colors, they're all earthy as well,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and they work really well with it. Now, over the
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: next few weeks, from time to time, we're going to
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: talk about these new colors, how to work with them,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: why it's worth bothering with all of those things. But
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I bring it up right now, mostly because way earlier
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: in this episode I mentioned a contest that we're running
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: right now, and I told you that I get to
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: it by the end. So here's the deal. Find Repcolite
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: on Facebook and Instagram and you'll find a post showing
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: you some of these color trends for twenty twenty six.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: That post has all of the details for the contest.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: But here's the quick scoop. Go there and in the
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: comments on one or both Facebook and Instagram. In the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: comment on either one of those or both, write down
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: which of the color trends colors moves you to paint
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a room in your house. You know, all you got
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: to do is say rain dance moves me to paint
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: my living room something like that. Super easy. Tell us
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: which color moves you to paint which room in your home.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Every comment you enter counts as an entry into the contest.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: And then on November sixteen, I'll draw four random winners
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: and each one is going to receive a two hundred
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: and fifty dollars gift certificate to Repcolite. So four huge prizes,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: all for leaving a comment on a social media post.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: All right, it's all the time we've got today. If
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: you want to catch this episode again, you can find
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: it online at Repcolit dot com and don't forget scuff
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: X from Benjamin Moore is still on sale at all
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Repcolite locations through October thirty one. It's over twenty four
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: bucks off per gallon. It's a huge savings for an
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: amazing product. That sale is going to end after October
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: thirty one, so don't miss out. All right, that's going
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: to do it for this episode of Home in Progress.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in. If you liked what you heard
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: and you want to hear more like this, definitely consider
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: subscribing to the podcast if you haven't done that already,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: and also, if you feel so inclined, leave us a review.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: A kindly review will help other people find the show,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: and that really helps us out. Thanks again for listening.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: I'm Dan Hansen for Home in Progress. I'll see you
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: next time.