Architechture of Fredericton

As evidenced by many of its historic buildings, Fredericton was greatly influenced by the neoclassical architectural period that swept Europe and North America during the 18th century (Young 1982, 10). This period was marked by an influx of buildings designed to reflect the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome (Faulkner 2009, Neo-classical architecture). It grew from the burgeoning interest in classical antiquities and antiquarianism, a movement led by Englishmen such as Lord Elgin and William Stukeley, which marked the 1700s (Greene and Moore 2010, 16, 38). While the style did not come to Canada until the late part of the 18th century, it quickly became a dominate form of choice for both public and private buildings and Fredericton is an excellent example of this (Young 1982, 10). Typical attributes of neoclassical architecture include columns fabricated from wood or stone, wide friezes, and pediments above the doorways (Harris 2006, Neoclassical style). Each of the three Greek orders, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, are well represented. However, this paper will deal with the Ionic and Corinthian orders only and their presence in the city of Fredericton.

Both the Ionic and Corinthian orders became highly popular in Greece and surpassed their Doric counterpart by continuing into the Roman period (Gates 2010, 220). Before the Corinthian order however, the Ionic order started to become well-established by 550 BC (Lawrence 1957, 131). It emerged from Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece shortly thereafter (Scranton 1982, 10; Lawrence 1957, 85). The order is so named because of the Ionians, a group of Greek colonists in Asia Minor, who invented it (Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture, 4.8.4). Why and how the order came to ...

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