500 Small Houses of the Twenties

Book excerpt: Spurred by a rapidly expanding economy and abundant resources of land, building materials and skilled labor, the dream of building and owning one's own home became a reality in America in the 1920s. With the beginning market for small- to medium-sized one-family dwellings came a succession of innovative home designs that transformed American domestic architecture. This outstanding book presents 500 small-home designs of the 1920s as they appeared in a major architectural publication of 1923. Many are by leading domestic architects of the period. Each design is presented in a handsome perspective drawing or photograph, along with floor plans and a description of its principal features. The designs reflect many variations on the basic themes of American colonial architecture, updated by new construction technology and the design aesthetics of the post‒World War I era. The Bungalow and semi-bungalow were perhaps the biggest design news of the times, and they are generously represented in this huge collection. Because of the practicality and good looks of the best of these designs, and perhaps for the nostalgia they evoke, many are being revived today by builders and buyers in communities across America. Architects, architectural, and social historians, students and enthusiasts of architecture and design will find in these pages a rich selection of small-home concepts that once set the standard for a new era in American home design, and that still form an integral part of our landscape many decades after their first inspiration.