Architecture: Prairie Style Home

The Prairie Style Home is still popular. You will find this type of home in the Midwestern United States. There’s two styles of Prairie Style Homes. These two kinds are boxy and low-slung. A boxy Prairie Style Home is symmetrical while the low-slung is balanced. The first Prairie Style Home was designed in 1893. It was devised by an architect by the name of Frank Lloyd Wright in suburban Chicago. Wright worked with Louis H. Sullivan. Sullivan also mentored Wright. Wright left Sullivan’s firm in 1893 to start his own architecture business. This was when Wright designed the Prairie Style Home. He wanted the home to be organic. In other words, he wanted the home to be constructed of natural materials, unlike the many modern homes that are made from man-made materials. Most modern Prairie Style Homes are no longer built like when Wright started.

Very few modern homes are built with natural materials and they aren’t lasting as long as the older homes. The ones that are constructed with natural materials are high-end homes. The landscape in the prairies of the Midwest was flat. The architect designed these homes to blend in with the flat landscape. There was a simpler version of the home built during the Great Depression in 1936 by Frank Wright. Many of these types of homes are multi-level homes. These homes are one of America’s homes originals. The homes main popularity was from the beginning to the middle of the 1900’s. There are many features that you would love. The foundations of these homes are unlike other older designs. The foundations are usually brick. Sometimes you will see the foundation made of stone. Overhanging eaves allow the water to run off the roof and doesn’t allow it to run down the walls. You don’t have to have gutters on this homes like you would on a traditional home. A Prairie Style Home is equipped with a central chimney.

A central chimney allows heat to be distributed throughout the entire house. The fireplace in the earlier Prairie Style Homes was used as a divider. It was usually the only thing that divided the entry, living room, and dining room. There were no walls separating these rooms. Unlike traditional homes, a Prairie Style Home has an open floor plan. There are pros and cons to having an open floor plan. In a house with open floor plans, one room will be used for two purposes such as a home where you can clearly see the kitchen from the living area. In newer homes, a counter or bar separate the two but never a complete wall blocking the view to the other room. The modern Prairie Style Homes are more energy efficient than most homes since they have Clerestory windows. The purpose of these windows is to allow light and fresh air to easily enter the home. After World War I these homes were no longer popular. People started going back to the older style of homes such as Victorian homes.

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