Prairie School is a late 19th and early 20th-century architectural style, most commonly seen in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, ribbon windows, integration with the landscape, and solid construction and craftsmanship. It reflects discipline in the use of ornament, which was often inspired by organic growth and seen carved into wood, stenciled on plaster, in colored glass, veined marble, and prints or paintings with a general prevalence of earthy, autumnal colors. Spaciousness and continuous horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the wide, flat, treeless expanses of America's native prairie landscape, and decoration often depicted prairie wildlife, sometimes with indigenous materials contributing to a sense of the building belonging to the landscape.
The Prairie School sought to develop a distinct North American architectural style, distinguishing it from historical revivals that were popular at the time. It shared many ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement, though it embraced the machine and also shared ideals with modernist movements. Many architects were also part of the Chicago School, but Prairie School buildings were seen less in the commercial skyscrapers of Chicago and more in the suburban residences, though the style can be seen in throughout a variety of building types, including banks, schools, and churches. Japanese architecture and prints, interests of Frank Lloyd Wright in particular, inspired the focus on simplicity and openness in addition to the prairie landscape.
History The Prairie School was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, a decorative and fine arts movement led by John Ruskin, William Morris, and others in late 19th century England. Along with the kindred American Craftsman movement, it embraced handcrafting and craftsman guilds as a reaction against the new assembly line mass production manufacturing techniques, which were felt to create inferior products and dehumanize workers. A major arbiter of this link was Joseph Twyman, who moved from England to Chicago and promoted Morris's work and philosophy by writing papers and delivering lectures to the Chicago Architectural Club. Elements of this philosophy—such as a regard for the nature of a material—worked well with the Prairie School, but they embraced the machine, incorporating thoughtfulness and reflection in the design process alongside handicraft processes. The World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's Fair) of 1893 aimed to herald the city's rebirth after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Unlike the Greek and Roman classicism widely seen in buildings at the fair, many of the Midwestern architects of what would become the Prairie School sought to create new work in and around Chicago that would display a uniquely modern and distinctly American architectural style inspired by the American landscape.
The name reflects the dominant horizontality of Prairie style buildings, which echoes the wide, flat, treeless expanses of the Midwestern United States. Author Wilhelm Miller may have been the first to coin "the prairie spirit in landscape gardening" in 1915 to refer to Midwestern landscape architecture that differed from European styles.Vernon, Christopher D. (1991). "Walter Burley Griffin, Landscape Architect". In Garner, John S. (ed.). The Midwest in American architecture. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. pp. 217, 222–223. . The most famous proponent of the style, Frank Lloyd Wright, promoted an idea of "organic architecture", asserting that a structure should look as if it naturally grew from the site; in Wright's words, buildings that appeared as if they were "married to the ground". Wright also felt that a horizontal orientation was a distinctly American design motif since the younger country had much more open land than many highly urbanized European nations.
The University of Illinois was the second institution offering a formal college degree in architecture after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Nathan C. Ricker believed that students learned by doing and, being exposed to different architectural practices such as theater design, developed a cultural and technical understanding of architecture, which could help overcome the limitations of formal academic study and foster a sense of design. Early graduates like Clarence Blackall, Joseph Llewellyn, and Henry Bacon followed the more popular academic approach and historicist design aesthetic, but later graduates like William Drummond, William L. Steele, and Walter Burley Griffin contributed to the emerging Prairie School style. Ideas were shared by and with Prairie School architects in the Architectural League of America and the Chicago Architectural Club. These professional networks were important to architects' learning and development; their value was reflected by Sullivan's ideas in the essay collection Kindergarten Chats, devaluing formal education and lauding mentorship in architectural education.Zabel, Craig (1991). "George Grant Elmslie and the Glory and Burden of the Sullivan Legacy". In Garner, John S. (ed.). The Midwest in American architecture. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. pp. 4, 29. . At a Chicago convention in 1900, Sullivan spoke about the power of mental logic and the study of nature to inspire stylish and logical buildings. One League convention introduced the idea of pure design – composing a building by analyzing parts that could be expressed as simple geometric shapes – to Wright, who incorporated the idea into his designs. Inspired by Sullivan's ornamental geometry, Elmslie featured the hexagon in Thornton Fractional Township High School (Calumet City, 1934–35) and the Thomas A. Edison School (Hammond, 1935–37), Wright highlighted the hexagon in the Hanna House ("honeycomb house, Palo Alto, California, 1936), and Griffin used the octagon in Northern Illinois University's campus. Prairie School architects Wright, Elmslie, and Maher worked for Joseph Silsbee, who instilled a sense of informality, irregularity, and complexity through planning and rough, organic surfaces in these architects, Wright especially, giving a picturesque and dynamic quality to the Prairie School style.
