Prairie School
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs
Hip roof
A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
with broad overhang
Overhang (architecture)
An overhang in architecture is a protruding structure which may provide protection for lower levels. Overhangs on two sides of Pennsylvania Dutch barns protect doors, windows, and other lower level structure. Overhangs on all four sides of barns is common in Swiss architecture...
ing eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands, integration with the landscape, solid construction, craftsmanship, and discipline in the use of ornament. Horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the native prairie
Prairie
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
landscape.
The term Prairie School was not actually used by these architects to describe themselves (for instance, Marion Mahony used the phrase The Chicago Group); the term was coined by H. Allen Brooks
H. Allen Brooks
H. Allen Brooks was an architectural historian and longtime professor at the University of Toronto...
, one of the first architectural historians to write extensively about these architects and their work.
The Prairie School developed in sympathy with the ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
begun in the late 19th century in England by John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
, William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
, and others. The Prairie School shared an embrace of handcrafting and craftsman guilds as a reaction against the new assembly line
Assembly line
An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods...
, mass production
Mass production
Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
manufacturing techniques, which they felt created inferior products and dehumanized workers.
The Prairie School was also an attempt at developing an indigenous North American style of architecture that did not share design elements and aesthetic vocabulary with earlier styles of European classical architecture. Many talented and ambitious young architects had been attracted by building opportunities stemming from the Great Chicago Fire
Great Chicago Fire
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest U.S...
of 1871. The World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
(Chicago World's Fair) of 1893 was supposed to be a heralding of the city of Chicago's rebirth. But many of the young Mid-western architects of what would become the Prairie School were offended by the Greek and Roman classicism
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
of nearly every building erected for the fair. In reaction, they sought to create new work in and around Chicago that would display a uniquely modern and authentically American style, which came to be called Prairie.
The designation Prairie is due to the dominant horizontality of the majority of Prairie style buildings which echos the wide, flat, tree-less expanses of the mid-Western United States. The most famous proponent of the style, Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, promoted an idea of "organic architecture
Organic architecture
Organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture which promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world through design approaches so sympathetic and well integrated with its site that buildings, furnishings, and surroundings become part of a unified, interrelated...
", the primary tenet of which was that a structure should look as if it naturally grew from the site. Wright also felt that a horizontal orientation was a distinctly American design motif, in that the younger country had much more open, undeveloped land than found in most older, urbanized European nations.
Architects whose work is considered part of the movement
The Prairie School is mostly associated with a generation of architects employed or influenced by Louis SullivanLouis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
or Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, but usually does not include Sullivan himself. Although the Prairie School originated in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, some Prairie School architects moved away spreading the influence well beyond the Midwest. A partial list of Prairie School architects includes:
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George Grant Elmslie George Grant Elmslie was an American, though born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Prairie School architect whose work is mostly found in the Midwestern United States... Marion Mahony Griffin Marion Griffin was an American architect and artist. She was one of the first licenced female architects in the world, and is considered an original member of the Prairie School.-Biography:... Walter Burley Griffin Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and landscape architect, who is best known for his role in designing Canberra, Australia's capital city... Henry John Klutho Henry John Klutho was an American architect of the "Prairie School" style. He helped in the reconstruction of Jacksonville, Florida after the Great Fire of 1901—the largest-ever urban fire in the Southeast—by designing many of the new buildings built after the disaster. This period lasted until... |
William Gray Purcell William Gray Purcell was a Prairie School architect in the Midwestern United States. He partnered with George Grant Elmslie. The firm of Purcell and Elmslie produced designs for buildings in twenty two states, Australia, and China... Isabel Roberts Isabel Roberts was a Prairie School figure, member of the architectural design team in the Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and partner with Ida Annah Ryan in the Orlando, Florida architecture firm, “Ryan and Roberts”. It is fair to say that Roberts is an under-appreciated member of Wright’s... Claude and Starck Claude and Starck was an architectural firm in Madison, Wisconsin, at the turn of the twentieth century. The firm was a partnership of Louis W. Claude and Edward F. Starck . Established in 1896, the firm dissolved in 1928... |
Prairie School houses
The Prairie School houses (characterized by open plans, horizontal lines, and indigenous materials) were related to the American Arts and Crafts movementAmerican Craftsman
The American Craftsman Style, or the American Arts and Crafts Movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. As a comprehensive design and art...
(hand craftsmanship, simplicity, function), an alternative to the then-dominant Classical Revival Style (Greek forms with occasional Roman influences). Some firms, like Purcell & Elmslie
Purcell & Elmslie
The American progressive architectural practice most widely known as Purcell & Elmslie was the second most commissioned firm of the Prairie School after Frank Lloyd Wright...
, however, consciously rejected the term "Arts and Crafts" for their work, which accepted the honest presence of machine worked surfaces. The Prairie School was also heavily influenced by the Idealistic Romantics (better homes would create better people) and the Transcendentalist philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In turn, the Prairie School architects influenced subsequent architectural idioms, particularly the Minimalists
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
(less is more) and Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
(form follows function), which was a mixture of De Stijl
De Stijl
De Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
(grid-based design) and Constructivism
Constructivist architecture
Constructivist architecture was a form of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. It combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly Communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced...
