Philadelphia Row Houses

By Don Letts and Lindsey Kieffaber

Penn's Plan

• “Penn's initial design for his 'green country town' was framed partly in response to his negative view of london”- (pg. 10. Spaces, inside and outside in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia by Sharon V Salinger)

• Philadelphia was the first large-scale gridiron.

• He designed the town for large mansions per block surrounded by gardens. A truly suburban setting

• Ironically, “...by 1750 the aspect of the toen bore a closer resemblance to London than to Penn's vision of a disciplined community.” (pg. 1. Houses and Early Life in Philadelphia, by Grant Miles Simon)

Row House Comprimise• Row Houses were “Philadelphia’s dominant building type

for 300 years…” (pg. 14, The Comparative Row House Study: an Introduction to Architectural Design, by Paul Hirsorn)

• Row House design is essentially a comprimise between what Penn wanted, and what London was.

• The majority of the row houses did not have gardens in front of them.

• However row houses allowed for individuals to own property rather than the appartment style New York.

• Penn encouraged, and there still remains a psychology within Philadelphia (especially the old Philadelphia area) that the inhabitants are city people, but country people at heart.

•Used in Germany and London (before the great fire of 1666)

•Relevance: the first row houses were constructed in half-timber construction (Budd’s Row- “the earliest recorded row in Philadelphia… dating from about 1691” (pg. 140, Robert Mills and the Philadelphia Row House, by Kenneth Ames)

Half Timber Construction

A few examples of half-timber construction:

South Side of Elfreth's Alley

Georgian architecture- pediments- paneled shutters

Elfreth's alley - upper to middle class inhabitants - 1702-1755 - one side is primarily Georgian architecture, and the other federal.

North Side of Elfreth’s Alley

Federal Architecture-collumns around the door-more aymewtrical and balanced.-have elevated entrances more often

- pedimented gable- three full stories- roof pitch reduced

York Row:

•South side of walnut street facing sansom row

•originally very grand

•Built by BHL in 1807-1808, shortly before Mills created Franklin row

Franklin Row:

•Built in 1810 by Robert Mills

•South 9th St, between Chestnut and Walnut St.

Colonade Row

• Corner of Fifteenth and Chestnut Streets

• residential four-storey buildings

• 1830 • John Haviland

Sansom Row:

•Brown Stone Façade – (16 of 18…2 westward have common Philadelphia brick)

•Imbricated Shingles – overlapping edges

•Mansards - upper story formed by a slanted roof

•Paired Doorways

•Continuous bracketed cornices – molding

Built in 1860’s By Benjamin Henry Latrobe

Elfreth's Alley

Budd's Long Row

Franklin Row

York Row

Sansom Row

Bibliography• Bridenbaugh, Carl. Cities in the Wilderness. New York: The Ronald Press Company.

• Burt, Nathaniel. The Perennial Philadelphians. Philadelphia: University of Pennslyvania Press, 1963.

• Salinger, Sharon V. “Spaces, Inside and Outside in Eighteenth Century Philadelphia.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 26, No. 1. 31. 1995.

• Ames, Kenneth. “Robert Mills and the Philadelphia Row House”. The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 27, No. 2. May, 1968. 140-146

• Schweitzer, Mary M. “The Spatial Organization of Federalist Philadelphia, 1790.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 24, No. 1. 31. 1993.

• The Octavia Hill Association. “Certain Aspects of the Housing Problem in Philadelphia.” Annals of the American academy of Political and Social Science.Vol. 20. July 1902, 111-120.

• http://www.uchs.net/HistoricDistricts/sansomrow.html

• http://www.brynmawr.edu/cities/courses/05-306/proj2/ab2/Developers.htm

Bibliography con’t• Simon, Grant Miles. “Houses and Early Life in Philadelphia.” Transactions of

the American Philosophical Society. New Ser, Vol. 43, No. 1. 1953.

• Murtagh, William John. “The Philadelphia Row House.” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 16 No. 4. December 1957.

• Smith, Robert C. “Two Centuries of Philadelphia Architecture 1700-1800.” Transations of the American Philosophical Society, New Ser, Vol 43, No. 1. 1953

• http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ho_display.cfm/781464

• http://sacredheritage.com/normita/images/sloth-3.jpg

• Hirshorn, Paul. “The Comparative Rowhouse Study: An Introduction to Architectural Design.” JAE, Vol. 36, No. 1. 1982.

• http://www.brynmawr.edu/iconog/evans/files/phs178.html