Editing Victorian Architecture (section)

== Context and Variety ==

Victorian architecture reflected the era's industrial prosperity and technological innovation. New building materials—cast iron, plate glass, terra cotta—enabled forms impossible in earlier periods. Pattern books and architectural journals disseminated designs rapidly, allowing builders throughout the city to adopt current fashions. The railroad brought exotic materials from distant sources, expanding decorative possibilities. Victorian taste embraced variety, asymmetry, and historicist references that marked departure from classical restraint. Buildings competed for attention through ornament, color, and picturesque composition.<ref name="tatum">{{cite book |last=Tatum |first=George B. |title=Penn's Great Town: 250 Years of Philadelphia Architecture |year=1961 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia}}</ref>

Philadelphia's Victorian architecture developed particular local character while participating in national trends. The city's established brick-building tradition continued, with Victorian ornament applied to rowhouse forms that maintained Philadelphia's urban density. Local architects, particularly Frank Furness, created distinctive variants that marked Philadelphia buildings as different from those of other cities. The Victorian period produced much of Philadelphia's current building stock—the rowhouses, churches, schools, and commercial buildings that constitute neighborhood character throughout the city.<ref name="moss"/>