Usonian

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.

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Mid-Century modern

Mid-Century modern is an architectural, interior and product design form that generally describes mid-20th century developments in modern design, architecture, and urban development from roughly 1933 to 1965. The term was coined in 1983 by Cara Greenberg for the title of her ground-breaking book, Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s_ (Random House), celebrating the style which is now recognized by scholars and museums worldwide as a significant design movement.

Mid-century architecture was a further development of Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles of organic architecture combined with many elements reflected in the International and Bauhaus movements. Mid-century modernism, however, was much more organic in form and less formal than the International Style. Scandinavian designers and architects were very influential at this time, with a style characterized by simplicity, democratic design and natural shapes.

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