

American Folk Art Buildings
architectural imagination and storied places rendered small
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Architectural History Chronology
American Eras, Styles, and Building Types

American architectural history is conveyed with no small accuracy and large appeal.
Eras, types, and styles of our buildings over time are revealed more or less chronologically with unknown intention, deliberate or accidental familiarity, and insistent imagination.
As ever and everywhere, the buildings convey architecture as well as aspirations --
personal, cultural, or national. Some find variably compelling place as American contributions to world architecture.
History moves over 250 years from:

EARLY COLONIAL
THE 60s SPLIT LEVEL IN WHICH I AND POSSIBLY ALSO YOU LIVED



Colonial 1st Period

Colonial

Dutch Hudson Valley

Colonial

New England
Meeting House

Colonial Georgian
Independence Hall
Philadelphia

Colonial Later

Confident New Republic Federal


Pennsylvania
Stone

New England Church
First Congregational
Old Lyme Connecticut

American Palladian


Capitol
Iconogaphic national style as well as a building

Cabin


Greek Revival
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills.
American patriotic hymn,
My Country, 'Tis of Thee

Southern Mt. Vernon
A building and an incessant national style

Southern

Low Country

Steamboat Gothic


Western

Board & Batten


Victorian

Victorian Mansard

Italiantate

Queen Anne

Dog Trot


Churchly Gothic Revival

Castle
Ever compelled by castles, Americans -- particularly rich or idiosyncratic men in the late 19th century -- have long put them about the landscape

Urban Row

Richardsonian


Ferris Wheel
An ever welcome contribution of America to world architecture

Shingle

Nouveau Victorian Cottage Fancy
An inexplicably overlooked style

Classic Town & Urban, Often Close Together

Cottage Idealized


Bungalow

Shotgun

Beaux-Arts

Colonial Revival

Prairie


Diner
A swell contribution of America
to world architecture



Shopping Center
Not as swell a contribution of America to world architecture
Skyscraper
Surely the most significant contribution of America to
world architecture



Mizner South Florida

30s French Normandy Country Club District

30s Hollywood Spanish

30s Bauhaus

30s Moderne

Moderne Deco

Oil Platform Offshore

Ranch House


Modern

Fast Food
Very American with equivocal contribution to world architecture

Split Level
Very American with no apparent contribution to world architecture
These buildings are also seen on varied pages throughout this website.
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