Identifying the neo-Grec (part 3)
The neo-Grec is often misidentified as the wildly popular Italianate style of an earlier decade. In style guides you can often find neo-Grec depictions hiding with Italianate style examples. But despite their similarities the Italianate and the neo-Grec are quite different, with very separate origins and stylistically distinct details.
The key difference in the two styles is that while the Italianate style features rounded, foliate ornament, often handcarved and three-dimensional, the neo-Grec uses flat, rectilinear geometry and favors incised decoration that could be created easily with new industrial technology. Examples of these styles, when seen side by side, clearly show that difference.
I know. You’re probably thinking “they’re both made of brownstone, they’re both flat-front row houses, they have stoops…. All the openings are the same… These are hardly different. ” But stick with me. The left Italianate building has those large, expressive curving acanthus carvings that support the door hood. The right neo-Grec style building shows a flatter profile and a more geometric decoration scheme.
So yes, much of the confusion between the Italianate and neo-Grec styles results from the fact that facade materials and overall facade arrangement remained largely the same, particularly with row house architecture, but it’s those pesky details that show the true style.
In order to make everything more confusing, a long period of transition between the styles further muddled these different treatment methods, and late-Italianate buildings began to incorporate modern neo-Grec features to stay up-to-date and competitive in the real estate market. You can see this transition below in these Brooklyn row houses.
On the left you can see a more truly neo-Grec style design with flattened lintels and lots of decorative line work. On the right, the transitional Italianate / neo-Grec design retains the signature carved brackets of the Italianate style around the entrance, but has relatively flat window enframements with simple incised lines under a molded lintel.
The most expressive and pure neo-Grec buildings show how a building’s structure and load can be represented through the decoration of the facade. Decorative linework is clustered in areas of stress: within lintels, stretched between openings, along edges and corners, and, particularly when used in cast-iron commercial architecture, along the large support piers at a building’s base. Identifying the most common and simple examples of the neo-Grec style is typically done through the presence of neo-Grec fluting and incised detailing, but a number of features can help to identify the style. The use of angular, geometric (generally triangular) brackets were common design elements of both the residential and commercial neo-Grec style; they were widely used as volutes under door hoods, to support window enframements, or as modillions and end blocks in cornices.
The characteristic flattening of the style has been described as a shearing off of those facade features that would have previously been three-dimensional. This leaves only shallow projections around window enframements and door surrounds, where in the Italianate style these elements would have been robust, casting shadows and increasing the drama of the facade. What is lost in sculptural decoration in the neo-Grec style is made up for in the use of incised details that grace these flat surfaces, often in sinuous floral or vegetal designs and the angular geometry of circles, diamonds, and fluting.
Spotting the style of decoration is the easiest identifier, but understanding where to find that decoration and why it is flattened, sheared, incised, geometric, and oh-so-modern (if this were 1870) will help you to find the neo-Grec all around you. While this quick primer should allow you to visually identify the neo-Grec, the next installment explains some of the architectural theory and contemporary social changes of the 1860s and 1870s that created this particular mindset around design, decoration, and structure. This context will empower you to understand why and how you find the neo-Grec in situ.
For the other parts of this series see parts one, two, four, and five. For more images of the neo-Grec in the wild of our urban environment see my instagram (@knowing_neogrec). If you would like to connect professionally, please visit Reiter Preservation Consulting.
