Frank Lloyd Wright: Usonian Houses

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

The word “Usonian” (United States of North America) is attributed to writer James Duff Law, who wrote in 1903, “We of the United States, in justice to Canadians and Mexicans, have no right to use the title ‘Americans’ when referring to matters pertaining exclusively to ourselves.” 

Frank Lloyd Wright referenced this quote, misattributing it to writer Samuel Butler in Architecture: Selected Writings 1894–1940: “Samuel Butler fitted us with a good name. He called us Usonians, and our Nation of combined States, Usonia.”

Wright designed his first Usonian home in 1936, when Milwaukee Journal writer Herbert Jacobs challenged him to design a house of good quality that cost no more than $5,000. Similar to the homes for Broadacre City, a utopian model for an American community that Wright completed with Taliesin apprentices in 1934, the Jacobs House embodies Wright’s notions of an ideal home set within the American landscape. Just as it seemed that Wright’s pivotal design years had past, the Jacobs House commenced two prolific decades of innovation (1936-1959), which we now refer to as Wright’s Usonian period.

Design elements for these single-story homes include: flat roofs with generous overhangs and cantilevered carports (Wright coined the term carport, and favored these over garages for efficiency), built-in furniture and shelving, tall windows that softened the boundary between interior and exterior, radiant heat embedded in a concrete slab gridded floor, skylights, a sense of flow from one room to the next, and a central hearth. Floor plans dispensed with basements, attics, and, in smaller models, formal dining rooms to maximize efficiency. Typically situated on inexpensive and remote sites, away from major urban centers, and set back from the road, Usonian homes nestled into their surrounding landscapes. Wright used local materials, experimenting with combinations of wood, glass, and masonry. These homes indicate Wright’s responsiveness to his client’s interests as well as interest in simplicity, connection to the land, and efficiency. The following seven homes express the principles Wright developed for the Usonian model, as well as the many innovative variations he imagined in collaboration with clients.