A terrace or terraced house (UK) or townhouse (US) is a type of medium-density housing which first started in 16th century Europe with a row of joined houses sharing side walls. In the United States and Canada these are sometimes known as row houses or row homes.
Terrace housing can be found worldwide, though it is quite common in Europe and Latin America, and many examples can be found in the United Kingdom, Belgium, United States, Canada, and Australia. The Place des Vosges in Paris (1605–1612) is one of the early examples of the type. Although in early larger forms it was and still is used for housing the wealthy, as cities and the demands for ever smaller close housing grew, it regularly became associated with the working class. Terraced housing has increasingly become associated with gentrification in certain inner-city areas, drawing the attention of city planning.
Origins and nomenclature
Though earlier Gothic examples, such as Vicars' Close, Wells, are known, the alignment of the house fronts with the property line really began in the 16th century following Dutch and Belgian models and became called "row" houses in English. For example, in "Yarmouth Rows", Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, the building fronts all were right on the property line.
The term terrace was borrowed from garden terraces by British architects of the late Georgian period to describe streets of houses whose uniform fronts and uniform height created a stylish ensemble rather than a mere "row" of similar homes. Townhouses (or townhomes) are generally two- to three-story structures that share a wall with a neighbouring unit. As opposed to apartment buildings, townhouses do not have neighbouring units above or below them. They are similar in concept to row houses or terraced houses, but share a common design and construction. The first and last of the houses is called an end terrace and is often a different layout from the houses in the middle, sometimes called mid-terrace.
Oceania
In Australia, the term "terrace house" refers almost exclusively to Victorian and Edwardian era terraces or replicas almost always found in the older, inner city areas of the major cities. Terraced housing was introduced to Australia from Britain in the nineteenth century, basing their architecture on those in the UK, France and Italy.A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and Terms from 1788 to the Present – Apperly, Richard & Irving, Robert & Reynolds, Peter. Angus & Robertson. New South Wales, 1994
Large numbers of terraced houses were built in the inner suburbs of large Australian cities, particularly Sydney and Melbourne, mainly between the 1850s and the 1890s (terraced housing is rare outside of these cities). Detached housing became the popular style of housing in Australia following Federation in 1901. The most common building material used was brick, often covered with cement render and then painted.
Many terraces were built in the "filigree" style, a style distinguished through heavy use of cast iron ornament, particularly on the balconies and sometimes depicting native Australian flora. In the 1950s, many urban renewal programmes were aimed at eradicating them entirely in favour of modern development.
In recent decades these inner-city areas and their terraced houses have been gentrified. The suburbs in which terrace houses are often found are often sought after in Australia due to their proximity to the Central Business Districts of the major cities. They are therefore sometimes quite expensive even though they may not be the preferred accommodation style. The lack of windows on the side, the small gardens, and the relative darkness of the rooms is at odds with the design favoured for modern Australian homes.Stapleton, Maisy; Stapleton, Ian. Australian House Styles. Flannel Flower Press. Mullumbimby, New South Wales. 1997
Europe
Belgium
In Belgium, row houses are the predominant type of housing around the country and are closely associated with Belgian culture and history. The Grand-Place/Grote Markt, the central historic square of the capital Brussels, is surrounded by 17th-century guildhalls, reflecting the city's status as a mercantile power in Northwestern Europe at that time.
Later, in the 19th century, Belgium played an important role in the early Industrial Revolution, and a large amount of working class housing was built to accommodate the coal miners in small brick row houses usually called "coron". These types of constructions are very common in the coal mining and steelmaking regions of Wallonia, but also in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.
Within the same period (from 1850 to the early 1900s), major cities such as Brussels and Antwerp underwent significant urban development, with the construction of new neighborhoods as extensions of the cities, often entirely around individually owned plots where single-family row houses were built and occupied by both the middle class and the bourgeoisie. Some of these houses are internationally renowned for their architecture, such as the Art Nouveau-style Hôtel Tassel and Hôtel van Eetvelde, both designed by Victor Horta.
Finland
In Finland, an agrarian country where urbanism was a generally late phenomenon, the rivitalo (literally: row house) has not been seen as a particularly urban house type. What is regarded as the first terraced house to be built, Ribbingshof (1916), in the new Helsinki suburb of Kulosaari was designed by renowned architect Armas Lindgren, and was inspired by ideas from the English Garden City movement and Hampstead Garden Suburb, and was seen as a relatively low density residential area.
