Welcome to Quarter 4!
Navigational Links: (Quarter 3)

Day 136

1. For most of this year, we have studied buildings designed to impress. We’ve looked at cathedrals that took 100 years to build, skyscrapers meant to dominate city skylines, and government halls designed to project power. These are what historians call “Monumental Architecture.” They make it into history books because they are rare, expensive, and public. But now we are shifting our focus to the other 99% of the built environment: Residential Architecture.

When an architect designs a skyscraper or a museum, their primary goal is often symbolic. They are designing for a “faceless public”—thousands of people who will walk through the doors but never sleep there. Residential architecture is different because it is personal. A home is a machine for living. It has to handle the messy, practical reality of daily life. The priorities shift completely.

Scale” Monumental architecture is designed to be seen from miles away. Residential architecture is designed to be seen from the sidewalk. The details get smaller and more intimate.

Function: In a museum, the most important space might be the grand lobby. In a home, the most important space might be the “kitchen work triangle” or the mudroom. The success of a home isn’t measured by how it looks in a photo, but by how it works. Can you get the groceries from the car to the fridge without tracking mud through the living room?

Vernacular vs. High Style: Most famous public buildings are “High Style”—designed by a famous architect to look unique. Most houses, however, are “Vernacular.” This means they were built using local materials, local traditions, and practical patterns that have been copied and improved over generations.

2. Why Study Houses? A house is a time capsule that tells you everything about the people who built it.

The Climate: A house in Arizona looks different than a house in the Midwest. Flat roofs work in the desert; they collapse under heavy snow here.

The Technology: Before air conditioning, houses had high ceilings and big windows to catch the breeze. After AC became common in the 1950s, ceilings dropped to 8 feet to keep the cool air trapped. You can often tell when a house was built just by looking at the ceiling height.

The Culture: In the Victorian era (1800s), houses were chopped into many tiny, separate rooms because formal privacy was valued. Today, we build “Open Concept” floor plans because we value connection and casual living.

3. Watch “American House Styles Explained in 15 Minutes.”

Day 137

1. Walk around your house and take a look at it. Can you identify the architectural styles that influenced it?

Day 138

1. Watch the video “What is Colonial?”
2. Read about the early American Colonial style. One key feature you will often notice is that the center of the house is a straightforward, plain rectangle. Even if later ornamentation or wings were added onto the sides or back, the center “starter” rectangle is often visible.
3. Learn how to spot them and take the quiz!

Day 139

1. Watch “Colonial American Architecture: A Design Resource for Contemporary Traditional Architecture: Part I.”

Day 140

1. Watch “Colonial American Architecture: A Design Resource for Contemporary Traditional Architecture: Part II.”

Day 141
1. Watch the video “Colonial Homes of America.”
2. Read more about the Colonial style and peruse the gallery.

Day 142

1. Read about the difference between Georgian and Federal style colonial homes.
2. Read about the difference between a hipped roof and a gabled roof.
3. Watch the video about Georgian Colonial homes.
4. Then watch the video about Federal Colonial homes.

Day 143

1. Read more about Georgian architecture in America.
2. Watch “Building with History – Georgian Style.”
3. Take a tour of Drayton Hall.

Day 144

1. Watch “How Federal and Georgian Styles are Different.”
2. Watch the video about traditional stair details.

Day 145

1. Read more about Federal architecture.
2. Watch “Museums 101: Federal Period Art and Architecture.”

Day 146

1. Read “What is a Cape Cod style House?”
2. Learn how to identify Cape Cods!
3. Watch the video about Cape Cod houses.

Day 147

1. Today, take a walk on your street or in a nearby neighborhood. Are you able to identify the style of any homes you see?

Day 148

1. Take a look at these house plans that are listed as “Cape Cod” style. Feel free to click on plans and look around. As you can see, there’s a lot of variation in what’s considered one these days!
2. Be sure to scroll down and read the FAQs.
3. Read “About the American Cape Cod Style House.”

Day 149

1. Read about Greek revival architecture in America.
2. Watch the video explaining what makes a house Greek revival.
3. Digging deeper into some details, watch the video about the difference between moldings in Georgian, Federal, and Greek revival buildings.

