American Masterworks1995
the twentieth century house
by Kenneth Frampton
"This century produced such icons of modern architecture as the Greene brothers' arts-and-crafts Gamble House in Pasadena, California, of 1908; Eliel Saarinen's 1929 residence at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; and Michael Graves's own neoclassical villa in Princeton, New Jersey.
Over the decades, American and international architects alike responded to this country's rising standard of living, rapidly expanding suburbs, and receptive, often liberal, clients - factors that encouraged the creative use of both unorthodox building materials and mass-produced components.
During the 1920s, for example, Frank Lloyd Wright recovered the now-ubiquitous concrete block from what he termed the "architectural gutter," using it in several remarkable homes in Southern...