Interior Visual Character: Interior Features
Interior features are three-dimensional building elements or architectural
details that are an integral part of the building as opposed to
furniture. Interior features are often important in defining the
character of an individual room or space. In some instances, an
interior feature, like a large and ornamental open stairway may
dominate the visual character of an entire building. In other
instances, a modest iron stairway (like the one illustrated here)
may be an important interior feature, and its preservation would
be crucial to preserving the interior character of the building.
Such features can also include the obvious things like fireplace
mantles, plaster ceiling medallions, or paneling, but they also
extend to features like hardware, lighting fixtures, bank tellers
cages, decorative elevator doors, etc.
Interior Visual Character: Surface Materials and Finishes
When identifying the visual character of historic interior spaces
one should not overlook the importance of those materials and
finishes that comprise the surfaces of walls, floors and ceilings.
The surfaces may have evidence of either handcraft or machine made
products that are important contributors to the visual character,
including patterned or inlaid designs in the wood flooring, decorative
painting practices such as stenciling, imitation marble or wood
grain, wallpapering, tinwork, tile floors, etc.
The example illustrated here involves a combination of real marble
at the base of the column, imitation marble patterns on the plaster
surface of the column (a practice called scagliola), and a tile
floor surface that uses small mosaic tiles arranged to form geometric
designs in several different colors. While such decorative materials
and finishes may be important in defining the interior visual
character of this particular building, it should be remembered
that in much more modest buildings, the plainness of surface materials
and finishes may be an essential aspect of their historic character.
Interior: Exposed Structure
If features of the structural system are exposed, such as loadbearing brick walls, cast iron
columns, roof trusses, posts and beams, vigas, or stone foundation walls, they may be
important in defining the building's interior visual character.
Fragility of a Building's Visual Character
Some aspects of a building's visual character are fragile and
are easily lost. This is true of brickwork, for example, which
can be irreversibly damaged with inappropriate cleaning techniques
or by insensitive repointing practices. At least two factors are
important contributors to the visual character of brickwork, namely
the brick itself and the craftsmanship. Between these, there are
many more aspects worth noting, such as color range of bricks,
size and shape variations, texture, bonding patterns, together
with the many variable qualities of the mortar joints, such as
color, width of joint and tooling.
These qualities could be easily
damaged by painting the brick, by raking out the joint with power
tools, or repointing with a joint that is too wide. As seen here
during the process of repointing, the visual character of this
front wall is being dramatically changed from a wall where the
bricks predominate, to a wall that is visually dominated by the
mortar joints.
Using this three-step approach, it is possible to conduct a walk
through and identify all those elements and features that help
define the visual character of the building. In most cases, there
are a number of aspects about the exterior and interior that are
important to the character of an historic building. The visual
emphasis of this brief will make it possible to ascertain those
things that should be preserved because their loss or alteration
would diminish or destroy aspects of the historic character whether
on the outside, or on the inside of the building.
"Architectural Character" an Historic Preservation Brief
