Bungalow style

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The Bungalow was usually a single-storey house with a prominent verandah, especially with the roof covering the verandah.

"The bungalow house originated in the sub-continent, and fused many ideas and thoughts about the nature of housing and life styles during the period from 1913 to 1927. It reached a zenith in both style and popularity during the 1920s and carried well beyond 1930". (Donald Johnson - Australian Architecture 1901-51: Sources of Modernism)

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The Bungalow style in Australia originated in California USA, while its name is derived from 'bangla', a Hindu term for the style 'belonging to Bengal'.

Our term 'verandah' is also derived from the Hindi 'varanda'. (Peter Cuffley)

"Low" describes the lower roof pitch than previous Federation styles.

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Bungalow Characteristics

1. A cottage, usually of one storey, often of four-square rooms, unless architecturally designed

2. Having a sweeping low-pitched roof and low chimney(s)

3. With a prominent verandah, or surrounded by a wide verandah, which at least extends along the width of the house

4. Usually of timber construction, often with timber shingles

5. The verandah columns are prominent, often on a stone or brick base

 

Bungalows in Australia 

"The developer Richard Stanton first introduced the American style bungalow to Sydney in 1906 and by 1912 this new type of compact servantless house was being erected across Sydney by speculative builders." - See "Haberfield, the Garden Suburb"
 

• "The influence of the carefully crafted Californian Bungalows can be seen in the work of architects who had worked and travelled in America,

  • particularly Alexander Stuart Jolly and James Peddle.

  • The more geometric Chicago Style was introduced to Sydney by the Burley Griffins.

 

By 1915 the bungalow was being promoted as "the ideal home", in contrast to the terrace house form popular in the nineteenth century.

(e.g. "Bring Back Bungalows")

 

Federation Bungalows

• Stylistically, the Federation Bungalow exploited the qualities of the bungalow while frequently retaining the flair and idiosyncrisies of the Queen Anne style, although usually in simplified form (see pictures at left)
   

The unique Australian Federation Bungalow style was the Australian response to the bungalow style that was developed in America by people like Gustav Stickley.

• Gustav Stickley was a furniture manufacturer, design leader, publisher and the chief proselytizer for the American Craftsman style, an extension of the British Arts and Crafts movement. - Wikipedia

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• The Federation Bungalow can be seen as a transition phase between the Federation Queen Anne style and the California Bungalow style that took hold later.

• Later Bungalow roofs are simple flattened A-frame roofs, usually with gables at each end and they usually have a T-shape or L-shape in plan.​

  • If the Bungalow has a lower, flatter roof, and lower chimneys, it is of the newer Bungalow Style.

  • If the Bungalow has a "hipped"  higher, steep roof, and high chimneys, it shows Federation Style ( hipped: narrow pointed peak - see pictures at left)

 

In the years immediately after World War I, the Australian variant of the bungalow emerged, a brick house with the characteristic series of low gables.

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• In country towns a different palette of materials were used, timber or timber combined with fibrous cement sheeting.

• By the 1930s the popularity of the bungalow was declining."
  - Scott Robertson, HHT 2012 talk

 

Examples of a Federation Bungalow: