ABSTRACT
The architecture of change and the new is where America flourished. But this phenomenon of architectural experimentation did not develop in isolation from the rest of American culture. As America progressed from an agrarian culture focused on essential necessities, more cosmopolitan environments evolved in its newly founded cities. The architecture of the Americas during the seventeenth century very slowly emerged from vernacular structures, which merely fulfilled the basic need for shelter, to an architecture of dignified imitation of prevalent European styles. As travel and commerce improved, European influence increased, and along with it discourse about architecture. Ideas that were fomenting debate in Europe began to percolate through the Colonies. Thomas Jefferson attempted to define American architecture by prescribing Roman Republican architecture as the model to be emulated. While America debated Jefferson's vision versus Hamilton's image of a strong Federal government, architects shortly thereafter paradoxically debated the merits of Classical architecture versus Gothic, with its disdain for the Industrial Revolution.