Day 150

1. Read the Wikipedia page for “Greek Revival Architecture in North America.” Be sure to click on images to get a better look at the architecture!
2. Watch the lecture “An Introduction to the American Greek Revival.”

Day 151

1. The Greek Revival was the dominant architectural style in America during the mid-19th century. It replaced the British-influenced Federal style with a more rigid, heavy aesthetic based on the proportions of ancient Greek temples. To transform a standard rectangular house into a “temple,” builders made specific technical adjustments:

• 90-Degree Rotation: Designers turned the house so the short end (the gable) faced the street. This turned the roofline into a pediment.
• The Entablature: A thick band of trim was added just below the roofline. This consists of the architrave, frieze, and cornice. In many American homes, this was simplified into a wide, heavy board that made the house look more “poured” from stone rather than built from wood.
• Column Orders: Homes utilized the three classical orders. Doric (plain) was most common for its perceived “sturdiness,” followed by Ionic (scrolls) and Corinthian (leaves) for wealthier estates.

2. While the Parthenon was stone, American domestic architecture (houses people live in) was primarily timber-framed. Builders adapted the style through several specific “Americanized” features:

• The Entryway: Since columns often blocked the center of the house, the front door was usually offset to one side. It featured a rectangular transom window above and narrow sidelights to pull natural light into the hallway.
• Pilasters: To save money, many homeowners used “flat” columns (pilasters) attached to the corners of the building rather than free-standing round columns.
• The “Upright and Wing”: This was the most common layout for middle-class homes. It featured a two-story “temple” section (the upright) with a one-story side addition (the wing), allowing for more living space while maintaining the formal street appearance. (Visit the Wikipedia page to see pictures!)
• Heavy Cornice Returns: Even on simple farmhouses without columns, the roof trim would “return” or wrap around the corner of the house for a few inches to suggest the base of a pediment.

3. Take another look at the Wikipedia page to see if you can identify these features.
4. Then read about how even cheap, simple houses were adapted into the Greek revival style.

Day 152

1. Today read “Why the Greek Revival Style Became a Hit in 19th Century America.” (Notice the author. It’s our friend Brent Hull!)
2. Take a look at some Greek Revival house plans. What characteristics do you recognize? Be sure to scroll to the bottom and read the FAQ.

Day 153

1. For decades in the early 1800s, American architecture was dominated by the Greek Revival style. However, by the 1840s, tastes began to change. People started looking for a style that felt less like a formal monument, and this shift brought about the Gothic Revival. The transition from Greek to Gothic was driven by three major practical and cultural shifts:

The Romantic Movement
Culturally, society was moving away from the logic of the “Age of Enlightenment” and entering the “Romantic Era.” Instead of valuing order and geometry, people began to value emotion, nature, and the picturesque. Greek Revival homes stood out sharply against the landscape. Gothic Revival homes, with their earth tones and varied shapes, were designed to blend into the surrounding trees and hills.
Pattern Books Reach the Countryside
Before the 1840s, you needed a trained architect to design a complex house. But a man named Andrew Jackson Downing changed everything. He published widely popular “pattern books” filled with floor plans and sketches of Gothic cottages. These books could be mailed anywhere, meaning a local carpenter in a rural town could suddenly build a trendy, modern home just by following the pictures in Downing’s book.
New Technology: The Scroll Saw
True Gothic cathedrals in Europe were carved from stone, which was far too expensive for an average American house. But the invention of the steam-powered scroll saw changed the game. Builders could take cheap, abundant wood and easily cut it into intricate, lace-like patterns. This allowed builders to mimic the look of carved stone using mass-produced wooden trim.
2. When you look at a house built between 1840 and 1880, you can tell the builder has moved on from the Greek Revival if you spot these key elements:

• Vertical Emphasis: Greek temples look heavy and horizontal. Gothic homes point up.
• Steeply Pitched Roofs: The most obvious sign of a Gothic home is a roof so steep it looks like an upside-down ‘V’ pointing sharply at the sky.
• Asymmetry: Instead of a front door perfectly centered with an equal number of windows on each side, Gothic homes often feature off-center doors, varied rooflines, and unpredictable layouts that followed the function of the rooms inside rather than strict outside rules.
• Pointed Arches: While Greek Revival windows are perfectly rectangular, Gothic Revival windows often come to a sharp point at the top, resembling a church window.
• “Gingerbread” Trim: Look at the eaves (the edges of the roof). You will often see decorative, cut-out wooden boards hanging down. This is called vergeboard or bargeboard, made possible by that steam-powered scroll saw.