A similarly leafy suburban street of terraced houses was that of Hollantilaisentie (1920) in the suburb of Munkkiniemi, Helsinki, designed by architect Eliel Saarinen. They were initially envisioned as workers' housing, as part of a grand new urban scheme for the entirety of north-west Helsinki, but from the outset became a fashionable middle-class residential area. Later terraced housing in Finland is similarly associated with suburban middle-class living, such as the Tapiola garden city, Espoo, from the 1950s.
France Terraced housing has long been a popular form in Paris, France. The Place des Vosges (1605–1612) was one of the earliest examples of the arrangement. In Parisian squares, central blocks were given discreet prominence, to relieve the façade. Terraced building including housing was also used primarily during Haussmann's renovation of Paris between 1852 and 1870 creating whole streetscapes consisting of terraced rows.
United Kingdom and Ireland
The first streets of houses with uniform fronts were built by the Huguenot entrepreneur Nicholas Barbon in the rebuilding after the Great Fire of London. Fashionable terraces appeared in London's Grosvenor Square from 1727 onwards and in Bath's Queen Square from 1729 onwards.(Summerson 1947) The Scottish architect Robert Adam is credited with the development of the house itself. Early terraces were also built by the two John Woods in Bath and under the direction of John Nash in Regent's Park, London. The term was picked up by speculative builders like Thomas Cubitt and soon became commonplace.
It is far from being the case that terraced houses were only built for people of limited means. This is especially true in London, where some of the wealthiest people in the country owned them in locations such as Belgrave Square and Carlton House Terrace. These townhouses, in the British sense, were the London residences of noble and gentry families who spent most of the year in their country houses. These terraced houses, often surrounding a garden square, are hallmarks of Georgian architecture. The same was true of many British and Irish cities. In Dublin, Georgian squares such as Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square housed the city's upper classes. A type of terraced house known latterly as the "one-floor-over-basement" was a style of terraced house particular to the Irish capital. They were built in the Victorian era for the city's lower middle class and emulated upper class townhouses.
By the early Victorian period, a terrace had come to designate any style of housing where individual houses repeating one design are joined into rows. The style was used for workers' housing in industrial districts during the rapid urbanisation following the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the houses built for workers of the expanding textile industry. The terrace style spread widely across the country, and was the usual form of high-density residential housing up to World War II. The 19th century need for expressive individuality inspired variation of façade details and floor-plans reversed with those of each neighbouring pair, to offer variety within the standardised format.
A major distinction is between through terraces, whose houses have both a front and a back door, and back-to-backs, which are bricked in on three sides. The 1875 Public Health Act imposed a duty on local authorities to regulate housing by the use of byelaws, and subsequently all byelaw terraced housing was required to have its own privy, with rear access to allow the night soil to be collected as per the Rochdale system. As recently as 2011, byelaw terraced houses made up over 15% of the United Kingdom's housing stock. Since the Second World War, housing redevelopment has led to many outdated or dilapidated terraces being cleared to make room for tower blocks, which occupy a much smaller area of land. Because of this land use in the inner city areas could in theory have been used to create greater accessibility, employment or recreational or leisure centres. However, sub-optimal or flawed implementation has meant that in many areas (like Manchester or the London estates) the tower blocks offered no real improvement for rehoused residents over their prior terraced houses.
In 2005 the English Heritage report Low Demand Housing and the Historic Environment found that repairing a standard Victorian terraced house over 30 years is around 60% cheaper than building and maintaining a newly built house. In a 2003 survey for Heritage Counts a team of experts contrasted a Victorian terrace with a house built after 1980, and found that:The research demonstrated that, contrary to earlier thinking, older housing actually costs less to maintain and occupy over the long-term life of the dwelling than more modern housing. Largely due to the quality and life-span of the materials used, the Victorian terraced house proved almost £1,000 per 100 m2 cheaper to maintain and inhabit on average each year.
North America
Canada
Halifax
Halifax's use of rowhouses, townhouses and terraced housing has been consistent throughout its history, particularly on the Peninsula where the city first began settlement. In the older sections of the city are sections of terraced housing used historically for military families, as part of established families' real estate holdings in addition to a country house, and as dwellings for the working classes of the city and as public housing. The most well-known of the terraced housing areas is The Hydrostone, which was originally built as replacement housing stock for those made homeless after the Halifax Explosion; individual owners have, however, altered the exteriors of many of the rowhouses over time to accommodate changing family needs. More recently, there have been rowhouse developments appearing in diverse areas throughout the city.
Montreal
Montreal has the largest stock of terraced houses in Canada and they are typical in all areas of the city. As is common in other North American cities, in Montreal row houses are often referred to as townhouses.