Georgian Style

Georgian Style, Neo-Classical style of architecture and interior design, fashionable in Great Britain from the accession of George I (1714) to the death of George IV in 1830. The style developed from the Roman Palladian style (see Palladio, Andrea) used by the 17th-century English architect Inigo Jones, and was largely employed in domestic architecture and in planned sections of towns, such as the Adelphi section of London designed by the 18th-century Scottish-English architect Robert Adam, the Circus and the Royal Crescent built by the English architects John Wood the Elder and John Wood the Younger in the resort town of Bath, and the whole of New Town in Edinburgh. Among the finest examples of the style used for a public building in the second half of the 18th century is Somerset House, London, designed by the English architect Sir William Chambers. The Custom House, the Four Courts, and other Georgian buildings that give Dublin its 18th-century character were designed by the English architect James Gandon. The style was superseded in England by the Greek Revival and Gothic Revival styles of the 19th century.

In colonial North America, the influence of the Georgian style is evident in very few buildings before the American War of Independence. By 1785, however, in the newly formed United States, the Federal Style, the American adaptation of Georgian style, had become ubiquitous. This evolved into a monumental Neo-Classical style exemplified by the elegant designs (1817-1826) of Thomas Jefferson for the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. This version of the Georgian style remained popular for public buildings in the United States well into the 20th century. See also American Art and Architecture; Neo-Classical Art and Architecture.