From the time of Victorian Academic Classical, through Victorian Free Classical, Victorian Filigree, Victorian Mannerist and Victorian Second Empire, the trends had been towards the free expression of wealth, splendour and prosperity. After all this had been a time of unprecedented innovation, discovery, success and reward for toil. And architectural styles had reflected these same attitudes.

There was now however, a new style on the block, so to speak. It was the Victorian Italianate style – which was of course, representative of the then Italian modes of building and design. The style initially became popular with the romanticised paintings of Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin, depicting Italian landscapes as the Arcadian idyll. To many, it was the visualisation of all things romantic, desirable and laudable. The buildings represented in these artists’ impressions were seemingly a part of the dream, the romance and the desire and soon the urge to have in reality what they saw in vision, was made manifest by architects and designers all over Europe and America.

The ‘trend’ in Britain was popularised by Prince Albert wanted to build such a retreat for the Royal Family on the Isle of Wight. The Victorian Italianate style was further popularised by 2 widespread journals of the time – the Villa Rustica and Villas and Cottages.

In Australia, remote and isolated from Europe and still caught up in the throes of the Victorian Second Empire architectural fancies, was not as heavily influenced by the Italianate phase as other countries were. However, there was some evidence of its existence with some public and free standing buildings being constructed in its honour. But there was one feature of the Victorian Italianate style that remains prevalent to the Australian architectural psyche to this day – that is, the presence of the asymmetrical front where the front room juts out in front of the rest of the building by about a metre or so.

Some of the other notable features of the style were:

• Towers with low roofs
• Balustrades surrounded roof towers
• Decorated window surrounds
• Faceted bay windows
• Loggia
• A correlation between the landscape and the building
• Verandahs with filigree

View images related to the Victorian Italianate Architectural style