Sloan's "City and Suburban Architecture"

City and Suburban architecture was published in 1858 and represented a very different side of Sloan from his Model Architect. While previous publications had focused on primarily residential and garden designs, CS offered plans for churches, houses, commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings. All these idioms were practiced by Sloan (recall he was most prolific in his schoolhouse designs). Sloan's residential designs in CS were primarily for row houses of stone, rather than the expansive and imaginative rural villas in MA. CS includes as well far more detail renderings of doors, windows, and architectural do-dads.

There are a series of shared characteristics to this volume. It reflects the more urban work that Sloan did for Joseph Harrison in connection to his house on Rittenhouse Square (featured as the final design in the volume) and his work in designing Harrison's developments both in the city and in West Philadelphia. These designs were far more Anglo-Italianate in inspiration, mostly designed as rowhouses in stone. The depressed arched windows with Venetian tracery are ubiquitous as well as the presence of rusticated first floors, all features from Harrison's house. They feature heavy window moldings and an interesting eclecticism with a mixture of classical Renaissance, rococo, and Rundbogenstil Romanesque decorative elements. The idiom expressed in this can be found all over Philadelphia, for instance in the Deaconess Training School.

Design 2:

This is a design of impressive variation for the typical three bay rowhouse. Each floor is carefully differentiated with the third and fourth floors varying the window placements and groupings to give a greater illusion of pavilions and varied volumes. The detailing is eclectic with rococo revival carved foliage and Romanesque details and drops under the bracketed entablature.

Design 5:

This is a rather fanciful rowhouse design for the end of a block with a tower. There are several correspondences with the Harrison house, including the use of depressed arches with Venetian tracery. The detailing here as well is eclectic, blending Rundbogenstil Romanesque designs with Anglo-Italianate classical detailing. Note the false wall in the rear.

Design 10

This is a more stylistically consistent design, with rococo forms, a rusticated basement, and only a small Romanesque fringe.

Design 11:

A particularly lavish basement with both rustication and pilasters and Sloan's signature depressed arch windows and Venetian tracery. The paired windows on the top story are a signature Sloan design.

Design 15:

Similar to Design 10 but with a fancier basement and balconies.

Design 16:

A variation on Design 15 but with heavier classical detailing and a simpler basement.

Design 17:

A plan for an entire row of 10 houses. This was likely the row that Sloan built for Joseph Harrison behind his house at Locust Street. It very closely matches the style of Harrison's house, especially in the treatment of the attic and window designs.

Design 19:

A high style symmetrical plan house with thick classical details.

Design 27:

One of Sloan's suburban detached designs. The house at Pine Street may have been designed based on this, though the triple window in the gable is far larger in the example. These designs are likely reflective of his work for Harrison in West Philadelphia.

Design 28:

Design 30:

Sloan's "The Model Architect" Vol. 2

Continuing to Volume 2 of The Model Architect we find Sloan further expanding his Italianate designs, though the volume as post plan books go, starts off with more expensive designs and moves toward less expensive designs, with some exceptions.

Design 27: "The Farm"

Interesting symmetrical plan villa.

Design 28: "Wayside Cottage"

Design 30: "A Plain Dwelling"

Design 31: "The Villa"

An example of this design can be found in the Millar-Wheeler house in Utica.

Design 36: "The Parsonage"

This is a uniquely sophisticated design that hearkens back to Greek Revival precedents. The Moses Yale Beach house in Wallingford, CT seems to match this design.

Design 42: "Italian Houses"

A surprisingly high style, European almost, double house plan. The finish of the façade is over the top. I haven't seen an Italianate that matches the sophistication of this treatment.

Design 44: "A Southern Mansion"

This seems to have been the basis for the George Allen house in Cape May, NJ.

Design 46: "An Italian Villa"

This is a pretty straightforward irregular plan house that matches with Davis' earlier type, however, the strange medieval buttress supports on the porch are unprecedented. It'd be interesting to see if any examples were built with this almost modernist porch design.

Design 48: "A Plain Dwelling"

Design 49: "An Oriental Villa"

This design inspired "Longwood" in Natchez. More will be said in my post on this remarkable house.

Design 50: "Double Dwelling"

An aggressively simple double house.

Design 53: "A Southern House"

This was Sloan's design for the Joseph S. Winter house in Montgomery, AL, as I posted about a couple days ago.

Design 55: "Model Cottage"

Design 56: "Suburban Villa"

No doubt, West Philadelphia had many examples of this simple suburban design.

Design 57: "Country Houses"

The most traditional of Sloan's designs. No doubt, it matches the architecture he grew up with in rural PA.