The End of Tudor’s Reign
In time, the passion for Tudor Revival faded. The Great Depression brought an end to the 1920s building boom, and embellishments like half-timbering and decorative brickwork proved too expensive for most budget-conscious homebuyers.
More importantly, American tastes were changing. There was a growing embrace of modernism and modernity, which emphasized clean lines and little ornamentation. Rather than looking backward to a distant past, Americans were inspired by a machine-age future defined by automobiles, skyscrapers, and airplanes. World War II largely extinguished any romance surrounding a reimagined “Merrie Olde England.” When developers built the tract suburbs of the 1950s and 1960s, Tudor Revival was rarely considered.
Still, the many Tudor Revival homes, buildings, and neighborhoods that had been built at the height of the fad remained and continued to serve. People lived in, shopped in, and drove by the buildings that had once defined the height of a beloved style.
Little is known about G. Caliman (G.C.) Coxe's 1950s work "The Wedding" (sometimes called “Cathedrals”), which he painted early in his career while training at the University of Louisville. Yet even without understanding the artist's original intent, the work clearly evokes many of Tudor Revival's signature elements, including steep, swooping rooflines and narrow, leaded glass windows.
It is a testament to Tudor's enduring aesthetic appeal even after the architectural movement had gone out of style.
Remembering our Olde England
Just as some in the 1920s and 1930s attempted to define and regulate Tudor Revival's scope and importance, so too have others worked to limit what qualifies as a Tudor Revival building or home today. Numerous subgenres of the style have emerged, and fierce debates about architectural purity exist. But this misses Tudor Revival's larger context. From sprawling mansions to modest kit houses, those who built homes in the Tudor style were tapping into a versatile visual language of whimsical fantasy, not questions about historical authenticity.
Tudor was an amalgamation of ideas and inspirations that came together in infinite combinations and varieties-some stucco and brickwork here, a picturesque chimney there. Their antecedents in an actual Tudor England mattered to some tastemakers who wanted Tudor Revival to signal the virtues of Anglo-Saxon culture; however, Tudor Revival was simply too diffuse and too malleable to define this way. All kinds of people could find something in the world of ''Merrie Olde England'' that they then made their own. Tudor Revival was certainly an architectural style, but it was also something larger-a shared bit of storytelling that Americans collectively built around themselves.
Today, amusement parks and themed attractions are where people gather for this kind of transportive experience. But the Tudor Revival movement at its height was much more ambitious. All kinds of Americans used their homes, businesses, entertainments, products, and celebrations to weave together a communal, imagined world of Ye Olde England. Tudor Revival became a collective moment of imagination and storytelling in which Americans of many and varied backgrounds could be the kings and queens of their own castles.