Eclecticism is defined within architecture as a movement active and popular in the 19th and 20th Century. An eclectically influenced building design incorporated a mixture of features from previous movements including traditional motifs and styles, decorative ornaments and aesthetics to create a new and original building.
Its style is in fact not a style at all but borrowed themes and motifs from previous movements, theories and time periods.
This style of architecture emerged in the mid 19th Century when there was a desire for more expressive freedom and creativity but keeping the then current historical president, a way to experiment and express new architectural ideas but within the accepted architectural confines of the time where experimentation would not normally be accepted
