When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August 2005 , the world watched in horror as some 1,800 people fall back their lives in the storm and the levee breaks that follow [ germ : U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ] . As the waters receded and the city began the effort of rejuvenate itself , it became unmistakable that much of the metropolis ’s great architecture would also be lost .
Among this architecture is a New Orleans signature known as theshotgun house . This style of house is very childlike : A typical scattergun house is retentive and minute and often do n’t have window on the sides ( though they almost always do along the front or back ) because of the houses ' passing close propinquity to one another . Yet , for all of their outbound modesty , shotgun houses hold little surprise for those who care to look beyond their façades . Ornate feature article are a characteristic of the shotgun house that lend an air of dignity to an otherwise meek home .
The origins of the shotgun mansion remain something of a whodunit . The architecture was brought to America by Haitian refugee fleeing the insurrection led by Toussaint L’Ouverture at the commencement of the 19th one C . The first shotgun homes in the United States were erected in New Orleans . The structure began to catch on and spread throughout the country during its heyday between the mid-19th and early twentieth centuries . As prison term pass on , the shotgun menage come in to be associated with the struggle of African - Americans to make a life for themselves in the U.S. and still stand as a major contribution to the American architectural landscape painting . " The significance of the shotgun house rest not only on its uniqueness as an architectural configuration but also in its manifestation as an artifact of cultural memory which served as a scheme for endurance , " writes historian Denise Andrews [ source : Andrews ] . The shotgun household may be even more closely tied to Africa : Some historians indicate that the business firm may be modeled upon a traditional West African menage . ( We ’ll research that on the next pageboy . )
What is it about these modest homes that have become so emblematic of the American South and the African - American experience ? The solvent lies in both the shotgun sign ’s design and the lore that surrounds it .
Layout, Lore and Design of Shotgun Houses
As is the shell with most thing root in the distant past , uncertain lore smother shotgun house is often taken as fact . One prominent case is the story surrounding the name for this style of architecture . The popular account for the dash ’s name is found in its layout : Shotgun house are a one - narrative row of rooms , one behind the other , following a individual line perpendicular to the street . So , with all of the door in the house following a single line as well , a individual pip a scattergun through the front door could reasonably expect the shot to pass through the house and out the back room access without touching a paries .
The explanation is a quaint one , and would likely have made sense for the Haitian homes upon which the American shotgun theatre figure is based . Once the dwelling house were erected in the U.S. , however , doors were commonly placed off centre , so that a somebody conducting such an experiment would ’ve believably take a respectable lump out of the rear wall of the front room . ( Another etymological explanation is that the shotgun sign of the zodiac takes its name from that aforementioned West African style of family . These homes were called " shogun " or " God ’s sign of the zodiac " in the Yoruba linguistic communication [ origin : Andrews ] . )
Shotgun houses might sound kind of boring – a few rooms one story high up in a single row , with no windows on their side . Indeed , shotgun houses would be somewhat unornamented if not for the aforesaid custom of embellishing them with ornate fixing . Brackets that hold the cap aloft are usually carved intricately , after European gustatory sensation in the Victorian or Greek Revival fashions . venthole covers are intricately design and the front windows and doorway are adorn with shutters .
Despite their size , the elbow room in shotgun house are astonishingly large , usually around 14 substantial foot ( 1.3 square meters ) . A modify rendering of the shotgun house , thedouble scattergun , was later developed for larger families and can assist as a duplex for more than one family . These homes bear the same style as the traditional shotgun house , except that the double shotgun is essentially two single shotgun nursing home flux together side by side . They divvy up a single ceiling and doors that connect the adjoining parallel rooms .
The shotgun sign fetch a new place design conception to the United States – the porch . The overhanging roof along the front of the house created a stoep where a family could congregate on a hot eventide . The front of a traditional shotgun family would usually entrench upon the sidewalk , and the house ’s porch gave ascending to the longstanding New Orleans custom of visiting outside with neighbors in the evening .
The Cultural Legacy of Shotgun Houses
In a society that often places a higher value on blatant consumption than it does on the dignity of simplicity , it ’s gentle to simplify the encroachment of the shotgun theatre on the African - American experience . Shotgun houses were extra and built close together . Their embellishment were modeled after those found on the Victorian homes of wealthier whites , ordinarily located elsewhere in township .
But the very nature and invention of these homes helped to strengthen the African - American community in the U.S. Because of their close proximity and porch , shotgun houses aid give emanation to loaded - knit neighbourhood . The scattergun family – small , retrace tight to other household , imported from the Caribbean and Africa – has become somewhat emblematic of the African - American experience . Writes historiographer Denise Andrews : " The shotgun house represents the slaves ' chemical reaction to adversity , making sensory faculty of their new environs by alter familiar life traffic pattern . ethnical contact did not necessitate massive change in computer architecture ; but rather an level-headed modification of civilisation " [ source : Andrews ] .
The influence of the shotgun house would before long poke out beyond the African - American community . By the beginning of the twentieth century , shotgun theater construction kits were available on the market for $ 100 . The structure soon begin to come out in cities across the United States . Because of their simple blueprint , shotgun houses could be rear promptly , which presently made them a plebeian sight in the thunder townsfolk of the West . They also served as irregular ( and sometimes permanent ) housing following born disasters . For example , in the days and weeks trace the monumental earthquake that take San Francisco in 1906 , 100 of shotgun business firm kits arrived and were construct as housing for displaced residents [ source : Kislak Foundation ] .
New expression of shotgun house waned in the 1920s , but many of the original structures still remain – and are still inhabited . Others have been adopted and restore by conservation societies to serve as reminders of the persona they serve , not just in the African - American community , but in the U.S. as a whole .
