Architecture of Philadelphia - Residential Architecture

Residential Architecture

Further information: List of Philadelphia neighborhoods

The earliest houses in Philadelphia were built with logs, with the new English settlers being taught how to build log homes by the Swedish settlers already living in the area. Early inhabitants had also dug out caves on the Delaware riverbank which were reportedly places of "clandestine looseness". The Philadelphia settlers soon began constructing buildings with wood and brick with the first brick house being built in 1684. By 1690 four brickmakers and ten bricklayers were working in the city. In 1698 construction of the Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church, the oldest surviving building in Philadelphia, began. Construction of the church was completed in 1700. Philadelphia was founded by Quakers and as a result many early buildings were plain and simple, the largest building being the Great Meeting House.

The earliest group of row houses in Philadelphia, called Budd's Long Row, date from 1691. Although no longer in existence, these houses were located on what is now Front Street between Walnut and Dock Streets. According to accounts at the time, these houses were modeled on the floor plans of seventeenth century London houses, being two rooms deep with a rear yard.

A significant, later row house grouping, called Carstairs Row, was built in Philadelphia in 1800-01. William Sansom had bought a block of land between Seventh and Eighth Streets between Walnut Street and Sansom Street. Along Walnut Street Sansom built Union Row and along Sansom Street Thomas Carstairs built Carstairs Row. The rows, now part of Jewelers' Row, were block long rows of houses similar to row houses in the United Kingdom. The row houses were new to the United States as well and when built elsewhere in the country were called "Philadelphia rows". In the 1820s and 30s old buildings along the Delaware River were turned into tenements and factories, while houses a few blocks west were turned into stores. Several story high, brick row house continued to be built, many by Stephen Girard. At the same time granite fronts became popular in the city and marble mansions were constructed.

By the 1930s numerous houses, many of them row homes, were in poor condition in Philadelphia. In a 1934 United States Department of Commerce survey of 433,796 houses found that eight in every thousand homes lacked water, about 3,000 homes lacked heating, and that 7,000 homes were unfit for habitation. By 1939 conditions had only improved slightly. One development was the low cost housing development named the Carl Mackley Apartments. Constructed between 1933 and 1934, the apartments were commissioned by the American Federation of Hosiery Workers and designed by Oskar Stonorov. The way the apartments were laid out, with gardens, lawns, play areas, underground garages, and space for public art were new architectural designs at the time.

An early urban renewal project was Society Hill where many old buildings were rehabilitated and I. M. Pei's Society Hill Towers were built. Outside the revitalized neighborhoods vacant lots remained. In 1990 Philadelphia had around 40,000 vacant properties and by 2006 that number had dropped to around 20,000.

While Philadelphia neighborhoods changed, architecture continued to evolve. In Chestnut Hill, architects like George Howe and Wilson Eyre set the tone for residences in the region. Howe's High Hollow and Eyre's Anglecot demonstrate the European and Beaux Arts influence on Chestnut Hill's architecture in the early part of the 20th Century.

Architect Louis Kahn, grew up, studied and worked in Philadelphia and is considered one of the most important architects of the second half of the 20th century. In Philadelphia Kahn's designs includes the University of Philadelphia's Richards Medical Center and Esherick House in Chestnut Hill.

The Guild House, one of Robert Venturi's earliest works, built in 1964, is considered one of the most important examples of post-modernism.

Tax breaks created in 1997 and 2000 helped create a condominium boom in Center City. In the first years of the 21st century old buildings rehabilitated into condominiums and new luxury condominium towers appeared all around Center City and the surrounding neighborhoods.