1850 жылдардағы Солтүстік Америкалық сегізбұрышты үйлер

North American house style briefly popular in the 1850s

Octagon houses are eight sided houses that were popular in the United States and Canada mostly in the 1850s. They are characterized by an octagonal (eight sided) plan and often feature a flat roof and a veranda that circles the house. Their unusual shape and appearance, quite different from the ornate pitched roof houses typical of the period, can generally be traced to the influence of amateur architect and lifestyle pundit Orson Squire Fowler. Although there are other octagonal houses worldwide, the term octagon house usually refers to octagonal houses built in North America during this period, and up to the early 1900s.

The leading proponent of octagonal houses was Orson Squire Fowler. Fowler was America's foremost lecturer and writer on phrenology, the pseudoscience of defining an individual's characteristics by the contours of the skull. In the middle of the 19th century, Fowler made his mark on American architecture when he touted the advantages of octagonal homes over rectangular and square structures in his widely publicized book, The Octagon House: A Home For All, or A New, Cheap, Convenient, and Superior Mode of Building, printed in the year 1848. As a result of this popular and influential publication, a few thousand octagonal houses were erected in the United States, mostly in the Midwest, the East Coast and in nearby parts of Canada. Fowler was not a professional architect.

According to Fowler, an octagon house was cheaper to build, allowed for additional living space, received more natural light, was easier to heat, and remained cooler in the summer. These benefits all derive from the geometry of an octagon: the shape encloses space efficiently, minimizing external surface area and consequently heat loss and gain, building costs etc. A circle is the most efficient shape, but difficult to build and awkward to furnish, so an octagon is a sensible approximation. Victorian builders were used to building 135° corners, as in the typical bay window, and could easily adapt to an octagonal plan.

Stacked board construction was recommended in the first edition of A Home for All but the third edition of Fowler's book, printed in 1853, had a new subtitle: A Home For All, or The Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building, and was distinguished by Fowler's enthusiasm for concrete construction. At the time concrete consutrction was not widely used as Portland cement was only recently discovered by a Mr. Goodrich of Janesville, Wisconsin. Fowler knew gravel and lime were available in unlimited quantities in the prairies and saw the "gravel wall" as offering a new, cheap and durable way of building. His house at Fishkill was built using concrete. The walls were built up a few feet at a time, by pouring a mixture of gravel and lime into timber shuttering. As the concrete cured, the shuttering could be taken down and moved up to the next level. Modern concrete is made using Portland cement, not lime, but the main difference is the universal use of steel reinforcing bars, which greatly increase the strength of the material, and make it possible to build concrete beams and floor slabs as well as walls. Fowler used large stones to reinforce corners, but he used no other reinforcement, and was therefore restricted to walls. The roof, floors and verandas are all of timber construction.

To quote Fowler " those studies which have eventuated in this work were instituted primarily in order to erect this very house". Construction began in 1848, the same year his book was first published, and took five years to complete. The house was large, to each side of the octagon or across, and built on a hilltop overlooking the Hudson River, where it could be seen for miles around. Fowler removed the top of the hill to create a level site and to provide material for his "gravel walls". This grand residence had four huge reception rooms which could be interconnected depending on the size of event, allegedly 60 rooms (counting small dressing rooms as well as proper rooms) and a glazed cupola rising to above ground. Fowler's favorite writing room was an internal room on the third floor, lit only from the cupola via a fanlight over the door. The house had no central staircase, so visitors entered one of the main rooms through a small lobby, while family and staff used the basement entrance. There are verandas all round the house at first , second and third floor levels, linked by two outside stairs. The financial panic of 1857 led Fowler to rent out the house, which subsequently went through a series of owners. Fowler's Folly fell into disrepair, and finally condemned as a public hazard it was dynamited in 1897 by Fred C. Haight, demolition engineer for the city of Fishkill.

Estimates vary but hundreds of these Victorian era homes are still standing across the United States and Canada. One estimate puts the number at 2,077. (both are illustrated below). A full octagon house has eight equal sides, although slight variations in length are not unusual. In some cases the basic octagon is partially obscured by additions, either all round as at the Zelotes Holmes House, or by adding a functional wing out of sight at the rear. The House of the Seven Gables in Mayo, Florida has gables on seven sides while the eighth side is extended to the rear. The Richard Peacon House in Key West, Florida, appears to be a full octagon from the street but the rear portion is squared off. Fowler advocated the use of "gravel wall" construction for the walls. This was an experimental technique at the time, and although some were built that way, most octagon houses were built the same way as ordinary houses, of timber frame, brick or stone.

A moral community headed by Henry S. Clubb tried to establish Octagon City in 1856 in Kansas. It was intended to have an octagonal square with eight roads and octagonal farmhouses and barns. Most settlers had left after the winter.

The following are examples of the 'true' octagon houses and the range of design variations to be found.