Height of historic buildings

I think it depends where you are and whatnot. I just got back from a trip to Scotland and did a tour of the Mary King's Close in Edinburgh (touristy as all get out, but so fun and interesting!), which is a 17th century series of closes and buildings that is now underground. Some of the tenement buildings there were six or seven storeys high (although I can't remember whether some of those were added later or not). So I think you could reasonably have four or five storeys for your buildings. The stairs would have been outside and on the front of the building.

Re: elevators. The three flat is a very common style of apartment here in Chicago from the late 1890s and early 1900s. That's four storeys or so, three flights of stairs, no elevators. So I suspect you're probably right that much over four or five storeys probably wouldn't work.

Roxx, I'm not an expert, but what you say sounds very reasonable: three or four stories would have been about the maximum, partially due to architectural constraints (cathedrals, for instance, are enormous but very open within and obviously not meant for dwelling; that kind of architectural feat was reserved for important buildings) and partially due to practicality (if characters are fortunate enough, they may have a bevy of servants who will do all the stair-climbing for them).

Architecture was fairly different between Northern and Southern Europe. For obvious reasons, places around the Mediterranean were more likely to be low to the ground and based around a courtyard (there was a lot of Moorish/Islamic influence in the area, too). Places like England were more given to snugger buildings (often) based around a chimney (by this time period).

A quick Google search turned up some homes from the mid-1600s that had at least three stories. Also, look for information on the French town of Rouen. It's known for its architecture. According to this one photo, these buildings date to the 15th century and they look at least four stories high.

York Shambles: http://lh5.ggpht.com/-XzIijnC2tJI/U...yQg/the-shambles-14%255B2%255D.jpg?imgmax=800

Building ages vary here, but note the (somewhat sagging) timber building on the left. Three storeys.

Another view: http://lh3.ggpht.com/-xTqHNd0_8VU/U...NuKI/the-shambles-6%255B2%255D.jpg?imgmax=800

Again, three storeys. Note how each floor is slightly bigger than the one below - this is actually more stable in timber constructions. This street has been kept as close to how it would have been in the Medieval period as possible as a tourist attraction.

Three storeys would have been the standard. Ground floor: Shop. Second floor: Family home. Third floor: Servants' quarters and often also the nursery.

But, you might also end up with something like this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ows,_Chester,_Cheshire,_England,_ca._1895.jpg

This is a 19th century photochrome of the famous Chester Rows. Yes, these are (mostly) Medieval buildings and as you can see they're hitting five or six storeys with TWO rows of shops. This unique design was intended to save space. The continuity of the upper "row" is broken in some places by modern replacement, but the most recent modern stores have retained it in their design.

So, the short answer: Three-four storeys would probably be more standard, but you CAN go higher, the construction standards were up to it. Consider climate, as mentioned, consider how much space was available. The more hazardous (in terms of bandits and wild beasts and the like) the surroundings, the more likely it is that construction will be restricted to a walled city and you might get something like the Rows.

Roman insulae (apartment buildings) reached 8 or 9 storeys high.

The town of Shibam in Yemen has mud brick buildings dating back to the 16th century that reach 12 storeys high.

Edinburgh might be a good model - the buildings were quite tall for that era - described supposedly as 'skyscrapers' even then.

The city is very hilly as well, so a building would be much taller on one side of it than on the other. In one part you can walk into a pub on street level, descend two stories and walk out onto the street on the other side. People also lived underground up to five stories (iirc!) deep.

IIRC buildings in London in the late 16th/early 17th century could be considerably taller than 3 storeys. Did an extremely quick and dirty search in the first book I found on the bookshelf - The Time-traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer - which specifies that due to the extreme shortage of land "you see many houses rebuilt as six- or seven-storey buildings, even though there is nothing more solid than timber to support them". The footnote specifies that "Houses of six storeys are visible in several early seventeenth-century woodcuts and engravings of the city and are specified in Ralph Tressell's surveys."

I suspect you already know this, but for the same reasons, many 16th century buildings tended to be smaller at the base than higher up, so that the second and third storeys stuck out/hung over the street which blocked out almost all the daylight. Not a very sound way to build one would think and accidents happened, but the practice was very common.

That's just England and just quick and dirty, but hopefully it's some help anyway.

Randomly, if you haven't watched it, I highly recommend this video made by a bunch of students in which you fly through the streets of London on the eve of the great fire in 1666. It's supposedly very-well researched from contemporary illustrations and could probably be Elizabethan or early Stuart London just as well as not too much changed up until the fire: http://youtu.be/SPY-hr-8-M0
It's great for inspiration!

Buildings in 17c Paris were commonly 4-5 stories. Most were half-timbered, or a combination of timber and stone or brick. The very wealthiest people had their own building ("hôtel particulier") but most buildings were occupied by more than one household -- even quite well-to-do families might have lodgings of only 3 or 4 rooms, & the poorer you were, the higher you lived.

The common privy for a building generally occupied a little room on the outer side of the common staircase, with a direct opening to the courtyard below; if you were better off or more fastidious you used the chamberpot (& its more refined cousin the chaise percée) in the comfort of your own apartment, and your servant dumped it daily, probably into the courtyard or the street).

The street, by the way, was probably 6 feet wide or less -- only the biggest & most important thoroughfares would have been as much as 20 feet wide. And many shops had counters and extensions into the street, as did less permanent vendor stalls, so the actual streetwidth available for traffic was rather narrower.

The mud of Paris streets was notoriously thick, sticky and stinky.

^ The S-bend is the most important invention in history. Before it, the overriding sensory hallmark of civilisation was the smell of shit. I'd like to see more time-travel stories acknowledge this, actually. Travellers back to any century before the 19th would have noticed the pong before anything else.

I studied architectural history at school, and it is truly amazing what people could build back then. It wasn't really a question of how high (think of the pyramids, for example) but how fast, how unique? The invention of the elevator allowed for the expansion of buildings beyond the tenth floor--the so-called "tall building" movement pioneered by Louis Sullivan and others like him. Also, the use of steel trusses played a huge part in the ability to expand.

For the 17th century, I think you could definitely see buildings (dwellings, etc) up to five or six stories. Look at Venice, for example. Most buildings there are at least three stories, many are in the five to six range. And of course as mentioned, tenement buildings in the Elizabethan period (and beyond) were extremely tall. They could only build up and not out. Many buildings were continuously added onto until they were most likely not very safe to live in. Wasn't that the case with the medieval Old London Bridge? They kept building on it until it finally collapsed. This painting shows it in the 1600s and many of the buildings appear to be four and five stories.

Albedo said:

^ The S-bend is the most important invention in history. Before it, the overriding sensory hallmark of civilisation was the smell of shit. I'd like to see more time-travel stories acknowledge this, actually. Travellers back to any century before the 19th would have noticed the pong before anything else.

Click to expand...

Yeah, Thomas Jefferson wrote about how stinky towns were. I guess thats why people werent too bothered by body odor. A stinky armpit is refreshing compared to suffocating fecal stench.

Avoiding a repetition of the Great Stink in 1850s London was a major incentive to build a modern sewer system.

Talk about an oxymoron. Great stink.

Keep in mind that ceiling heights were often quite low, especially for the upper stories in the taller buildings. A 6-7 story Tudor building in London might be comparable to a 4 story Victorian building.