French Colonial architecture

French Colonial architecture

A term descriptive of architecture developed by French colonists in New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory from about 1699 onward. Their architecture persisted until about 1830—many years after the territory was no longer French. French Colonial architecture usually characterized by a raised basement used for utility or commercial purposes; a symmetric façade with a centrally located front door; a porch (galerie); typically, a steeply pitched hipped roof, pavilion roof, or a shingle-covered bonnet roof supported by wood posts and/or brick columns; a brick chimney. In New Orleans, wrought-iron balconies, surrounding the upper stories and extending over the sidewalk; French doors, with battened or paneled shutters; transom lights or fanlights above the front doors of the more elegant homes. Also see Cajun cottage, Creole architecture, Creole house, plantation house, raised house. (For a description of architecture that exhibits the strong ethnic influences of the immigrant populations of the Acadians and the Creoles, see French Vernacular architecturge.)