Beaux-Arts architecture flowed from the architecture division of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris. The style took Roman and Greek forms, mixing them eclectically with Italian Renaissance elements. Some of the grandest buildings in the Americas and Europe were built in the Beaux-Arts style at the turn of the century.
In North America, the style was popular from about 1885 to 1920; in Europe a bit earlier, from 1860 to 1914. You can usually recognize a Beaux-Arts building from its classical form and profusion of sculpted detail. Columns, pilasters, railings, balconies, flat or mansard roofs, and sculpted garlands, shields and columns - combined with its time of construction - typically identify a Beaux-Arts building.
Beaux-Arts and Neo-Classical styles are extremely similar and difficult to differentiate – they both originated with the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and were popular at the same time. Some sources consider Neo-Classical as a division of Beaux-Arts; others claim that Beaux-Arts is a form of Neo-Classical. For the purposes of this category, they are grouped together.
What isn’t Beaux-Arts is pretty easy to tell – Victorians, Romanesque, Tudor, Craftsman, and Spanish and Mission Revival. Early American Greek Revivals fall outside of the time frame, typically built before the Civil War.
Examples:
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This building (1912) has columns at the entrance, a flat roof and decorative railings around both the roof and the front balcony.
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