Architectural History of Oakland

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Period >> Architectural Style

1860s >> 

Italianate: slanted bay windows and bracketed rooflines

Mansard: steeply inclined roofs

Italian Villa: rounded-top windows and square tower

1870s to 1900

Queen Anne:

Stick:  As a transitional style of architecture, the "Stick Style" was one type of Victorian architecture in vogue from 1860 to 1890, which featured rectangular shaped wooden constructed homes with prominent brackets, corbels, dormers, decorative half-timbering on the exterior walls, braces and brackets, ornamental trusses, overhanging eaves, and steep gabled roofs.  Stick Style is sometimes mistaken for Tudor Revival homes, which are usually built of brick, stucco or stone, instead of wood.

Shingle:

Colonial Revival:

Richardson Romanesque:

1900 to 1920s

Mission Revival:

Craftsman:

Prairie School:

Bungalow:

1920 to 1930

Art Deco:

Right up here, before getting into the tag list, is where anyone so inclined would wax rhapsodic about the various styles and periods found in Oakland. And it’s true, this was a historically rich area, with more architectural variety than nearly anywhere else, so even though much has been lost over the years, amazing examples remain of many styles, including some that in being adapted to local conditions are found nowhere else. But it’s also important to recognize that – just as history is written by the victors – by and large, architectural history similarly tends to be a record of the well-to-do. Oakland being so varied, there are of course exceptions; for instance, the short-lived Storybook movement of the late 1920s was directed squarely at the working classes.

Right about here, someone could write a chronology of the various periods represented, and distinguish styles used for homes from those of offices and public buildings. With homes, I think all the Spanish-period adobe stuff is gone now, as are nearly all of the pioneer tarpaper shacks etc. However Oakland still has some fine examples of pre-1906 earthquake Carpenter gothic and victorian architectures, and then more recently, Craftsman and California bungalow-inspired styles, followed by Art Deco, Bauhaus, International and probably many others I’ve forgotten off the top of my head. With public buildings, the 3rd Empire stuff with the widow’s walks etc. is long gone. A few examples might remain locally (UC Berkeley campus?) but I can think of none in Oakland anymore. Neoclassical-influenced Beaux-Arts was real big here at the time Mayor Mott was aggressively building Oakland. More recently than about 1920, though, someone else will need to take over, and give examples. Things like the new Cathedral by the Lake – I’d call that postmodern, but there are probably more precise terms.

SOURCES:

The buildings of Oakland, with a section on Piedmont / Robert Bernhardi @OPL