American Architecture

American Architecture Posters and Prints

Smithsonian Heather Sinks Buy From Art.com	Public Library, New York City Buy From Art.com	Elevation-New York Public Library Carrere Buy From Art.com	Woolworth Building, NYC New Yorkled Buy From Art.com
Stone Lions On Fifth Avenue Entrance ... Angus Oborn Buy From Art.com	Coit Tower San Francisco ... Miska Slock Buy From Art.com	Chicago World's Fair Weimer Persell Buy From Art.com	The Jefferson Monument at Night Mark West Buy From Art.com

General

Early architecture borrowed from England although there was a more pronounced use of timber. New England reflects the simplicity of the Puritan settlers, Virginia's stately mansions along the James River and the capitals of Richmond and Williamsburg grew out of the aristocratic background. Late in the 18th century recognized architects begin to appear: Peter Harrison 1716-75 (Palladian), Thomas Jefferson, Samuel McIntyre 1757-1811 (Salem Court House), Charles Bulfinch 1763-1844 (Boston, Massachusetts State House), Pierre Charles L'Enfant, James Hoban (White House), William Thornton (U.S. Capitol completed by Bulfinch with additions by Thomas Walter), Benjamin Henry Latrobe 1764-1820 (Romantic Classicism),

Well known as one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence, first Secretary of State and President, he was a brilliant architect drawing inspiration from Rome. He is best known for his home, Monticello, the State Capitol in Richmond and the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.

Trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he is best known for Romanesque Revival exemplified by the Trinity Church Boston. He inspired Chicago School architects Sullivan and Root, but also trained both McKim and White of McKim, Mead and White whose practice diverged from the Chicago School and returned to an imitation of Colonial style.

The Modern Movement was based in the commercial architecture of Chicago. Masonry construction gives way to metal framing with masonry becoming a veneer rather than the support structure. Here is the first "skyscraper" construction. By far the best known is Louis Sullivan who believed that buildings should serve emotional as well as physical needs as opposed to William L Jenney's strict functionalism.

In the 1890's, a new style of architecture appeared on the Great Plains of the United States. Under the tutelage of the great American architect, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright and other contemporaries designed houses, churches, hotels, factories, and office buildings with the concept of "form follows function" as a guiding principal. Wright leaves the heavy ornament of Sullivan for open plans and long horizontal designs extended with cantilevered balconies. Along with Wright, George W. Maher, Walter Burley Griffin, William G. Purcell and George G. Elmslie are considered the founders of this notably American architectural style.

When Wright worked in Chicago, he formed the Prairie School along with Robert Spencer, Dwight Perkins, and others. At his Oak Park, Illinois studio, he was associated until 1911 with a number of like minded architects, such as Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony, John Van Bergen, William Drummond, and Francis Barry Byrne. The Prairie School draws heavily on the Arts and Crafts movement, which emphasized simplicity and hand made objects. The seminal house for the new movement was the Winslow House Wright designed and built in 1893-4. Most of the Prairie School architects worked either for Wright or for Sullivan.

Probably best known for designing William Randolph Hearst's castle at San Simeon, CA, she was a pioneer of the Northern California Arts and Crafts movement. She was the first woman admitted to the Section of Architecture at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris having first studied at the University of California-Berkeley.

• Julia Morgan, Architect of Dreams

•  Julia Morgan: Architect (Women of Achievement) (Hardcover)

California architect of San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, Bernard Maybeck incorporated styles from Gothic to Arts and Crafts  to modern steel and concrete.

Modern American architects offer a range of styles that continue to evolve. Most notable: Philip Johnson 1906- (coined the term "international style," Post-Modernism), Kevin Roche, I.M. Pei 1917-, Richard Meier 1934- (dynamic, abstract style), Gordon Bunshaft 1909-1990 (first building with rigid steel frame completely enclosed in curtain walling), Frank Gehry 1929- (see below), Robert Venturi 1925- (pioneered Post-Modernism--"les is a bore"), Thom Mayne 1945- (angular, futuristic, chaotic) who have all been awarded the international Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Louis Kahn was a American representative of Brutalism using Spartan surfaces like bare concrete and making the functional prominent.

Modernist, high-tech architect known for his use of glass walls including the pyramid addition to the Louvre in Paris.

Postmodernism rejects the principals of main-stream 20th century architecture and attempts to bring human meaning back by using elements of historical styles but in original combinations: Robert Venturi 1925- and Denise Scott Brown 1931- , Michael Graves 1934-, Frank O. Gehry 1929-, Eric Owen Moss 1943-.

His use of collage and montage techniques have made some liken his work to abstract art. His experimental and controversial shapes are converted into usable form by computer-aided design programs producing buildings of amazing complexity. His work includes the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

• Frank Lloyd Wright

• Frank Lloyd Wright furniture

• French architecture

• Interior decorating ideas

• Decorative arts

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