IN 1955, just three years after acceding to the throne, Queen Elizabeth II offically opened Terminal 2 at Heathrow airport in London. In 2014, towards the twilight of her reign—which this month became the longest ever of an English monarch—she returned to open a new Terminal 2 fit for the 21st century. How convenient it would be to see these two buildings as bookending New Elizabethan Architecture. Yet Elizabeth II is the first major British monarch who will not have an architectural style named after her, depriving future estate agents of the opportunity to advertise, 200 years hence, a “stunning two-bedroom New Elizabethan flat in Hackney”.

One big reason for this is that the present Elizabethan era includes as many as a dozen architectural highlights and at least two broad architectural styles. “I cannot imagine a term or an argument that would tie all of this together,” says Stanford Anderson, a professor emeritus of history and architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “'New Elizabethan architecture’ just ducks the question.”

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Still, there is perhaps one enduring architectural legacy of the New Elizabethan era: for the first time in history, Britons could reasonably expect homes that were warm and contained indoor plumbing and adequate living space. As Victorian buildings are refurbished to modern standards—the St Pancras hotel in London is a prime example—those now quotidian comforts may come to define the architecture of the era.