A Field Guide to American Houses
The guide that enables you to identify, and place in their historic and architectural contexts, the houses you see in your neighborhood or in your travels across America. 17th century to the present.\ \ The guide tha enables you to identify, and place in their historic and architectural contexts, the houses you see in your neighborhood and across America.\
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For the house lover and the curious tourist, for the house buyer and the weekend stroller, for neighborhood preservation groups and for all who want to know more about their community -- here, at last, is a book that makes it both easy and pleasurable to identify the various styles and periods of American domestic architecture.Concentrating not on rare landmarks but on typical dwellings in ordinary neighborhoods all across the United States -- houses built over the past three hundred years and lived in by Americans of every social and economic background -- the book provides you with the facts (and frame of reference) that will enable you to look in a fresh way at the houses you constantly see around you. It tells you -- and shows you in more than 1,200 illustrations -- what you need to know in order to be able to recognize the several distinct architectural styles and to understand their historical significance. What does that cornice mean? Or that porch? That door? When was this house built? What does its style say about the people who built it? You'll find the answers to such questions here.This is how the book works: Each of thirty-nine chapters focuses on a particular style (and its variants). Each begins with a large schematic drawing that highlights the style's most important identifying features. Additional drawings and photographs depict the most common shapes and the principal subtypes, allowing you to see at a glance a wide range of examples of each style. Still more drawings offer close-up views of typical small details -- windows, doors, cornices, etc. -- that might be difficult to see in full-house pictures. The accompanying text is rich in informationabout each style -- describing in detail its identifying features, telling you where (and in what quantity) you're likely to find examples of it, discussing all of its notable variants, and revealing its origin and tracing its history.In the book's introductory chapters you'll find invaluable general discussions of house-building materials and techniques ("Structure"), house shapes ("Form"), and the many traditions of architectural fashion ("Style") that have influenced American house design through the past three centuries. A pictorial key and glossary help lead you from simple, easily recognized architectural features -- the presence of a tile roof, for example -- to the styles in which that feature is likely to be found.
How to Use This BookixPrefacexiLooking at American Houses2Style: The Fashions of American Houses4Form: The Shapes of American Houses20Structure: The Anatomy of American Houses32Pictorial Key and Glossary54Folk Houses62Native American64Pre-Railroad74National88Colonial Houses (1600-1820)102Postmedieval English104Dutch Colonial112French Colonial120Spanish Colonial128Georgian138Adam152Early Classical Revival168Romantic Houses (1820-1880)176Greek Revival178Gothic Revival196Italianate210Exotic Revivals230Octagon234Victorian Houses (1860-1900)238Second Empire240Stick254Queen Anne262Shingle288Richardsonian Romanesque300Folk Victorian308Eclectic Houses (1880-1940)318Anglo-American, English, and French Period HousesColonial Revival320Neoclassical342Tudor354Chateauesque372Beaux Arts378French Eclectic386Mediterranean Period HousesItalian Renaissance396Mission408Spanish Eclectic416Monterey430Pueblo Revival434Modern HousesPrairie438Craftsman452Modernistic464International468American Houses Since 1940474Modern476Neoeclectic486Contemporary Folk496For Further Reference501Photo Credits511Index515
