The distinctive Farmers and Merchants Bank in historic #Charleston features a very unusual facade style that is typically described as “Moorish”, and details such as its horseshoe arches are commonly assumed to be an Islamic creation spread into southern Europe by the conquering Moors. This is demonstrably untrue. There are numerous existing examples of horseshoe arches in ancient Catalonian and Byzantine structures that were built long before those areas were conquered and influenced by Islam. The Islamic conquest that speed from Arabia in the 7th century would eventually engulf the Middle East, North Africa, much of Southeastern Europe, and most of Spain. The conquerors borrowed extensively from earlier architectural designs, most notably Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which was built a century before Islam began as a Greek Orthodox Church. Not that borrowing others’ ideas is a bad thing, and in fact, it was America’s extensive borrowing of styles that were popular in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries that gives Charleston its grand look today. But although brought to us largely by English and Scottish Christians, Charleston’s historic architecture is based neither on European or Christian concepts, but largely the multi-theistic ancient Romans and Greeks. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Farmers and Merchants Bank
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Month: November 2018
Posthumous Pinckney
One of the saddest losses in the history of #Charleston was the burning of the Charles Pinckney mansion in the devastating fire of 1861. The grand Georgian-Palladian structure was finished in 1745 for Charles and Eliza Lucas Pinckney, largely built with the fortune they made in indigo, whose production Eliza revolutionized at the family plantation along the Stono River by devising methods that made the process more efficient. One of their three children born in the house was Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who would go on to sign the Constitution. The family leased the house to several Royal Governors, and the structure was commandeered by the British during the Revolution, only to return to the family by the 1820’s, after the Pickneys had turned over former creekside property to the city to be used as the City Market that still is there today. The City Market is a great place for visitors to tour. The house featured local brick that was “rouged” by adding iron oxides to the kilning process, as well as classically symmetrical Palladian features such as a two-story pilaster facade and belt course. The house stood on what is now the Southwest corner of East Bay and Guignard streets. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Pinckney Mansion
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Dune Driving
The warm ocean water along the coast near #Charleston has lured swimmers for many generations, and the invention of the automobile and the first barrier island bridges in the early 1900’s made it fairly easy to drive to the sea shore. There were no parking lots or public facilities for many years in places such as Folly Beach, pictured here, so folks would simply ride over dunes and down to the water line and jump in. Driving on the barrier islands was common as late as the 1950’s, and people also rode horses on the beaches for much of the 20th century. But by the 1960’s laws were passed prohibiting beach driving, and the only cars on local beaches today are police and rescue vehicles …or toys. It took some of the fun away, but certainly it’s easier on the mechanical parts not to be coated in salt and sand. Folly Beach is called the “Edge of America”, no doubt what drivers thought back then. <img.src=”Charleston Beaches” alt=”Cars Early 1900’s”
Genuine Gordon
The Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul in #Charleston has a very distinctive look, largely based on the lack of architectural skill of its designers. The structure was begun in 1810, and was designed by the Scottish-born brothers James and John Gordon, who also built Charleston’s Second Presbyterian Church and First Scots Presbyterian Church. One distinction of the churches is that they have towers, but no spire, and although the Gordons were master carpenters, they did not have formal architectural training and apparently did not fully comprehend the complex details of a towering steeple. The Church was originally called St. Paul’s Cathedral, and was unofficially know as The Planter’s Church because at the time it was built, many planters lived in houses in the vicinity that during that era faced the cooling breezes of the Ashley River. In 1949, the congregation of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church merged with St. Paul’s, and the cathedral has since affiliated with the Anglican Church. The original tower bell was donated to the Confederacy during the Civil War, and replacement bells were not reinstalled until 1998. And when being installed, contractors realized why Gordon churches had no steeples, because the tower was not sufficiently able to handle the load, and had to be reinforced to handle the bells. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul
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O’Donnell Overlooked
The common story told about this grand side-hall single house on King Street in historic #Charleston, is that its builder, Patrick O’Donnell, got so obsessed with adding details to the house that the fiance’ he was creating it for got tired of waiting and married someone else. There’s no way to prove that, but there is something O’Donnell did in 1861 that makes him much more worthy of admiration. During the great fire of December 1861, which struck at night with fire companies unprepared and winds pushing flames across the city, the Catholic orphanage and convent, as well as Roper Hospital, where in the path of the oncoming blaze coign down Queen Street with seemingly no chance of stopping it. O’Donnell, being a builder who understood stress points in structures, volunteered to carry black powder into houses in the path of the fire and blew them up, creating a fire break that altered the course of the flames, and saved the orphanage, hospital and convent. I often take my walking tour past this grand house, which is a construction type known as a side-hall single house. That should be Patrick O’Donnell’s lasting legacy.
