Good Bones
Craftsman architecture led the way for modernist design by celebrating a home’s structural elements.
CRAFTSMAN HOME TOUR Lower Greenville South Boulevard/Park Row 2406 South Blvd. Swiss Avenue Vickery Place Winnetka Heights |
Driving through the Winnetka Heights, Vickery Place, or Lower Greenville neighborhoods gives you a good primer on Craftsman architecture, the early-modern style that dominated small houses from about 1905 to the early 1920s. The style developed in Southern California, as siblings Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene began designing imaginative homes with low-pitched, gabled (V-shaped) roofs and inviting porches. The homes featured art glass, handsome light fixtures, intricate wood joinery, and a variety of other crafts “hence the name.
Though they look traditional today, Craftsman homes helped usher in modernism by using structural elements as decorative statements. Porches are supported by squared piers that begin at the ground, often feature a distinctive inward taper, and are sometimes topped with a very short, smaller pier. Open eaves show off roof rafters, some with decorated ends. Exposed roof beams, often supported by showy triangular braces, add interest to the roof’s gable ends. Unlike earlier house styles, which went to elaborate lengths to cover such elements with classical columns, boxed eaves, and fancy cornices, these Craftsman houses celebrate their bones.
The most common misconception about Craftsmans is that they are all bungalows. But the term bungalow describes a one-story house, not any particular architectural style. Craftsman houses may be one-story bungalows or large, two-story homes. And bungalows may be of Craftsman, Tudor, Spanish, or other design.
Craftsman homes quickly spread throughout the country, thanks to plans featured in books and popular magazines. Along with Frank Lloyd Wright’s slightly more opulent Prairie style, Craftsman formed the basis of the Arts and Crafts movement of modern architecture that dominated the early 20th century. Few were built after 1930, but the hundreds of surviving examples in older Dallas neighborhoods still attest to its architectural influence.
