Preview
Description
The Colony House, pictured here in 1980, was designed by builder Richard Munday in 1739. The Colony House is architecturally unique for Newport because of it's brick construction. It replaced an earlier wooden structure dating from 1687. Munday was familiar, through prints and drawings, of the baroque classicism of Sir Christopher Wren. The use of brick as a construction material suggests Wren's influence, as brick trimmed with free stone was common to his designs. Munday is also noted for his design of Newport's Trinity Church. Before construction of the McKim, Mead & White's Rhode Island State House in Providence, the Colony House, along with four other state houses, were used in rotation by the governor and legislature.
Creator 1 Role
Photographer
Creator 2 Dates
1685-1740
Creator 2 Role
Builder
Building Type
Government building
Building Style
Colonial
Country Name
United States
Region Name
Rhode Island
City Name
Newport
Street Address
Washington Square
Recommended Citation
Thomson, Debra and Munday, Richard, "Colony House" (2018). Images of Rhode Island Architecture from Special Collections. 5.
https://digitalcommons.ric.edu/ri_architecture/5
Keywords
sir Christopher wren; baroque; classical; classicim; colonial; government buildings; state house; colony house; newport; rhode island;
Notes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ). For more information contact Digital Initiatives at James P. Adams Library, (401) 456-8380, Rhode Island College, 600 Mount Pleasant Ave., Providence, RI, 02903, digitalcommons@ric.edu.