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Craftsman Bungalow

1908 - THE BUNGALOW IS BORN

According to most scholars of architecture, the Craftsman Bungalow was born in 1908.

Several specific trends in American society came together in a style of home that had never been seen before. During the first few years of the twentieth century, there was much talk about the need for new forms of single family housing that would be affordable to the common man in the expanding cities and towns. Economic forces and social change were just as important as popular taste in the evolution of the Craftsman Bungalow.

The style we call Craftsman Bungalow did not spring fully-formed from the pen of a clever architect. Scholars have traced the influences of Japanese architecture, the Swiss Chalet, and the Eastern Mountain Lodge in the development of this uniquely American house style. As popular taste turned away from the neoclassical Queen Anne style, suburban builders had to come up with something new and distinctive. It was a messy process with many intermediate stages.

The following architectural renderings from Radford's Artistic Bungalows, a planbook published in 1908, illustrate the mix of home styles in vogue that year. Commentary is by Ken Lampton.

In reaction to the excesses of the Late Victorian period, home exteriors were stripped of much of the clutter of gingerbread trim . . .

. . . but many homes retained the high-pitched roofs and overall emphasis on vertical lines which had been popular for decades.

But times were changing.

The ideas championed by Frank Lloyd Wright(and other architects of the Prairie School) began to trickle down to the planbooks used by builders working on the dwellings of the middle-class family.

The result was a spare, starkly modern appearance which stressed horizontal lines rather than vertical lines.

Some homes exhibited a southwestern influence, with stucco walls and "Alamo facades." The stucco was often applied over a structure of concrete blocks or fired clay tiles.

Small cottages with distinctly Late-Victorian lines began to be replaced . . .

. . . by those strange-looking new homes which were so popular in California. They were commonly known as "bungalows."

Many bungalows of the early years had a rather massive look compared to their cousins of a decade later.

There was no mistaking the fact that this was something new. The porch roofs were integrated into the main roof of the home in a manner which contributed to a very streamlined appearance.

Drive down the streets in Junius Heights or Vickery Place, and compare these renderings to the homes you see. You'll recognize these early versions of the bungalow.