3. Watch the video “What Makes a House Gothic?”

Day 154

1. Watch the video about why the ‘Romantic Era’ is so dynamic.
2. Watch the Gothic Revival overview.

Day 155

1. Read “An Introduction to Gothic Revival Architecture.”

Day 156

1. Take a look at some more Gothic Revival buildings. Be sure to click on the images to view them larger. What chacteristics make them stand out as Neogothic?
2. Here are Gothic Revival buildings from New England.
3. Read the article about Gothic Revival in Louisiana.

Day 157

1. While Gothic Revival was popular, those steep roofs and irregular shapes were sometimes impractical and expensive to build. The Italianate style solved this. It offered the romantic, picturesque feel of an Italian countryside villa, but it was usually built on a simple, boxy floor plan that maximized interior space. Italianate elements include:

• Stately, tall, and heavily decorated at the roofline.
• Low-pitched roofs: Unlike the steep Gothic point, these roofs are almost flat.
• Wide, overhanging eaves with heavy brackets: This is the absolute dead giveaway. The roof sticks out far past the walls, supported by ornate, scrolled wooden brackets.
• Tall, narrow windows: Often featuring curved or arched tops, sometimes with heavy “hoods” over them.
• Square Cupolas: A small, boxy tower sitting on the very top of the roof.

2. This style was massively popular in the Midwest. If you see an old, square, brick farmhouse from the 1870s standing in a field in Iowa or Illinois, it is almost always an Italianate. Take a look at the examples on this page.
3. Watch the video about Italianate homes.

Day 158

1. Read more about Italianate architecture and look at the examples.
2. Read about Italianate style in St. Louis after the Civil War.
3. You may have noticed that one of these sources calls the structure on top of the Italianate buildings a belvedere, not a cupola. It’s a bit of a frog and toad situation, although not all belvederes are cupolas and a cupola may not be a belvedere. Here is one definition of a cupola vs. a definition of a belvedere. You can see that the Italianate style favored square structures with flat roofs, tall enough to stand in. I think that belvedere is the more proper term for this type of roof structure. (However, you should note that not all belvederes were historically constructed on the rooftop: that is just one place you can create a good view.)

Day 159

1. Read more about Italianate buildings and look at the pictures. Pay special attention to how the style is applied to commercial buildings.
2. Read even more about Italianate buildings!

Day 160

1. By the 1860s, the Italianate style was the “standard” for American middle-class homes, especially in the growing towns of the Midwest. However, as the United States became wealthier following the Civil War, homeowners wanted something more modern, more formal, and more “international.” They found that inspiration in France. During the mid-1800s, Emperor Napoleon III was completely rebuilding Paris with grand, boxy buildings featuring a very specific roof type. In America, this became known as the Second Empire style.
2. Watch the video about Italianate and Second Empire style homes.
3. The most important thing to understand about Second Empire architecture is that it is essentially an Italianate house wearing a “fancy hat.”

• The Mansard Roof: This is the defining feature. Unlike the low-pitched roof of the Italianate, a Mansard roof has a nearly vertical lower slope and a flat top.
• Why it was popular: In many cities, houses were taxed by the number of “stories” they had. Because the Mansard roof was technically a “roof,” the space inside was often considered an attic—meaning homeowners could have a full third floor of living space without paying the taxes for a three-story house.

It was considered the height of “modern” sophistication in the 1870s. Today, we often associate it with “haunted houses” because many of these grand homes fell into disrepair in the mid-20th century.
4. Second Empire houses are often lumped in with “Victorian” style houses. Read about Victorian houses for a preview of some of the different styles.

