Named for Rulers and Statesmen: Eleven Styles from the Plantagenets to the Edwardians

The name was coined by Viollet-le-Duc for the House of Anjou-Plantagenet, yet the style grew in western France rather than England. Its eight-rib, almost domed vaults were steeper sided than Ile-de-France vaults, so they pushed outward less and needed less buttressing.

Named for one king but spanning roughly 1530 to 1590 and five reigns, this was a French adaptation of Italian Mannerism. Francis I and Catherine de Medici brought artists to Fontainebleau, and the architects Lescot, Delorme and Bullant worked on the Louvre, Anet and the Tuileries.

Here the name does match the reign, 1589 to 1610, with Paris as the focus. The Place des Vosges, the Pont Neuf and the Place Dauphine show a style that paired urban planning with architecture, in keeping with the king's commitment to rebuilding the capital.

Within one reign the style changed three times. It extended the Louis XIV manner from about 1710 to 1730, became the exuberant Rocaille under Madame de Pompadour from 1730 to 1750, then turned more sober and showed Neoclassical influence until 1774.

The name honors a minister rather than a monarch. After the 1755 earthquake the Marques de Pombal directed Lisbon's rebuilding, and the Baixa was laid out on a grid with fixed street widths, a restrained Neoclassical scheme of facades and standardized decoration.

The patron here is a president who designed his own buildings. Monticello, Poplar Forest and the University of Virginia are its core, and the style, a Neo-Palladian form of Neo-Classicism, ran from the 1790s to the 1830s alongside the Greek Revival.

Named for the restored Bourbons Louis XVIII and Charles X, it covers France from 1814 to 1830. Public buildings stayed severely neoclassical while Romantic currents began to enter, and Paris grew north and west with standardized residential buildings in simplified ornament.

From 1830 to 1848 French neoclassicism became more eclectic and took in neo-Gothic elements. It was the first French decorative style set by the tastes of the growing upper class rather than by the court, and its furniture, like the marble-topped commode, put comfort first.

The name looks back to King Manuel I, who reigned from 1495 to 1521, but the revival began with the Pena Palace in Sintra in 1839. Varnhagen coined manuelino only in 1842, and the revival gave Portugal a national language of building, seen at Rossio Station in Lisbon.

The name is only loosely accurate. Popularised in the 1870s by Norman Shaw and George Devey, the style used red brick, white woodwork and an eclectic mix of details, and it supposedly revived Queen Anne architecture though the match was often far from exact.

The last stop is the shortest reign, 1901 to 1910, with buildings continuing to 1914. A Neo-Baroque style, it drew on French eighteenth century work and Wren, earning the nickname Wrenaissance, and its lighter palette was helped by electric lighting reducing soot.