Octagon house
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
An octagon house is exactly what it sounds like—an eight-sided building. A unique fad in residential architecture, they were particularly popular during the mid-19th century in the United States.
Early examples are Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest and William Thornton's Tayloe House, which is more commonly called The Octagon House. After the White House was burned down by the British during the War of 1812, President James Madison stayed in the Octagon House in Washington, D.C. It was here that the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812 was signed. Later it served as the headquarters of the American Institute of Architects.
The English architect Thomas Ivory designed an octagonal church for the Unitarian congregation of Norwich U.K. in 1756 which is still extant and in regular use. It has exceptionally fine acoustical properties.
The leading promoter of eight-sided structures in the U.S. was Orson Squire Fowler. Fowler was America's foremost lecturer and writer on phrenology, the pseudo-science of defining an individual's characteristics by the contours of the head. In the middle of the 19th century, Fowler made his mark on American architecture when he touted the advantages of octagonal homes over rectangular and square structures in his widely publicized book, The Octagon House: A Home for All. According to Fowler, an octagon house was cheaper to build, allowed for additional living space, received more natural light, was easier to heat, and remained cooler in the summer. This last attribute was an important point when the ruling principles of Victorian air conditioning were, generally, avoid direct sun and pray for a breeze.
As a result of Orson Fowler's authoritative publication, a few thousand octagonal houses were erected—mostly on the East Coast and in the Midwest. Nationwide, less than 500 of these very rare, romantic, Victorian-era homes are still standing. Even in their heyday, octagon houses never lined city street and neighborhood blocks. On the contrary, an eight-sided home seemed to be the choice of the individualists, standing defiant among four-sided neighbors.
