Architectural style · c. 1900–1920
Prairie School
A Midwestern style of strong horizontals: low hipped roofs with very deep eaves, bands of windows and a ground-hugging profile.
The Prairie School grew up around Frank Lloyd Wright and a circle of Chicago architects, among them Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony Griffin, George Grant Elmslie and William Gray Purcell, who wanted an architecture suited to the flat Midwestern landscape rather than borrowed from Europe. Buildings stretch out horizontally: low hipped roofs with very wide overhangs, rows of casement windows set in bands, horizontal trim or brick courses, and massive square piers and planters.
Interiors flow around a central fireplace. The style was short-lived, fading after the First World War, which makes the few public buildings in it, including one Wright-designed hotel, especially rare.
Where you'll see it: Chicago and its suburbs, the upper Midwest (Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin).
How to recognize it
- Low-pitched hipped roofs with very deep eaves
- Strong horizontal lines: bands of trim and brick
- Casement windows in continuous rows
- Massive square piers and low walls
- Large planters and urns
- Geometric art-glass windows
