Usonia

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File:Wfm rosenbaum house interior.jpg
The interior of the Rosenbaum House

Usonia (Template:IPAc-en) is a term that was used by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to refer to the United States in general (in preference over America), and more specifically to his vision for the landscape of the country, including the planning of cities and the architecture of buildings. Wright proposed the use of the adjective Usonian to describe the particular New World character of the American landscape as distinct and free of previous architectural conventions. The term also refers to an architectural style shared by a group of approximately 60 middle-income family homes designed by Wright based in 1934.

Usonian houses

"Usonian" usually refers to a style shared by approximately 60 middle-income family homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The Willey House, built in 1934, may have been the first Usonian house;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House, built 1937, is often considered to be the first true "Usonian".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The "Usonian Homes" are typically small, single-story dwellings without a garage or much storage. They are often L-shaped to fit around a garden terrace on unusual and inexpensive sites. They are characterized by native materials; flat roofs and large cantilevered overhangs for passive solar heating and natural cooling; natural lighting with clerestory windows; and radiant-floor heating. Another distinctive feature is that they typically have little exposure to the front/'public' side, while the rear/'private' sides are completely open to the outside. A strong visual connection between the interior and exterior spaces is an important characteristic of all Usonian homes. The word carport was coined by Wright to describe an overhang for sheltering a parked vehicle.

The Usonia Historic District is a planned community in Pleasantville, New York built in the 1950s following this concept. Wright designed three of the 47 homes himself.

After designing the Jacobs First House, Wright ultimately designed dozens of similar Usonian homes across the U.S.<ref name="McCrea 2005">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Gould 2003">Template:Cite news</ref> The Usonian design is considered among the aesthetic origins of the ranch-style house popular in the American west of the 1950s.<ref>Clark, Clifford Edward, Jr. The American Family Home, 1800-1960. Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina Press, 1986. pp. 193-201. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Wright, Gwendolyn. Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America. Cambridge, MIT Press. 1983. pp. 253-262. Template:ISBN</ref>

The FSC Usonian House

In 2013, Florida Southern College constructed a building it has named the "Usonian House", according to plans that Wright created in 1939 in an original design for one of twenty faculty housing units. The campus features a collection of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, the 2013 construction being the thirteenth of Wright's design, a collection known as Child of the Sun.Template:Verify source This Template:Cvt additional building includes textile-block construction and colored glass in perforated concrete blocks, and features furniture designed by Wright. It is home to the Sharp Family Tourism and Education Center, a visitor center for guests visiting campus to see the Wright buildings, and includes Wright photographs and a documentary film about the architect's work at the school.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Origin of the word

File:Gordon House front.jpg
Gordon House

The word Usonian appears to have been coined by James Duff Law, a Scottish<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> writer born in 1865. In a miscellaneous collection, Here and There in Two Hemispheres (1903), Law quoted a letter of his own (dated June 18, 1903) that begins "We of the United States, in justice to Canadians and Mexicans, have no right to use the title 'Americans' when referring to matters pertaining exclusively to ourselves." He went on to acknowledge that some author had proposed "Usona" (United States of North America), but that he preferred the form "Usonia" (United States of North Independent America).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Perhaps the earliest published use by Wright was in 1927: Template:Blockquote

However, this may be a misattribution, as there is as yet no other published evidence that Butler ever used the word.Template:Citation needed

José F. Buscaglia reclaims the term Usonian to refer to the peoples, national ideology and neo-imperial tradition of the United States of America.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Miguel Torres-Castro uses the term Usonian to refer to the origin of the Atlantic puffin used in the children's book Jupu the Puffin: A Usonian Story. The bird is a puffin from Maine, US.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Noted Usonian houses

Precursor to Usonians

File:2023-0929 Malcolm Willey House.jpg
The Malcolm Willey House, a precursor to the Usonians
File:Jacobs First House - front.jpg
Jacobs I, exterior, front. Widely considered to be the first true Usonian house.
File:Hanna House 10.JPG
Hanna–Honeycomb House, view of front exterior
File:Goetsch Winckler House, 2009.jpg
Goetsch–Winckler House, exterior, view of carport and entry
File:Bernard Schwartz House Still Bend Two Rivers Wisconsin Jan 2013.jpg
Bernard Schwartz House, one of only a few 2-story Usonians designed and built
File:View of window wall looking into house - day.jpg
View of the rear/private side of the Laurent House. This house is a "hemicycle" Usonian, rather than the more typical L-shaped variants. It is also the only house Wright designed for a physically disabled client.

Usonian Houses

File:Rosenbaum House Rear Pano.jpg
Street-side view of the Rosenbaum House. The two, long, cantilevered, roofs pictured are a signature feature of Usonian houses, and serve to emphasize the horizontal.

Usonian Automatic Houses

The Usonian Automatic houses were made with concrete blocks. An attempt on the part of Wright to further lower the cost of housing, the clients could actually be involved in the creation of the blocks and thus the construction of the building (such as in the Tracy House).

See also

Notes

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References

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