Tag Archive: historic architecture

Porch Light – Historic Old Louisville Home – Kentucky

Porch Light - Historic Old Louisville Home - Kentucky

The Old Louisville historic district, located in Kentucky, boasts the largest concentration of Victorian-Style buildings (and homes with stained glass windows) in the United States. Those styles include the Romanesque, Queen Anne, and Italiante. The district covers 48 city blocks and is located south of Louisville main business district, and north of the city’s largest college campus, the University of Louisville. Construction in the area began in the 1870’s and while its called Old Louisville, its actually younger than other parts of the city, which itself dates to 1780. The most famous part of Old Louisville is focused around St. James Court and Belgravia Court, but the distinct buildings the area is known for extended across multiple streets, including 1st to 6th streets, and Mangnolia to Hill Street.

Romanesque buildings are often built with thick walls, round arches, sturdy piers, groin vaults, large towers, and decorative arcades.

Italiante homes tend to haev low-piched or flat roofs, a symmetrical retangural shape that is multiple stories high, wide, overhanging eaves with large brackets and cornices, square cupolas, and balustrated balconies

Queen Anne style homes are often have an asymmetrical front facade, with a large porch, and decorative wood trim. The roofs are steep with cross gables or large dormers. And the houses tend to feature a round or polygonal front corner tower with a conical roof.

Historic Bridgeton Sawmill – Indiana

Historic Bridgeton Sawmill - Indiana

The historic Bridgeton, Indiana mill began its life in 1823 as a local sawmill. Since that time both the mill and the covered bridge its associated with have burned down and been rebuilt, the mill more than once. The mill has also gone through a variety of transformations, transitioning to a grist mill at one point, and a distillery, and eventually a feed mill for the local agricultural economy. Today it largely caters to tourists, serving as a restaurant, the oldest operating mill in Indiana, and a museum.

San Xavier del Bac Mission – Tucson – Arizona

San Xavier del Bac Mission - Tucson - Arizona

One of the distinguishing cultural and architectural aspects of the American Southwest are historic remnants of Catholic missions that were established by the Empire of Spain in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The goal unlike the conquest of Mexico and South America for gold and riches, was to save the souls of native american indians the Spanish saw as pagans.

The Spanish Catholic Mission San Xavier del Bac was founded ten miles south of modern day Tucson, Arizona. It was founded in 1692 by Father Eusebio Kino, who also started the Tumacacori Spanish Mission just to the south near the border with Mexico. During his life, Eusebio established more than 24 missions, and country chapels in Pimería Alta (Sonora) and Baja California.

This mission was named after Francis Xavier, a Christian missionary and a founder of the Jesuit Order. The current church was completed in 1797, after the previous structure was destroyed by the Apaches. Its primary mission was the conversion of the local Pima Indians, and more specifically the Tohono O’odham band.

The church employs white stucco and a ornate Moorish-inspired architectural design.