Day 161

1. Watch the video about Second Empire homes.
2. Watch the video about Queen Anne houses.

Day 162

1. “Stick Style” homes are a transitional style between Second Empire and Queen Anne. Read about them and look at the examples!
2. Read more about Queen Anne style.
3. Watch the video “Why Victorian Houses Look the Way They Do.”

Day 163

1. If architecture in the 19th century was a drama, the Queen Anne style would be its grand finale. Popular in the United States from approximately 1880 to 1910, it represents the peak of the Victorian Era. While earlier styles like Greek Revival or Italianate focused on symmetry and order, the Queen Anne embraced a “more is more” philosophy, celebrating complexity, color, and texture.
The explosion of the Queen Anne style was a direct result of the Industrial Revolution. By the 1880s, the transcontinental railroad allowed factory-made architectural details to be shipped to even the most remote rural towns. A builder in the Midwest no longer had to hand-carve a porch post; they could simply order a set of “turned” spindles and “fish-scale” shingles from a catalog in Chicago or St. Louis.
2. You can identify a Queen Anne home by its refusal to be a simple box. It is designed to be asymmetrical, meaning no two sides of the house look the same. Key elements to look for include:

• The Corner Tower (Turret): Many Queen Anne homes feature a round, square, or octagonal tower with a conical “witch’s hat” roof.
• The Wrap-Around Porch: A hallmark of the style is an expansive front porch that extends around at least one side of the house, often decorated with intricate wooden spindles and brackets.
• Varied Wall Textures: Instead of simple flat siding, these homes use a mix of materials. You will often see “fish-scale” or diamond-shaped wooden shingles on the upper stories to create a textured, scaly appearance.
• Complex Rooflines: The roof is rarely a single shape; it is usually a collection of high-pitched gables pointing in several different directions at once.
• They Called Them “Painted Ladies”: Because these homes had so many different textures and wooden “ornaments,” owners began painting them in multiple contrasting colors to highlight the details. This gave rise to the nickname “Painted Ladies”.

3. While you can find Queen Anne homes in almost every “Old Town” district across the Midwest, some of the most famous examples include:

1. The Carson Mansion (Eureka, CA): Often cited as the most grand and complex Queen Anne in America.
2. The “Postcard Row” (San Francisco, CA): The famous line of colorful Victorians seen in many movies and TV shows.
3. The Vaile Mansion (Independence, MO): A classic Midwest example that showcases the transition from Second Empire to the decorative excess of the Queen Anne style.

4. The Queen Anne style was eventually replaced by the Craftsman movement around 1910. As families grew tired of the high maintenance required to keep all that wooden trim painted and repaired, they turned toward the simpler, sturdier lines of the bungalow. Today, Queen Anne homes are among the most cherished historic buildings in America.

Day 164

1. By the year 1900, American homeowners were exhausted. For decades, the Queen Anne and other Victorian styles had dominated the landscape with their high-maintenance wooden “gingerbread” trim, dark, cluttered rooms, and factory-made ornaments. As the new century began, a massive “reset” occurred in American architecture. This movement, known as the Arts and Crafts movement (and the Craftsman style it inspired), was a direct protest against the Industrial Revolution and Victorian excess.
The Craftsman movement was led by designers like Gustav Stickley, who published a magazine appropriately titled The Craftsman. Stickley and his peers believed that the Industrial Revolution had “de-skilled” workers and filled homes with cheap, soul-less “fakes”. The goal of a Craftsman home was to celebrate manual labor and natural materials. Instead of painting wood to look like marble or hiding the structure behind wallpaper, Craftsman builders left wood unpainted to show the grain and used local stone and brick to help the house blend into the earth.
2. The most common version of this style is the Bungalow: a low-slung, sturdy house that emphasized horizontal lines rather than Victorian verticality. Key features include:

• Low-Pitched Gable Roofs: Unlike the steep, pointy roofs of the Gothic or Queen Anne eras, Craftsman roofs are low and wide.
• Exposed Rafter Tails: Instead of hiding the ends of the roof beams under a board, Craftsman builders left them visible under the eaves to show how the house was held together.
• Tapered Porch Columns: Look for thick, square columns that are wider at the bottom than the top, often resting on massive stone or brick “piers”.
• Built-in Furniture: On the inside, these homes were designed for efficiency. They featured built-in bookshelves, window seats, and “sideboards” (buffets) to eliminate the need for extra furniture.

