Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720-1920
Book Description:
The phrase "Pennsylvania German architecture" likely conjures
images of either the "continental" three-room house with its huge
hearth and five-plate stoves, or the huge Pennsylvania bank barn
with its projecting overshoot. These and other trademarks of
Pennsylvania German architecture have prompted great interest among
a wide audience, from tourists and genealogists to architectural
historians, antiquarians, and folklorists. Since the nineteenth
century, scholars have engaged in field measurement and drawing,
photographic documentation, and careful observation, resulting in a
scholarly conversation about Pennsylvania German building
traditions. What cultural patterns were being expressed in these
buildings? How did shifting social, technological, and economic
forces shape architectural changes? Since those early forays, our
understanding has moved well beyond the three-room house and the
forebay barn.
In Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans,
1720-1920, eight essays by leading scholars and preservation
professionals not only describe important architectural sites but
also offer original interpretive insights that will help advance
understanding of Pennsylvania German culture and history.
Pennsylvania Germans' lives are traced through their houses, barns,
outbuildings, commercial buildings, churches, and landscapes. The
essays bring to bear years of field observation as well as
engagement with current scholarly perspectives on issues such as
the nature of "ethnicity," the social construction of landscape,
and recent historiography about the Pennsylvania Germans. Dozens of
original measured drawings, appearing here for the first time in
print, document important works of Pennsylvania German
architecture, including the iconic Bertolet barns in Berks County,
the Martin Brandt farm complex in Cumberland County, a
nineteenth-century Pennsylvania German housemill, and urban houses
in Lancaster.
eISBN: 978-0-8122-0495-7
Subjects: Architecture and Architectural History
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