Greek Revival Architecture

Greek Revival Architecture dominated Philadelphia building from approximately 1820 to 1860, transforming the city's appearance with temples, columns, and classical grandeur that expressed the young democracy's identification with ancient Athens. The style arrived as archaeological discoveries made Greek architecture newly available to designers, while American political culture embraced Greece as the birthplace of democracy and model for republican virtue. Philadelphia became a national center of Greek Revival, producing masterworks including the Second Bank of the United States, Girard College, and the Philadelphia Merchants' Exchange that rank among the finest examples of the style in America.

Characteristics

Greek Revival architecture drew directly from ancient Greek temple forms, adapting their columns, entablatures, and pediments to nineteenth-century building types. Unlike earlier classical revivals that filtered Greek elements through Roman and Renaissance interpretations, Greek Revival architects studied original Greek buildings through measured drawings and archaeological publications. The result was architecture of unprecedented archaeological accuracy: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns following Greek rather than Roman proportions; entablatures with correct triglyphs and metopes; and temple fronts that created porticoes of imposing grandeur.

Philadelphia's Greek Revival buildings typically employed marble—the material of ancient Greek temples—quarried from nearby Montgomery and Chester Counties. White marble facades created dramatic contrasts with the city's prevailing red brick, announcing important buildings through material as well as form. Columns ranged from the severe Doric of the Second Bank to the more ornate Corinthian of later buildings. Temple-front compositions, with their dramatic porticoes, became the preferred solution for banks, churches, and civic buildings seeking to convey stability, permanence, and democratic virtue.

William Strickland

William Strickland emerged as Philadelphia's master of Greek Revival, designing buildings that established the style's authority and demonstrated its adaptability to various functions. The Second Bank of the United States, completed in 1824, presented a Doric temple front modeled on the Parthenon—the most direct quotation of ancient Greece yet attempted in American architecture. The bank's marble columns, precise entablature, and temple form created a monument appropriate to the institution's national importance, suggesting that American finance rested on foundations as solid as Athenian democracy.

Strickland continued with the Philadelphia Merchants' Exchange (1832-34), adapting Greek forms to commercial purposes. The building's most distinctive feature—a curved Corinthian colonnade based on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens—demonstrated that Greek Revival could achieve drama as well as solemnity. The Exchange's lantern and dome, rising behind the colonnade, showed creative adaptation rather than archaeological copying. Strickland's influence extended beyond Philadelphia through his design of the Tennessee State Capitol and through students who carried Greek Revival across the expanding nation.

Girard College

Girard College, designed by Thomas Ustick Walter, represents Greek Revival at its most ambitious and expensive. Stephen Girard's bequest for the education of "poor white male orphans" included provisions for buildings of the finest materials and workmanship, and Walter's design delivered grandeur exceeding anything previously attempted in America. Founder's Hall, the main building, presents a Corinthian temple of monumental scale, its marble columns among the largest in the country. The building took nearly two decades to complete (1833-1847), its perfectionism establishing standards that influenced American architecture for generations.

Walter's Girard College demonstrated that American architects could equal European sophistication while creating buildings of distinctly American purpose. The campus layout, with its axial organization and subsidiary buildings in matching Greek style, created an ensemble of classical order. Walter's success at Girard College led to his appointment as Architect of the U.S. Capitol, where he designed the dome that remains the building's defining feature. Girard College survives as an operating school, its Greek Revival campus open for tours that reveal the style's grandest Philadelphia expression.

Domestic Architecture

Greek Revival adapted to residential architecture throughout Philadelphia, bringing classical elements to rowhouses and country estates. The Portico Row houses on Spruce Street (demolished) presented temple-front facades along an entire block, creating streetscape of unprecedented classical ambition. Individual houses incorporated Greek elements at various scales: full columned porticoes for the wealthy, simpler pilastered doorways for modest means. The style's flexibility allowed classical vocabulary to serve various budgets and conditions.

Country houses around Philadelphia embraced Greek Revival with full temple fronts that transformed estates into suburban Parthenons. Andalusia, the estate of Nicholas Biddle (president of the Second Bank) in Bucks County, received a Greek Revival transformation that made it among the style's finest domestic examples. Biddle, who had visited Greece and championed Greek culture, created at Andalusia an American approximation of ancient sophistication. These country houses, set in landscaped grounds, demonstrated that Greek Revival could serve private aspiration as effectively as public monumentality.

Churches

Greek Revival provided new forms for Philadelphia's religious buildings, replacing Georgian steeples with temple fronts that expressed classical rather than Gothic spirituality. The Second Presbyterian Church (demolished) on Washington Square presented a full Corinthian temple, its form borrowed from Athens rather than medieval Europe. Other congregations adopted Greek elements in less complete fashion, adding classical porticoes to otherwise conventional church buildings. The style's association with democracy and civic virtue made it attractive to Protestant denominations seeking architectural expression of American religious freedom.

Decline and Legacy

Greek Revival began yielding to other styles by the 1850s as tastes shifted toward the picturesque variety of Victorian eclecticism. The style's strict archaeology, which had seemed liberating when introduced, came to appear restrictive as Italianate, Gothic Revival, and other styles offered more varied expression. The Civil War marked a decisive turning point, after which Greek Revival's associations with antebellum culture made it seem outdated. But the style left permanent marks on Philadelphia's architectural identity—the Second Bank, Merchants' Exchange, and Girard College remain landmarks that anchor the city's classical heritage.

Greek Revival's influence extended beyond individual buildings to shape American architectural education and practice. Strickland and Walter trained students who carried Greek principles across the country. The style's insistence on archaeological accuracy established precedents for historically informed design that continued through later revivals. Philadelphia's Greek Revival buildings, many now preserved as museums or adapted for new uses, demonstrate the style's enduring quality—construction solid enough to survive centuries, design elegant enough to remain admired.

See Also

• Second Bank of the United States
• Philadelphia Merchants Exchange
• Girard College
• Thomas Ustick Walter
• William Strickland