FIELD GUIDE TO AMERICAN HOUSES

by Unknown

• ISBN13: 9780394510323
• ISBN10: 0394510321
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1984-01-01
• Publisher: KNOPF

Summary

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 information about 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.

Author Biography

Virginia and Lee McAlester have both avocational and professional interests in architecture. Virginia, a Radcliffe graduate, attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is a founding member and past president of the Historic Preservation League, Inc. (Dallas), and for nine years was Texas Advisor and a member of the Administrative Committee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She is co-author of The Making of a Historic District: Swiss Avenue. Lee, a geologist, is a professor at Southern Methodist University and was formerly Dean of the School of Humanities. From 1960 to 1973 he was Professor of Geology at Yale University. He has an active hobby interest in architectural history and has been involved in historic preservation in New England, Georgia, and the Southwest. The McAlesters live in Dallas, Texas.

Table of Contents

How to Use This Book	ix
Preface	xi
Looking at American Houses	2	(60)
Style: The Fashions of American Houses	4	(16)
Form: The Shapes of American Houses	20	(12)
Structure: The Anatomy of American Houses	32	(22)
Pictorial Key and Glossary	54	(8)
Folk Houses	62	(40)
Native American	64	(10)
Pre-Railroad	74	(14)
National	88	(14)
Colonial Houses (1600-1820)	102	(74)
Postmedieval English	104	(8)
Dutch Colonial	112	(8)
French Colonial	120	(8)
Spanish Colonial	128	(10)
Georgian	138	(14)
Adam	152	(16)
Early Classical Revival	168	(8)
Romantic Houses (1820-1880)	176	(62)
Greek Revival	178	(18)
Gothic Revival	196	(14)
Italianate	210	(20)
Exotic Revivals	230	(4)
Octagon	234	(4)
Victorian Houses (1860-1900)	238	(80)
Second Empire	240	(14)
Stick	254	(8)
Queen Anne	262	(26)
Shingle	288	(12)
Richardsonian Romanesque	300	(8)
Folk Victorian	308	(10)
Eclectic Houses (1880-1940)	318	(156)
Anglo-American, English, and French Period Houses
Colonial Revival	320	(22)
Neoclassical	342	(12)
Tudor	354	(18)
Chateauesque	372	(6)
Beaux Arts	378	(8)
French Eclectic	386	(10)
Mediterranean Period Houses
Italian Renaissance	396	(12)
Mission	408	(8)
Spanish Eclectic	416	(14)
Monterey	430	(4)
Pueblo Revival	434	(4)
Modern Houses
Prairie	438	(14)
Craftsman	452	(12)
Modernistic	464	(4)
International	468	(6)
American Houses Since 1940	474	(27)
Modern	476	(10)
Neoeclectic	486	(10)
Contemporary Folk	496	(5)
For Further Reference	501	(10)
Photo Credits	511	(4)
Index	515