What is a Prairie house?
A Prairie house is a low, strongly horizontal dwelling with flat or shallow-pitched roofs, very wide eaves overhangs and an open plan unfolding around a central chimney mass. The type was developed around 1900 by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his circle in Chicago, the so-called Prairie School.
The name refers to the flat landscape of the American Midwest: the house sets out to continue the horizontal line of the prairie rather than sit on top of it as a box.
Characteristics
- Horizontality above all. Long, continuous lines in banding, lintels, window runs and roof edges. Brickwork sometimes laid with raked bed joints and flush perpends, so the horizontal reads more strongly.
- Shallow-pitched hipped roof with wide overhangs, casting deep shade and protecting the wall below.
- Windows in runs, usually as continuous bands with timber glazing bars in geometric patterns (art glass).
- The central hearth. The chimney mass is the heart both literally and figuratively; the rooms flow around it.
- Open plan. Living and dining spaces run into one another, separated by changes of level, parapets and built-in furniture rather than by doors.
- Anchored to the ground by low garden walls, terraces and planters.
- Natural materials — brick, timber, stucco — and built-in furniture designed as part of the whole.
Well-known examples
- Robie House, Chicago (1910), the most cited example
- Willits House, Highland Park (1902)
- Martin House, Buffalo (1905)
The movement flourished roughly between 1900 and the First World War. Its influence reached much further: the flowing, open plan and the building stretching horizontally into the landscape reached Europe through the Wasmuth Portfolio of 1910 and are clearly recognisable in De Stijl and in early functionalism.
Points to watch with this type
- Overhangs are structure. An overhang of more than a metre is not a detail but a structural question — cantilevers, and wind uplift from below.
- Shallow roofs need maintenance. Drainage and roof edges are the weak point. Keep gutters and downpipes accessible.
- Large south-facing glazing. The wide overhang is not decorative: it keeps the high summer sun out and lets the low winter sun in. Leave it off and you have built an overheating problem.
- The open plan costs acoustics. Without doors, sound carries through the whole house. Plan for absorption and for one room that can be shut.
Related terms
- Architectural style
- Open plan
- Eaves overhang
- Hipped roof
- International Style
- Bungalow
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