3. Watch the video “How to Spot a Craftsman Home.”
4. Watch “How this House Took Over the US.”

Day 165

1. Watch the video about the Craftsman bungalow.
2. Read about Craftsman homes.

Day 166

1. Watch the video about Sears kit homes.
2. Watch another video about Sears kit houses.

Day 167

1. Read about Tudor Revival architecture.
2. Look at more Tudor Revival architecture.
3. Watch the video about Tudor Revival architecture.

Day 168

1. Read about Tudor Revival architecture.
2. Watch “the best Tudor Revival House in America.”

Day 169

1. The Ranch style house, also known as the “rambler” or “rancher,” is arguably the most recognizable and widespread home style in the United States. While earlier styles like the Gothic or Queen Anne were imported from Europe, the Ranch is a uniquely American invention.

The style began in California during the 1920s and 1930s. Architects and builders, most notably Cliff May (often called the “father of the ranch house”), wanted to blend the rustic charm of old Spanish Colonial haciendas (meaning ‘ranch’) with the forward-thinking ideas of Modernism. These early “California Ranches” focused on informal living, simple materials like adobe and wood, and a floor plan that surrounded a private interior courtyard.

While it started as a West Coast luxury, the Ranch became a”standard” American home following World War II. Several factors drove this massive explosion in popularity. Because of the GI Bill, returning soldiers had access to low-interest government-backed mortgages, creating a sudden, massive demand for affordable housing. Inexpensive land outside of city centers allowed developers to build “out” rather than “up”. Plus, the Ranch was the first style to truly embrace the automobile. Instead of a detached stable or carriage house, the garage became a permanent, prominent part of the front facade.

By 1950, 9 out of every 10 new houses built in the U.S. were ranch-style, because they were cheaper and faster to construct than complex two-story homes.
2. Key Elements: How to Recognize a Ranch
A Ranch house is designed to emphasize horizontal lines rather than vertical height. You can identify a Ranch by these signature features.

• Single-Story Layout: All living spaces are on one level, making the house accessible and easy to maintain.
• Open Floor Plan: Traditional homes were chopped into many tiny rooms. Ranches pioneered the “open concept,” where the kitchen, dining, and living areas flow together to encourage family interaction.
• Long, Low Roofline: Usually a low-pitched gable or hip roof with wide overhanging eaves that provide shade and wind resistance.
• Connection to Nature: Large picture windows and sliding glass doors were designed to bring the outside in, leading directly to a backyard patio or deck.

3. Although the style fell out of favor in the 1970s and 80s as buyers moved toward taller “McMansions” (foreshadowing), it is currently experiencing a major resurgence. Today, Ranch homes are seeing high demand for two main reasons: accessibility and flexibility. For aging Baby Boomers, “single-level living” means no stairs to climb, while young families appreciate the safety of a one-story home and the ability to easily renovate the open-concept spaces. Once dismissed as “boring boxes,” the Ranch is now celebrated as a mid-century classic that perfectly captures the “laid-back” spirit of the American Dream.
4. Watch “The Rise of the Ranch House.”

Day 170

1. Watch the video “House Styles that Define America – Ranch.”
2. By the mid-1950s, the Ranch style had conquered the American suburbs. However, a wide, single-level house only works if you have a wide, flat lot. As developers began building on hillier land or smaller suburban lots, the horizontal footprint of a traditional Ranch became harder to fit. The solution was the Split-Level house, an adjustment that took the core DNA of the Ranch and “staggered” it vertically.
While a Ranch house is strictly one story, a Split-Level is essentially a Ranch that has been “broken” in the middle. By using half-flights of stairs, architects could fit more living space onto a smaller piece of land.
A typical Split-Level layout includes three distinct zones connected by short flights of stairs:

• The Quiet Zone (Upper Level): Usually located half a flight up from the main entry, this area contains the bedrooms and primary bathrooms.
• The Public Zone (Middle Level): This is the entry level, containing the “social” rooms like the kitchen, dining room, and formal living room.
• The Active Zone (Lower Level): Located half a flight down, this often houses the family room (the “den”), the laundry room, and the sunken garage.

