180
Part 3 From the Ground Up
became more important than quality.
Scrolls and other decorative trim made
from wood appeared under eaves and
around windows and doors. This came
to be known as gingerbread.
Modern Houses
The housing designs developed in
the United States from the early 1900s
into the 1980s are classifiedastheModern fi
style. Compared to the other housing
styles discussed so far, these are quite
new. Modern styles include the Prairie
style, Arts and Crafts, Bungalow, Inter-
national style, and the ranch and split-
level. All are very popular and their use
will likely continue in the future.
Prairie Style
Frank Lloyd Wright, who is one of
the most noted architects of modern
times, designed the Prairie style house.
Wright is considered the greatest fi gure fi
in modern American architecture. He
designed a series of Prairie style houses
between 1893 and 1920 that were very
different from the traditional architec-
ture built before this period, 6-17.
Prairie style
houses have strong
horizontal lines, low-pitched roofs, and
overhanging eaves. Wright believed
that a house should strongly relate to
its environment, or setting. He liked to
create the illusion that the house had
actually evolved from the site. Prairie
style homes were constructed of wood,
stone, plaster, and materials found in
nature. Earth-tone colors were used to
emphasize the link between the man-
built structure and its natural setting.
Previous architectural styles used
walls to divide interior space into boxlike
rooms. Wright reduced the number of
walls to allow one room to flow into fl
another, creating an open floor plan. fl
In addition, this style allowed interior
space to visually fl ow outdoors through
porches, terraces, and windows. His
flexible use of space greatly influencedfl fl
the design work of European architects.
Arts and Crafts
Arts and Crafts
style, or Craftsman,
houses were built between 1905 and
1930. This popular style had its roots in
the Arts and Crafts Movement of the
1880s. It celebrated use of natural mate-
rials worked by hand. Simple, nature-
inspired colors and patterns were often
used for interior fabrics and wall cover-
ings. As a response to the over-abundance
of machine-made gingerbread and other
architectural excesses of the Victorian
era, English designers such as John
Ruskin and William Morris and many
others began this movement. In the
United States, two brothers from Califor-
nia—Charles Sumner Greene and Henry
Mather Greene—designed houses during
the Arts and Crafts Movement. They were
widely praised for creating the “ultimate”
bungalow—a larger, sprawling version of
the earlier bungalow.
6-17
The many
porches, terraces,
and windows
of this house
designed by Frank
Lloyd Wright are
characteristic of
the Prairie style.
Larry G. Morris