Georgian Architectural Designs and Details

The Classic 1757 Stylebook

Abraham Swan

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780486140032
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: History of Architecture

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.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, Bennie. “The Ownership of Architecture Books in Colonial Virginia,” in American Architects and Their Books to 1848. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001. 17–33.

Colvin, Howard. A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600—1840. 3^rd ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995.

Cummings, Abbott Lowell. “The Availability of Architecture Books in Eighteenth-Century New England,” in American Architects and Their Books to 1848. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001. 1–16.

Fleming, J. Robert Adam and his Circle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962.

Harris, Eileen, and Savage, Nicholas, British Architectural Books and Writers, 1556–1785. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. American Architectural Books: A List of Books, Portfolios, and Pamphlets on Architecture and Related Subjects Published in American Before 1895. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962.

McNamara, Martha J. “Defining the Profession: Books, Libraries, and Architects,” in American Architects and Their Books to 1848. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001. 73–89.

Moss, Roger W. Historic Houses of Philadelphia: A Tour of the Region’s Museum Homes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

Oswald, Arthur, Country Life. 11 November, 1949.

Park, Helen. A List of Architectural Books Available in America before the Revolution. New ed. Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1973.

Schimmelman, Janice G. “Architectural Treatises and Building Handbooks Available in American Libraries and Bookstores through 1800,” [Rpt. From Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 95.2, October, 1985].

THE PREFACE.

AFTER more than Thirty Years Application to, and Experience in, the Theory and Practice of Architecture, I have Compiled the following Designs.

For I observe the Designs which have been published by others, have, for the most part, been grand and pompous; which, though they may be excellent in their Kind, will but Seldom come into Use, as being only proper for very large Buildings.

But as there are more Gentlemed of moderate Fortunes than of great Estates who may be inclined to build Houses, I suppose some less expensive Designs may be acceptable to the Public, as being of more general Use such as will be found in Several of the following Plates while yet in others of them (especially in the fecond Book) I have endeavoured to accommodate the Great and Noble with Designs, that may be suitable to their Taste and Fortune: and if the Hints which I have here given may be improved by some better Genius, in forming better Designs than any of these, I shall sincerely rejoice in it.

I have endeavoured all along to form such Designs as are capable of receiving good Decorations; for if the original Design be bad, superadded Ornaments will make the whole to appear rather aukward than graceful, like a clown in a laced Waistcoa...

Table of contents

• DOVER BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Dover Books on Art and Art History
• Art Instruction
• Medieval Art through Eighteenth-Century Art
• Pictorial Archive
• Twentieth- Century Art