3. Because they are so closely related, it can be easy to confuse a Ranch with a Split-Level at first glance. To tell them apart, look for these clues:

• Staggered Rooflines: A Split-Level often has two or three different roof heights, whereas a Ranch usually has one continuous roofline.
• The “Half-Stair” Entry: In a Ranch, you walk in and stay on one level. In many Split-Levels, you walk through the front door and immediately face two short sets of stairs—one going up and one going down.
• Sunken Garage: While the Ranch popularized the attached garage, the Split-Level often “tucked” the garage partially into the earth to save space.

4. The Split-Level fell out of fashion by the late 1970s. While the “half-stairs” were clever for saving space, they eventually became a frustration for homeowners who grew tired of constantly walking up and down stairs just to move from the kitchen to the family room. Additionally, the complex layout made these homes more expensive to heat and cool compared to the simple, flat Ranch.
5. Read about split level houses.

Day 171

1. Watch the video “McMansions: the Houses that People Love to Hate.”
2. Watch “What McMansions and Victorian Homes Have in Common.”
3. Watch the video “The Invention that Accidentally Made McMansions.”

Day 172

1. Read “What is a McMansion?”
2. If the Craftsman movement was about the “soul” of the building and the Ranch was about the “American Dream,” the McMansion is about the “American Ego.” Appearing around 1985, these homes represent a shift where bigger was almost always considered better, regardless of whether the design actually made sense.
The term “McMansion” was coined in the early 1980s as a clever jab at McDonald’s. Just as a Big Mac is a mass-produced, standardized meal designed for speed and volume, a McMansion is a mass-produced, standardized luxury house designed to maximize square footage for the lowest possible price.
Several factors led to their dominance:

• Cheap Land & Sprawl: Developers bought large tracts of land outside cities where they could build massive footprints without the restrictions of historic neighborhoods.
• The “Plan Book” Culture: Instead of hiring an architect to design a home for a specific family and site, developers used “stock plans” that could be stamped out a hundred times in a single subdivision.
• Investment Mindset: Houses stopped being just shelters and started being viewed as bank accounts. Owners believed that adding more bedrooms and “fancy” features would automatically increase the resale value.

3. A McMansion is technically Neo-Eclectic, meaning it borrows pieces from every style we’ve studied (Greek, Tudor, Colonial) and mashes them together onto one facade.

Key identifiers include:

• The “Lawyer Foyer”: This is a massive, two-story entryway, usually featuring a giant arched window and a chandelier.
• Chaotic Rooflines: Because the house has so many “extra” rooms (media rooms, sunrooms, master suites), the roof becomes a nightmare of intersecting gables and hips.
• The “Brick Front”: Developers often put expensive brick or stone on the front to impress the neighbors, while the sides and back are covered in cheap vinyl siding.
• The “Snout House” Effect: The multi-car garage often sticks out so far in front of the house that it becomes the primary “face” of the home, making the actual front door look like an afterthought.

4. From an environmental design perspective, McMansions are often considered a disaster. Because they are so large and poorly “zoned,” they require massive amounts of energy to heat and cool. Their complex rooflines are prone to leaks, and the “disposable” materials used to keep costs down (like foam columns and plastic trim) rarely last as long as the wood and stone used in the Craftsman or Victorian eras.
While they remain popular for their sheer size, the McMansion is increasingly seen as a relic of an era that valued quantity over quality. Currently, the trend is shifting back toward “The Not So Big House” movement, focusing on high-quality materials, energy efficiency, and designs that fit the landscape.

Day 173

1. Watch “Avoiding the McMansion Trap.”
2. Watch “McMansions: How the American Dream Became a Nightmare.”