Fan district
Encyclopedia
The Fan is a district of Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

, so named because of the "fan" shape of the array of streets that extend west from Belvidere Street, on the eastern edge of Monroe Park, westward to the Boulevard
Boulevard (Richmond, Virginia)
Boulevard is a historic street in the near West End of Richmond, Virginia, providing access to Byrd Park. It serves as the border between the Carytown/Museum District to the west and the Fan district to the east...

. (Though the streets rapidly resemble a grid after moving through what is now VCU). The Fan is one of the easterly points of the city's West End section, and is bordered to the north by Broad Street and to the south by 195). The western side is sometimes called the Upper Fan and the eastern side the Lower Fan, though confusingly the Uptown district is located near VCU in the Lower Fan. Many cafes and locally owned restaurants are located here, as well as historic Monument Avenue
Monument Avenue
Monument Avenue, in Richmond, Virginia, is a premier example of the Grand American Avenue city planning style. The first monument, a statue of Robert E. Lee was erected in 1890. Between 1900 and 1925, Monument Avenue exploded with architecturally significant houses, churches and apartment buildings...

. Development of the Fan district was strongly influenced by the City Beautiful movement
City Beautiful movement
The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy concerning North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of using beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago,...

 of the late 19th century.

The Fan District is primarily a residential neighborhood consisting of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century homes. It is also home to Virginia Commonwealth University's
Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University is a public university located in Richmond, Virginia. It comprises two campuses in the Downtown Richmond area, the product of a merger between the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia in 1968...

 Monroe Park Campus, several parks, tree lined avenues and three of the city's historical monuments. The District also has numerous houses of worship, and locally owned businesses and commercial establishments. The Fan borders and blends with the Boulevard, the Museum District, and the Carytown district.

Main east-west thoroughfares include Broad Street, Grace Street, Monument Avenue, Patterson Avenue, Grove Avenue, Main Street and Cary Street.

Architecture

The Fan is often incorrectly described as significant for having one of the longest intact stretches of Victorian architecture
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...

 in the United States, but most of it was actually built after the end of the Victorian era (Victorian Architecture
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...

) and is arguably more Edwardian and Revival in style. Almost all of the housing stock was constructed in the first decades of the twentieth century and exhibits the pared back victorianism of Edwardian architecture
Edwardian architecture
Edwardian architecture is the style popular when King Edward VII of the United Kingdom was in power; he reigned from 1901 to 1910, but the architecture style is generally considered to be indicative of the years 1901 to 1914....

. Colonial Revival and American Craftsman
American Craftsman
The American Craftsman Style, or the American Arts and Crafts Movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. As a comprehensive design and art...

 architecture is common as well, with Revival architectural types arguably the most common (as was common to the time period) Revivalism (architecture)
Revivalism (architecture)
Revivalism in architecture is the use of visual styles that consciously echo the style of a previous architectural era.There were a number of architectural revivalist movements in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries....

.

Primary architectural styles represented include:
  • Italianate
    Italianate architecture
    The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...

  • Richardsonian Romanesque
    Richardsonian Romanesque
    Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose masterpiece is Trinity Church, Boston , designated a National Historic Landmark...

  • Queen Anne
  • Colonial Revival


Other architectural styles include:
  • Tudor Revival
  • Second Empire
  • Beaux-Arts
  • Art Deco
    Art Deco
    Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

  • Spanish
    Spanish architecture
    Spanish architecture refers to architecture carried out in any area in what is now modern-day Spain, and by Spanish architects worldwide. The term includes buildings within the current geographical limits of Spain before this name was given to those territories...

  • Gothic Revival
    Gothic Revival architecture
    The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

  • Bungalow
    Bungalow
    A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many of these definitions include being detached, low-rise , and the use of verandahs...

  • American Arts and Crafts Movement
    Arts and Crafts movement
    Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

  • James River Georgian
  • Southern Colonial
  • Jacobethan
    Jacobethan
    Jacobethan is the style designation coined in 1933 by John Betjeman to describe the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance , with elements of Elizabethan and...

     (Jacobean Revival)


In April 2005, the Virginia Center for Architecture opened Branch House
Branch House
Branch House is a mansion in Richmond, Virginia designed by John Russell Pope for John Kerr Branch in 1916. It is now the home of Virginia Center for Architecture, one of the few architectural museums in the United States. In addition, it houses the Virginia Society AIA...

, an architecture museum on Monument Avenue
Monument Avenue
Monument Avenue, in Richmond, Virginia, is a premier example of the Grand American Avenue city planning style. The first monument, a statue of Robert E. Lee was erected in 1890. Between 1900 and 1925, Monument Avenue exploded with architecturally significant houses, churches and apartment buildings...

. The Branch House was a historic Richmond home designed in 1918 by John Russell Pope
John Russell Pope
John Russell Pope was an architect most known for his designs of the National Archives and Records Administration building , the Jefferson Memorial and the West Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.-Biography:Pope was born in New York in 1874, the son of a successful...

 as a reproduction of an English Tudor manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

.

History

In 1817, the Fan was plotted as the village of Sydney on land formerly owned by William Byrd II
William Byrd II
Colonel William Byrd II was a planter, slave-owner and author from Charles City County, Virginia. He is considered the founder of Richmond, Virginia.-Biography:...

. Primary development of the Fan occurred after the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 through about 1920. Streetcar lines leading from downtown influenced development; the nation's first electric streetcar system was inaugurated in Richmond in 1888.

As development increased from downtown at the turn of the 20th century, Franklin street became a fashionable "West End
The West End (Richmond, Virginia)
The West End is a part of Richmond, Virginia. The true West End covers only the western part of the city of Richmond though some consider western Henrico County part of the West End as well. As there is no one municipal organization that represents this specific region, the boundaries are loosely...

" address. A desire for a West End address drove rapid real estate development of the area, changing the area from rural tobacco fields in 1900 to being almost fully developed land by the 1930s. As development accelerated, the University of Richmond
University of Richmond
The University of Richmond is a selective, private, nonsectarian, liberal arts university located on the border of the city of Richmond and Henrico County, Virginia. The University of Richmond is a primarily undergraduate, residential university with approximately 4,000 undergraduate and graduate...

 (then located on Lombardy Street) was moved west to a more rural location (its present Westhampton location). During the Great Depression, many of the single-family homes in the area were converted to apartments.

The term "the Fan" was coined in the mid 20th century by a Richmond Times Dispatch editorial, as the appellation "West End
The West End (Richmond, Virginia)
The West End is a part of Richmond, Virginia. The true West End covers only the western part of the city of Richmond though some consider western Henrico County part of the West End as well. As there is no one municipal organization that represents this specific region, the boundaries are loosely...

" no longer applied.

External links

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