By the early 1920s, "Tudor and Mediterranean Revivals became popular for suburban homes and shopping districts, and Georgian was favored for large city houses; even the middle-class Arts and Crafts bungalow had been dipped in Renaissance or Spanish Colonial frosting. Church and university architects employed the academic Gothic of Ralph Adams Cram” (p. 544). The Prairie School was in conversation with other modernist movements like Art Nouveau, Bauhaus, Expressionism, and Constructivism.
Architectural historian H. Allen Brooks identified works built in or before 1902 as being part of "the Sullivan Phase," – emphasizing simplification, structured ornament, and a new uniquely American architecture – buildings built from 1902–1909 as the "Wrightian" phase – spanning from when Wright reached maturity as an architect to his departure from Oak Park to Europe, rural Wisconsin, California, and Japan – and the Prairie School's full maturity in 1909–1914/16. Professors Richard Guy Wilson and Sidney K. Robinson divide Prairie School periods into the style that spread from the Chicago area from the late 1890s to the late 1920s, and a post-hiatus-Wright-led era of creativity on a more national scale from the mid-1930s on, including the "Usonian" house.Wilson, Richard Guy; Robinson, Sidney K. (1977). The Prairie School in Iowa (1st ed.). Ames: Iowa State University Press. pp. 30, 32.
Architects and designers The Prairie School is mostly associated with a generation of architects employed or influenced by Wright or Sullivan. While the style originated in Chicago, some Prairie School architects spread its influence well beyond the Midwest, like Barry Byrne's church designs in Europe and Mahony's and Griffin's work in Australia and India. A Prairie School work considered harmony with interior decor and landscape architecture as part of the total design, so some architects, like Wright, also designed interiors, and sometimes partnered with craftspeople like Richard Walter Bock. A partial list of Prairie School architects and designers includes:
Percy Dwight Bentley John S. Van Bergen Parker N. Berry Richard Walter Bock Lawrence Buck Ransom Buffalow Barry Byrne Alfred Caldwell Arthur A. Carrara Louis W. Claude William Drummond George Grant Elmslie Hugh M. G. Garden Marion Mahony Griffin Walter Burley Griffin Arthur Heun John H. Howe Jens Jensen Henry John Klutho George Washington Maher Mason Maury John Randal McDonald Otto A. Merman George Mann Niedecken (Interior) Thomas Olson Dwight Heald Perkins William Gray Purcell Purcell, Feick and Elmslie Eben E. Roberts Isabel Roberts Richard E. Schmidt Robert C. Spenser, Jr. Claude and Starck William LaBarthe Steele Francis Conroy Sullivan Taliesin associated architects Thomas E. Tallmadge Trost & Trost Vernon S. Watson Andrew Willatzen Taylor Woolley Frank Lloyd Wright Lloyd Wright
Influences Prairie School architecture is characterized by open floor plans creating a sense of spaciousness, continuous horizontal lines punctuated by short vertical accents, and indigenous materials together contributing to a sense of the building belonging to the landscape. These were related to the American Arts and Crafts movement and its emphasis on hand craftsmanship, simplicity, and function. Both were alternatives to the then-dominant Classical Revival Style of Greco-Roman forms. The Arts and Crafts movement led to a medieval cottage revival in England, but the Prairie School embraced modernity more. Some firms, such as Purcell & Elmslie, which accepted the honest presence of machine worked surfaces, consciously rejected the term "Arts and Crafts" for their work. The Prairie School was also influenced by the Idealistic Romantics who believed better homes would create better people, and the Transcendentalist philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson in its focus on nature. Architecturally, horizontal continuity and spatial openness were seen in the earlier shingle style, elements like overhanging eaves and horizontal accents of leaded windows were seen in the Queen Anne style, and the proportions and open plans were similar to bungalows. Prairie School houses often adhered to the suburban ethos of the centering of a single family household through attention to spaces like dining rooms and fireplaces where family could gather. Existing mainly in suburbs, the prairie is alluded to as a symbol of the history of the setting, not something that was always visible and surrounding the houses.