Eastlake

イーストレイク様式 / 19th century– / Style / Furniture and Interiors

Eastlake is the name given to a decorative and architectural style in nineteenth century America, tied to the furniture designs of Charles Locke Eastlake. Its architecture borrows the vocabulary of furniture directly, with columns that resemble table legs, curved brackets, spindles, and knobs of various shapes made of circular perforations.

Eastlake — Eastlake-style armchair, Missouri History Museum — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Eastlake-style armchair, Missouri History Museum — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Eastlake — Porch woodwork of the Jane Heath House, Buffalo — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Andre Carrotflower — Porch woodwork of the Jane Heath House, Buffalo — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Andre Carrotflower

Eastlake — Bradford House, San Rafael, California — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 · © Sanfranman59 — Bradford House, San Rafael, California — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · © Sanfranman59

At a glance

Visual cues

Columns shaped like thickened table legs
Curved brackets repeating at even intervals under eaves and porch roofs
Lathe-turned spindles filling railings and the head of a porch
Knobs pierced with circular perforations set where members meet

Best used for

Unifying a house exterior and its fittings through one vocabulary of furniture parts
Building sets or backgrounds that reconstruct a nineteenth century American street

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Dictionary entry

Type: Cut or raise signage lettering to the same depth as the woodwork, because thin faces lose against the ornament.
Composition: Leave no large blank plane, and score horizontals and verticals with columns, spindles and brackets at even spacing.
Material: Restrict every form to what a lathe and a scroll saw can make, combining turned spindles, circular perforations and curved supports.
Caution: Scaling furniture parts up to building size removes the hand-held proportion they were derived from, and the ornament starts to look like models glued onto a wall.
Further study: how Eastlake's furniture designs were reread in the United States / the route by which turned members were mass produced and passed from furniture to buildings / where the Getty places Eastlake among the modern decorative arts styles of North America

Related entries

Victorian Ornament (ヴィクトリアン装飾)Shared effects: Nostalgia.Compare Eastlake and Victorian Ornament
Arts and Crafts (アーツ・アンド・クラフツ)Shared effects: Nostalgia.Compare Eastlake and Arts and Crafts

Cite this entry

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Link: https://indexstyle.org/styles/eastlake-style
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