American Home: from Colonial Simplicity to the Modern Adventure

Nowhere else in the world can compare with the incredible array of domestic architecture in America. It sometimes seems that there are as many styles of houses as there are actual number of houses. While the earliest American houses were largely derived from English or Dutch prototypes, the diversity for which America is so celebrated soon emerged, reflecting mostly how Americans used their homes, as well as local and regional tastes and vernacular and folk origins from around the world. The variety and dynamism in the style of homes in that emerging pluralistic society marches on today in homes designed by adventuresome architects and clients.

In this extraordinary celebration of the American house, renowned author David Larkin, with commentary by some of today's leading architectural historians and critics, examines the paths that have led to distinctively American homes. Special attention is given to examining details of the makeup of each house as well as the functions of "the home" and how these functions have changed just as technology, social relations, and living arrangements have changed in the United States over the past 400 years.

Filled with more than 400 beautiful color photographs, this book also contains six double gatefolds, which offer dramatic presentations of the elements and details that make up the variety of architectural styles in American residential architecture. No other illustrated history of the American house can come close to this full portrayal of the historical and stylistic ranges of the place we call "home."

David Larkin is a renowned editor, author, and book designer. His numerous architectural titles include American Colonial, Mission, Adobe, Barn, Farm, Shaker Style, Classic America, Mill, Victorian America, American Masterworks, Frank Lloyd Wright: Master Builder, and The Treehouse Book.

Wendell Garrett is senior vice president of American decorative arts at Sotheby's, New York. For many years, he was editor and publisher for Antiques magazine. Among his numerous books are Classic America and Victorian America. Garrett is also a regular on the PBS series The Antiques Roadshow.

Michael Webb is the author of seventeen books, including Modernism Reborn, Architects House Themselves, The City Square, and Through the Windows of Paris. An Architectural Digest contributing writer, he also writes for A+U, Domus, Graphis, and the New York Times.

Richard Guy Wilson, a Guggenheim Fellow, holds the Commonwealth Professor's Chair in Architectural History at the University of Virginia, where he is also Chair of the Department of Architectural History.

James Howard Kunstler is the author of The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere as well as eight novels.

Denise Scott Brown is an architect, planner, and urban designer who is world renowned for her contributions to theoretical research and education on the nature of cities. With her husband, architect Robert Venturi, she heads the influential architecture firm, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates (VSBA) in Philadelphia.

Michael Freeman has collaborated on many books with David Larkin and has worked with him on such books as Frank Lloyd Wright: Master Builder, Frederick Law Olmstead: Designing the American Landscape, Classic America, and Victorian America.