The World’s Columbian Exposition — the last of the great 19th-century world’s fairs — celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in America. The event, held in Chicago in 1893, had a classical theme and featured many colonnaded buildings designed by the era’s best-known architects. The display’s monumental structures, arranged around a central court, inspired a renewed interest in classical motifs.
Neoclassical homes are most easily distinguished by their full-height porch and classical columns, symmetrically balanced windows, and centered door. Although not as common as its Colonial Revival counterparts, Neoclassical architecture enjoyed two principal waves of popularity. The first — from 1900 to 1925 — emphasized elaborate and historically correct columns. The later phase, which lasted until the 1950s, featured simple, slender columns. Many other popular styles — including Georgian, Adam, Early Classical Revival, and Greek Revival, eventually became fused into the eclectic Neoclassical style.
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