Puzzling Portico
The St. Julian Ravenel House on East Battery Street has one of the most unusual looks and stories in historic #Charleston #SC. The 1840’s structure was built with a two-story colonnaded portico which came crashing down in the 1886 earthquake, and one of the building’s parts, a Corinthian capital, seemed to have been lost. Years later in the 1950’s a hurricane hit Charleston uprooting one of the trees in front of the house, and up through the tree roots came the missing capital, which had hit the ground with such force that in buried underneath. Apparently all the original parts still exist and there has been speculation that the grand old house may one day be put back together again. <img.src=”Charleston Curiosities” alt=”Missing Portico
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Ringing Relic
In 1882, shortly after the first public fire service was created in #Charleston, three alarm towers were built, at 112 Meeting Street, 262 Meeting Street and 5 Cannon Street, where new fire stations were soon to follow. The stations at 262 Meeting and 5 Cannon are still active fire houses, but there is no bell at Cannon Street, and the only existing bell is at the 112 Meeting Street location, now a city office building. The tower at 262 Meeting has long since disappeared, but the bell is still there in excellent condition. Last used in the 1950’s, they were rung for fires and for hurricane alarms, and gave a sound that helped protect Charlestonians for decades. <img.src=”Charleston Curiosities” alt=”Fire Bell Meeting Street
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Curious Critters
The sight of guinea hens perched in historic #Charleston has become a more noticeable novelty in recent years. This bird, which is related to chickens, originally comes from West Africa, deriving their name from the country called Guinea. They were brought to America and became a preferred barn yard creature because they raise such a big cackle if predators come lurking for livestock. A second plus for them is that their diet consists almost exclusively of insects, and anything that eats bugs is welcome in the South. These that wander the lower Charleston peninsula are kept as a novelty by a local resident, but they actually are not kept at all, and simply wander the streets and back yards as they please, and have become quite a tourist attraction in their own right. <img.src=”Charleston Curiosities” alt=”Guinea Hens
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Corinthian Confusion
A popular detail from the mid-19th century in historic #Charleston was the addition of colonnades topped by the Corinthian Order, considered the highest level and most spectacular design. Based on the elaborate Greek details from ancient buildings, the Corinthian capital -the top section of the column – was typically in the pattern of drooping Acanthus leaves. But a more intricate version, as pictured here at the 1850-era John Hume Lucas House on Rutledge Avenue, was the capital featuring both Acanthus and water leaves known as the Tower of the Winds capital in architecture. What is interesting is that the real Tower of the Winds, standing in Athens, Greece since around 50 BC, does not feature this type of capital. Instead, it came from the monument of Lysicrates, built some 300 years earlier, and also still standing. Drawings of its details were first published in England in 1762, and because the earlier building resembled the more famously known Tower of the Winds, an understandable misidentification was made. Admittedly, Tower of the Winds sounds more catchy than Lysicrates, so presumably none of the ancient Greeks would be offended. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Tower of the Winds capitals”
Illustrative Iron
Among the most charming details in historic #Charleston are its wonderful wrought iron gates. There are gates dating as early as the 1720’s done in the fashion of working iron by hammer and anvil into delicately decorative shapes. Wrought is a metal that is made up of iron, iron silicates and carbon. The carbon content of wrought iron is much lower than in other forms of iron and steel and the silicates are higher, which allows for a combination of elasticity and strength. All wrought iron in Charleston was imported, and the most sought-after form in the 19th century ws Swedish bar iron, forged in Swedish mills with a process that gave the iron considerable durability. Wrought iron was so strong, in fact, that during the Civil War, cannon barrels made of cast iron were strengthened by heating wrought iron rings that were placed over the cannon barrel and cooled to seal a powerful layer to keep the cannon from bursting during firing. <img.src=”Charleston History” alt=”Wrought Iron
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