Human Geography Images

House Architecture

The images below portray some general architectural patterns that are seen in the houses of North American and Europe.

A typical half-timbered house of northern Europe. This style predominated because wood was in relatively short supply in this heavily populated region and plaster was cheaper than bricks. Commercial or industrial enterprises could/can often be found on the ground level, while living quarters were upstairs.

Typical 18^th Century row houses in Philedelphia. Because transportation was limited toward feet, houses and other buildings were close together to minimize travel time. Although much land was available outside of the cities, to live there and not work a farm would have meant commuting times would be too long.

A more modern row house from the late 1800s. The styles haven’t changed much, nor have the distance between buildings. Pushing out the living rooms in the front, however, captures more light.

The balloon-frame house (what most people live in today) was invented in the United States in the 1800s. The invention of the efficient sawmills and steel nails brought about its development. Railways could deliver wood from farther away and fewer housed being heated with wood (using coal or oil instead) meant that more trees were available.

Typical balloon-frame houses from the early 1900s in Vancouver BC. They are still close together, reflecting a pre-automobile influence.

A California Bungalow style house, which was popular in the 1920s and 1930s. This style was imported from the colonial British houses in India (Bengal) and was readily adopted in some of the first suburbs in California. There are a couple of these in downtown Anchorage, around 2^nd & D Street.

A ranch house on a ranch. Ranch houses developed on ranches in the western U.S. as the ample land available allowed people to build wide one-story houses. For everyone to live in this style in a city prior to the invention of the automobile would have been impossible. On a ranch, where all commerce involved extensive travel, it didn’t matter how far apart the houses were.

The typical suburban ranch house copied the style of American ranches and kept to one story. They needed a larger plot of land, thus this style emerged in the suburbs of the 1950s, when the automobile really began to dominate the American landscape. The trend towards larger lawn was a product of the early suburbs and was in a romantic attempt to recreate the pastoral fields (mowed by sheep) of rural England. It is likely that with farm animals banned in the suburbs, lawns would never have become as popular as they did without the invention of the lawnmower.

Frank Lloyd Wright was a major force in Architecture throughout the 1^st half of the 1900s. This house, called Fallingwater, is in Pennsylvania. It does not dominate the landscape, as would be the typical trend with Modernism, but rather seeks to blend into it with horizontal linework.

This is a residential house build by Wright in 1902. Note the horizontal lines and relatively low-pitched roof. The high, horizontal windows were a commonly adopted feature from his style.

A modern house in southern California, probably from the 1960s or 1970s. The low-pitched roof and high windows were obviously inspired by Wright. A number of houses of similar styles were constructed in Anchorage during this same time period.

The Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago were built in the 1960s, the heyday of modernism and the international style. The large buildings housed hundreds or thousands of people and the large geographical separation between the buildings themselves and the buildings and the rest of the city created a virtual ghetto, as it became a long journey for people who lived there to leave and others did not enter.

More modern public housing in the Orchard Park neighborhood of Chicago. The attempt to imitate the more personal row houses of early America is obvious. Hopefully, the geography of this neighborhood will change the behavior of people enough to assist them in getting out of poverty.

A typical split-level house of the 1970s and 1980s. These were an attempt to expand the popular ranch style into a style that had more separated areas within the house while attempting to preserve the size of the lawn. The bigger size became more feasible for people to purchase as the price of houses dropped relative to income over the years.

A more modern “McMansion”. The trend now is to frequently give up yard space in favor of more living space in the house. This is a particularly large example, but many smaller ones can be seen in developments throughout Anchorage. In rural areas, these are often built on land that was previously farmland, distant from urban areas, but still within commuting distance. In this case, a large yard can still be had.

All photos mooched off the internet.

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