When I was younger, my father and I would always drive along the lake back to our house. Every day, without fail, we passed a gorgeous house with an amazing copper roof! My father warned me one day that in a couple years time, it would be nothing but a dusty green. Yesterday, curious, I went by the house. Sure enough, it looked like something out of a fairy tale. The roof is arguably the most important part of a house; it keeps everything safe, the bad elements outside, and it even serves as a stylish hat to top off the house with. It can represent culture, wealth, or even plain and simple design fun.
Copper Roof
Eastern European roof
Eastern European roofs are pointer than most. They rely heavily on angles, probably both in part due to the cultural style and also due to the cold weather. Winters in Budapest are particularly cold and bitter. This Hungarian roof is well-designed and old, looking ominous from afar and detailed up close.
Japanese Roof
A Japanese roof typically has shallow pitch without much curves or angles. Clay is a common material featured, although this one uses bamboo. It is common to model Japanese roofs after pagodas. This particular building is a Japanese tea room where tea ceremonies are held under the beautiful cherry blossom trees.
Gambrel roof
A Gambrel roof is styled after a barn; it’s a symmetricl two-side roof with two slopes on each side. It was built to maximize headspace. This particular picture is an example of a Gambrel roof applied to an old house from the turn of the 20th century. It’s a fairy unique design, definitely one worth using for a more country motif in a house’s architecture.
Chinese roof
It is common in Chinese architecture to use stones for roofs. Stone as a whole was important to the ancient Chinese–most of their buildings surviving solely due to their materials being mostly of stone rather than wood. Pavilions and temples, as seen in this picture, tend to use sweeping roofs that are highlight decorated to show their status. They fall under the architectural type of imperial Chinese.
Queen Anne Revival
The so-called Queen Anne Revival style began in England in the mid-1800′s as a reaction to Gothic styles. It quickly became a British national style back then and grew popular until the end of the first World War. These types of roofs are ridden with dormers and gables, one even adorned with a starburst pattern. It’s all about mimicking the ornate fluidity of castles from the medieval times and mixing them with modern architecture to create something beautiful. This particular house can be found in Ontario, Canada where many houses were built of this revival style.
Bolivian roof
Bolivia is a magnificent country known as the roof of the Americas. It’s fitting, then, that it would have an interesting architecture style of its own. Similar to the adobe of the Southwest and far East, the style is still different in its own right. The carved stone roof is reminiscent of a monastery and it feels wild almost with a hint of great Baroque beauty.
Casa Batllo
Casa Batllo is a member of a trio of three adjacent houses built by important modern architects. The roof isn’t a specific style then, it’s actually a unique masterpiece. Using the roof as a canvas, the Gaudí style roof is built to represent a dragon with its shingles the scales of the beast. While it was made almost 150 years ago, it’s probably the most innovative roof ever seen, and it serves to remind people that there’s no limit when it comes to roofs. They can be practical, but that doesn’t mean they have to be boring.
Monique is a twenty-something community manager by day, freelance writer by night. She loves video games and photography. 
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