Architecture
The architectural styles present in the Galena Historic District vary according to the time period during which the structures were built. Styles ranging from simple commercial-style buildings of the 1820s up through the Greek Revival, Italianate, Gothic Revival and later Victorian styles are all represented within the historic district. The area is home to some of the finest Greek Revival architecture in the United States.
The buildings lining Main Street present a unique architectural unity. The bend of Main Street, which approximately follows the course of the Galena River, enhances the spatial character of the street and is a feature that is rare in American towns and cities. Past Main Street, upon the bluffs and facing Prospect Street, are huge mansions built from 1840–90. The homes, built by mostly mine owners and steamboat captains, range from a hodge-podge of architectural styles to distinct stylistic representations of the period.
Because of its unique period architecture, Galena has earned various nicknames. The city has been called the "outdoor museum of the Victorian Midwest" and variations on "the town that time forgot." Depending on the commentator Galena's best architectural attractions are found either on Main Street in the downtown area or in the surrounding bluffs which are dotted with 19th-century mansions.
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Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)