END OF THEORY

The End of Theory

The End of Theory

Introduction

American urban architecture is vast and complex, yet particular building types or architectural theories can be read in parallel with larger shifts in American society (Gelernter 2001, 45-59). What follows is a broad outline of American urban architecture, mixing a selection of notable buildings with ordinary ones. Together, they compose the architecture of the New York City. (Ghirardo 1996, 14-27)

Early America

The earliest New York City (and, subsequently, the earliest urban architecture) may have been the Mississippian Native American site of Cahokia and its mounds, an approximately 6-squaremile site located near the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois Rivers in presentday East St. Louis, Illinois. Thriving between 900 and 1200, records indicate that as many as 30,000 people may have lived in and around this site by the late 1100s—a figure which, if true, makes Cahokia the largest North American settlement until the rise of Philadelphia in the late 18th century. As many as 120 mounds (raised pyramidal earthworks) along with six large plazas marked the site. Most significant was the broad, 100-foot, earthbuilt terraced “Monk's Mound,” a platform for royal, ritual, or administrative functions. Yet it remains unclear whether Cahokia was a permanent urban settlement with a complex social structure or, perhaps like Poverty Point in Louisiana's West Carroll Parish (circa 1000 BCE), an occasional ceremonial or pilgrimage site.

Beginning around 900 in the arid setting of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, the Ancestral Pueblos, or Anasazi, also began erecting a number of large masonry complexes. The largest of these, the D-shaped Pueblo Bonito, featured as many as 800 rooms, 30 of which resemble circular, subterranean ritual spaces knows as kivas. Because of ancient roads stretching some 65 miles to other ancestral pueblo sites, Pueblo Bonito has been variously interpreted as a royal residence, an ancient apartment building, or the urban center of an extensive ancient economic or political network. Whether the Chacoan settlements, as well as the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde in nearby south-western Colorado (1100-1300), constitute examples of early American urban architecture also remains unclear.

More is known about the architecture of early British colonial towns in New England and Virginia, of which settlers intended some of the buildings as part of a communal, if not urban, environment. Despite its almost complete restoration, Williamsburg, Virginia, is noted for a handful of impressive administrative buildings based upon English Baroque precedents. Together with the main building for the College of William and Mary (1695-1702), the Capitol Building (1701-1705), and the Governor's Palace (1706-1720) were a series of less permanent residences, shops, pharmacies, and taverns lining muddy streets. In such buildings and spaces, much of the everyday work of the colony took place. (Ghirardo 1996, 14-27)

Eighteenth-century colonial cities remained small, however. The largest were the principal seaports: Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Newport, and Charleston. In 1765, Philadelphia was the biggest, boasting 20,000 people, with its State House (Independence Hall) (1732-1753) and Christ Church (1727-1754) among its most prominent ...