Usonian
May 30, 2009 by blogtopia
Filed under Architectural style
Usonia is a word used by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to refer to his vision for the landscape of the United States, including the planning of cities and the architecture of buildings. Wright proposed the use of the adjective Usonian in place of American to describe the particular New World character of the American landscape as distinct and free of previous architectural conventions.
Although rarely used in the sense of “U.S. citizen”, Usonian is more common than the alternatives. Variants of the Jacobs House design are still in existence today and do not look overly dated. The Usonian design is considered among the aesthetic origins of the popular “ranch” tract home popular in the American west of the 1950s.
‘Usonian’ is a term usually referring to a group of approximately fifty middle-income family homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright beginning in 1936 with the Jacobs House. The “Usonian Homes” were typically small, single-story dwellings without a garage or much storage, L-shaped to fit around a garden terrace on odd (and cheap) lots, and environmentally conscious with native materials, flat roofs and large cantilevered overhangs for passive solar heating and natural cooling, natural lighting with clerestory windows, and radiant-floor heating. A strong visual connection between the interior and exterior spaces is an important characteristic of all Usonian homes. The word carport was coined by Wright to describe an overhang for a vehicle to park under.
Noted Usonian houses
- Arthur Pieper residence, Paradise Valley, Arizona
- Dorothy H. Turkel House, Detroit, Michigan
- Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House, Madison, Wisconsin
- Kentuck Knob, Western Pennsylvania
- Muirhead Farmhouse, Hampshire, Illinois
- Pope-Leighey House, Alexandria, Virginia
- Rosenbaum House, Florence, Alabama
- Weltzheimer/Johnson House, Oberlin, Ohio
- Zimmerman House, Manchester, New Hampshire
- Duncan House, Donegal, Pennsylvania (Dismantled and relocated from its original location in Lisle, IL)
- Louis Penfield House, Willoughby, Ohio
- Robert Levin House, Kalamazoo, Michigan
- Bernard Schwartz House, Two Rivers, Wisconsin
- Usonia Homes, Pleasantville, New York
o Sol Friedman House
o Edward Serlin House
o Roland Reisley House - Frank S. Sander House, Stamford, Connecticut