How to Compare Styles of Architecture

The world's oldest homes are on display in Banpo, China, a 6,000-year old Neolithic (Prehistoric) village. The round walls are of plant material. The grass roof has a high interior point, supported by columns, not by walls, a principle the Chinese use today. There are countless styles of architecture, and the easiest way to compare them is to look at the details. 

Colonial Homes

The first Colonial homes were styled like today's Cape Cod homes. The rectangular, symmetrical home has bedrooms on the second floor and double-hung windows, with many small, equally sized square panes. 

Colonial Revival

In the 1800s through the 1900s, builders built Colonial Revival homes styled after the Colonial home. They added elaborate cornices and elegant central hallways. Many of the homes have white clapboard siding and are trimmed with black or green shutters.

Dutch Colonial

As early as the 1600s, Germans settlers built the Dutch Colonial home. It has a roof resembling a barn, stone end walls, chimneys located on one or both ends, a double door divided horizontally, double-hung sash windows with wood casements that swing outward and dormers with shed-like overhangs. 

Cape Cod

The first Cape Cod homes are some of America's oldest homes. They were one-story cottages with shingle-sides and no dormers. Builders enlarged it into a one or one-and-a-half story square or rectangular home with steeply pitched, gabled roofs and clapboard or brick siding. It may have shutters and dormers. 

Contemporary

The one-story Contemporary homes were built between 1950 and 1970. They are either flat-roofed or gabled (with exposed beams) and have odd-sized, often tall windows, little decoration and made of stone, brick and wood. 

Federal

Dating back to the late 1700s, when Greek and Roman culture was popular, builders made Georgian homes more delicate and formal by adding swags, garlands and elliptical windows. Many Federal homes have arched Palladian windows on the second story over the front door.  

Georgian

Modeled after the English elaborate homes, the Georgian was popular in the 1700s. The brick home is two to three stories high and almost always have a row of five windows across the second story.