Charleston: Topographic Views of Charleston ingle housetype

Date

May 1997 (views created)

Location

North and Central America->United States->South Carolina (SC)->Charleston

Description

The distinctiveness of the city, however, is due to the ingle housetype (e.g. the Robert Pringle House, 70 Tradd Street, 1774; and the Francis Simmons House, 14 Legare Street, ca. 1800). A long narrow house with rooms on either side of a central hall, it is raised on a full-storey basement and set with the narrow end to the street; entry is by a door that opens not into the house but into the ground-level of a multi-storey porch known as a iazza, running the full length of the house, typically on the south side. This house type, so apt for the narrow lots and the sub-tropical climate of Charleston, may be a local innovation or, as is increasingly argued, may derive from Africa and the Caribbean.

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