Domestic Architecture. The variety of requirements to be fulfilled by the architecture of the house, whether as regards the climate, habits, or employments of different countries, is very great, and the designs and arrangements must therefore throughout the world's history have been infinitely varied. But the construction is generally much less substantial than that of temples and public buildings, and the remains of ancient houses are in consequence comparatively scarce. Of the dwellings of the ancient world there exist almost none, but some idea of those of the Egyptians and Etruscans may be obtained from the arrangement of their tombs. Greek and Roman houses were generally only one story in height, and contained an open atrium with small chambers around it. Beyond this was the peristyle or private department, surrounded with a colonnade, and opening on a garden. In connection with the peristyle were dining-rooms and family apartments. The preservation of the houses of Herulanum and Pompeii brings before us with great vividness all the domestic arrangements of the classic period.
The Roman dispositions were followed during a great part of the middle ages, but became modified about the 11th century. Thus the peristyle was imitated in the cloister of the medieval monastery, and the Roman 'villa' or country-house became the model of the early castles of southern Gaul. In the villa the large outer courtyard was called the villa rustica, containing the granaries, stables, &c., while an inner court formed the villa urbana, or residence of the proprietor. The castles were on the same plan, the courts being surrounded with a ditch and palisaded mound, and the owner's house being a wooden redoubt on the top of an artificial mound in the inner inclosure.
During the middle ages and up to the 17th century, the greater part of the houses of the people, including those in the towns, were constructed with wood, the corbelled-out and overhanging upper floors of which are amongst the most picturesque features of medieval architecture both in England and on the Continent. The Normans were the first to introduce stone and mortar construction into castle-building in the 11th century. The well-known Norman keeps were the residences of the nobility in Normandy and England till the 13th century. There are still, however, remains of smaller manors in England dating from that period. These consisted of a two-story plain block, the ground-floor being vaulted, and the upper floor, which contained the living-rooms, entering by a separate outside stair. In the following centuries additions were made to the accommodation to suit the enlarged requirements of the times, until the buildings came finally to surround a courtyard and form a quadrangle. Most of the great castles and mansions of the 15th and 16th centuries were erected on this plan, and those built in the time of Queen Elizabeth were often on a great scale, and contained nearly all the accommodation required at the present day. Smaller mansions and houses were on various plans, and in town-houses the interior court, surrounded with projecting balconies or galleries, was common.
Under the Renaissance, town-houses in streets lost their distinctive qualities, being all designed so as to form as it were one flank of an extensive palace or single edifice. This monotonous arrangement is now being gradually departed from, and each house is beginning to be designed, as it should be, independently.
The domestic architecture of modern times has this peculiarity, that it extends its influence so as to include all classes of dwellings, even the humblest; and the houses of farm-servants and town artisans now receive as much care in their design, in order to render them comfortable and sanitary abodes, as the palaces and mansions of the wealthier classes.
See the articles BUILDING, CASTLE, GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE, QUEEN ANNE STYLE, and other articles cited at ARCHITECTURE in this work; also Ferguson's Handbook of Architecture; Viollet le Duc, Dictionnaire de l'Architecture, Histoire d'une Maison, &c.; John Henry Parker, Some Account of Domestic Architecture in England; T. Hudson Turner, Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages; D. MacGibbon and T. Ross, Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland.