Virginia Savage McAlester - A Field Guide to American Houses

Also by Virginia and Lee McAlester

A Field Guide to Americas Historic Neighborhoods and Museum Houses: The Western States

Great American Houses and Their Architectural Styles

By Virginia Savage McAlester, Willis Cecil Winters FAIA, and Prudence Mackintosh; photography by Steve Clicque

The Homes of the Park Cities, Dallas: Great American Suburbs

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright 1984, 2013 by Virginia Savage McAlester

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House Companies. Originally published in the United States in different form by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McAlester, Virginia Savage, [date]

A field guide to American houses / by Virginia Savage McAlester ; revised and expanded from the orginal edition written by Virginia and Lee McAlester ; with drawings by Lauren Jarrett and model house drawings by Juan Rodriguez-Arnaiz ; revision drawings by Suzanne Patton Matty and photographs by Steve Clicque.Second edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4000-4359-0
eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-35387-8
1. Architecture, DomesticUnited StatesGuidebooks. 2. United StatesGuidebooks. I. McAlester, A. Lee (Arcie Lee), [date] II. Jarrett, Lauren, illustrator. III. Rodriguez-Arnaiz, Juan, illustrator. IV. Title.

NA 7205. M 35 2013
728.0973dc23 2013018432

eBook ISBN: 9780385353878

Cover illustrations by Juan Rodriguez-Arnaiz and Lauren Jarrett
Cover design by Linda Huang
Book design by Cassandra Pappas, adapted for eBook

First Edition published June 12, 1984
Second Edition

v3.1

Most of the chapters in this book treat one of the major architectural fashions, or styles, that have been popular over our countrys history. These chapters are arranged roughly chronologically, with the earliest styles first. The opening page of each chapter features a large drawing showing the three or four most important identifying features which differentiate that style from others. The most common shapes, or principal subtypes, of each style are also pictured on the opening page, along with references to pages of photographs in the chapter that allow the reader to see quickly the common features in a range of examples from each particular style and subtype. Most chapters also include drawings that show typical smaller detailsfor example, windows, doors, and roof-wall junctionsthat cannot easily be seen in full-house photographs. Text supplementing the drawings and photographs discusses the identifying features, principal subtypes, variants and details, and occurrence of each style. Concluding comments provide a brief introduction to the origin and history of the style. A few later chapters have a less detailed treatment of a style or styles. Generally these cover either revivals of earlier styles or less common ones.

Confronted with an unfamiliar house to be identified, the reader may approach the problem three different ways. The simplest is to flip through the many pages of house photographs, looking for examples similar to the unidentified house. Here one should pay particular attention to such large-scale features as roof form (gabled or hipped, low or steeply pitched?) and facade balance (symmetrical or asymmetrical?). When a similar photograph is located, the unknown example should be compared in smaller-scale features of architectural detailing: windows, doors, roof-wall junctions, porches, etc. The additional photographs and drawings provided in each chapter will aid in this process, which can be repeated until a final identification is made.

A second and more systematic approach is to turn to the . This illustrates a variety of different types of such common architectural features as windows, doors, and roofing materials, with a listing of the styles in which each type commonly occurs. Features are listed beginning with the roofand roof-level details such as dormersand move down the house to cornices, windows, doors, porches, and, at ground level, even foundation details. Using the Key, the reader will find that a house with a red tile roof, for example, will most likely be found in either the Spanish Colonial, Spanish Revival, or New Traditional styles. Photographs and drawings for these styles can then be compared with the unknown house as in the first approach.

A final approach is to become familiar with the relatively few historical precedents on which American house styles are based. These are reviewed in the introductory chapter on Style. With this background, one can learn to quickly determine if a house is of Modern, Medieval, Renaissance Classical, or Ancient Classical inspiration. With a bit of further practice, it becomes easy to distinguish between the half-dozen or so principal American styles that have been based on each of these traditions. With this knowledge, style identification can become almost automatic. The book then becomes a useful backup reference for identifying stylistic subtypes and subtleties.

This eBook edition has been optimized for screens, and contains images that can be enlarged to better focus on the house details described. Color photographs have been included when available, for e-reading platforms that support color. The content has been slightly reordered from the print edition for the best presentation in a reflowable eBook format.

In this presentation, illustrations and photographs immediately follow the text that describes them. The most visible difference is that the eBook format allows the photographs for each style subtype to be grouped early in each style chapter, immediately after the description of the subtyperather than located by references to a photo spread towards the end of the chapter as one experiences in the printed book.

The greatest delight is that double-clicking enlarges each photograph and on some devices pinching the screen can make parts of the images even larger. This allows details of windows, doors, porches and cornices to be examined more closely.

Looking at houses today is even more interesting and challenging than it was in 1984, the year this guide was first published. Almost 80 percent of the houses in the United States today have been built since 1940, the date the first edition concluded its full coverage. Surprisingly, during the last twenty-five years there has been a reinterpretation and new building of most American house styles that existed before 1940. Knowledge of earlier architectural stylesboth traditional and modernis now a necessity for understanding new houses, not just historic ones.