(which emphasized the structure itself and the building materials).
Architectural historians have debated the reasons why the Prairie School went out of favor by the mid-1920s. Perhaps a serious consideration of one of its own members would be worth their serious attention. In her autobiography, Marion Mahony Griffin
Marion Mahony Griffin
Marion Griffin was an American architect and artist. She was one of the first licenced female architects in the world, and is considered an original member of the Prairie School.-Biography:...
writes:
- "The enthusiastic and able young men as proved in their later work were doubtless as influential in the office later as were these early ones but Wright's early concentration on publicity and his claims that everybody was his disciple had a deadening influence on the Chicago group and only after a quarter of a century do we find creative architecture conspicuously evident in the United States."
Other Prairie School buildings
An example of Prairie School architecture is the aptly named "Prairie School," a private day school in Racine, WisconsinRacine, Wisconsin
Racine is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. According to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the city had a population of 82,196...
, designed by Taliesin
Taliesin (studio)
Taliesin , near Spring Green, Wisconsin, was the summer home of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright began the building in 1911 after leaving his first wife, Catherine Tobin, and his Oak Park, Illinois, home and studio in 1909. The impetus behind Wright's departure was his affair with...
Associates (an architectural firm originated by Wright), and located almost adjacent to Wright's Wingspread
Wingspread
Wingspread, also known as the Herbert F. Johnson House, is a house designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright for Herbert Fisk Johnson, Jr. and built in 1938-1939 in the village of Wind Point near Racine, Wisconsin. Its construction was overseen by a young John Lautner...
Conference Center. Mahony's and Griffin's work in Australia and India, notably the collection of homes at Castlecrag, New South Wales, are fine examples of how the Prairie School spread far from its Chicago roots. Isabel Roberts
Isabel Roberts
Isabel Roberts was a Prairie School figure, member of the architectural design team in the Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and partner with Ida Annah Ryan in the Orlando, Florida architecture firm, “Ryan and Roberts”. It is fair to say that Roberts is an under-appreciated member of Wright’s...
' Veterans' Memorial Library in St. Cloud, Florida
St. Cloud, Florida
St. Cloud is a city in Osceola County, Florida, United States. The population was 35,183 at the 2010 census. St. Cloud is closely associated with the adjacent city of Kissimmee and its proximity to Orlando area theme parks, including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort, and Seaworld.St...
, is another. The House at 8 Berkley Drive
House at 8 Berkley Drive
Maloney House is a historic home located at Lockport in Niagara County, New York. It is a 1957 Prairie-style home designed by noted regional architect Duane Lyman.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009....
at Lockport, New York
Lockport (city), New York
Lockport is a city in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 21,165 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from a set of Erie canal locks within the city. Lockport is the county seat of Niagara County and is surrounded by the town of Lockport...
was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 2009.
Modern Day Interest in the Prairie School
Interest in the ideas and designs of the Prairie School artists and architects has grown since the late 1980s, thanks in large part to celebrity collecting habits and high-profile auction results on many of the decorative designs from buildings of the era. In addition to numerous books, magazine articles, videos and merchandise promoting the movement, a number of original Prairie School building sites have become public museums, open for tours and special interactive events. Several not-for-profit organizations and on-line communities have been formed to educate people about the Prairie School movement and help preserve the designs associated with it. Some of these organizations and sites include:- The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy
- The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust
- Wright In Wisconsin
- Taliesin Preservation Commission
- Walter Burley Griffin Society of America
- Unity Temple Restoration Foundation
- "George Washington Maher"; bio, photos of projects and career information
- Minneapolis Institute of Arts "Unified Vision - the Architecture and Design of the Prairie School"
- Pleasant Home Foundation for Maher's Farson House
- Prairie School Traveler weblog
- PrairieModPrairieModPrairieMod is an emerging 21st century lifestyle based on ten principles recognized and used by some of history's most influential designers; Gustav Stickley, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, John Lautner and E. Fay Jones to name a few...
weblog - Figge Art Museum's Frank Lloyd Wright gallery
See also
- St. John's African Methodist Episcopal ChurchSt. John's African Methodist Episcopal ChurchSt. John African Methodist Episcopal Church was the first church for African Americans in Nebraska, organized in North Omaha in 1867. It is located at 2402 North 22nd Street in the Near North Side neighborhood. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building was...
- The Villa District, ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
- Oak Park, IllinoisOak Park, IllinoisOak Park, Illinois is a suburb bordering the west side of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is the twenty-fifth largest municipality in Illinois. Oak Park has easy access to downtown Chicago due to public transportation such as the Chicago 'L' Blue and Green lines,...
- Hartington City Hall and AuditoriumHartington City Hall and AuditoriumThe Hartington City Hall and Auditorium, also known as the Hartington Municipal Building, is a city-owned, brick-clad, 2-story center in Hartington, Nebraska. It was designed between 1921 and 1923 in the Prairie School style by noted architect William L...