Combined Architecture & Urban History Study Guide

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering Popular Modernisms, Postmodern architectural theory, Garden Cities, Federal Housing Administration policies, Redlining, Environmental and Biophilic design, and West African / Tropical Modernism.

Popular Modernism

Modern design experienced in everyday places, focusing on ordinary commercial, public, and consumer settings rather than exclusively celebrated avant-garde structures.

Art Deco

A 1920s–1930s design movement defined by bold saturated colors, geometric motifs (zigzags, chevrons, sunbursts), rich applied ornament, and luxurious materials layered over an underlying neoclassical symmetry and axial order.

Streamline Moderne

An architectural and design style defined by an aesthetic of speed applied even to static objects, creating a unified corporate identity across vehicles, logos, and buildings.

Corporate Identity / Total Design

A unified corporate design strategy connecting vehicles, logos, and buildings under a single cohesive aesthetic.

Googie

A late 1940s–1960s architectural style oriented around automobile culture and roadside visibility, featuring dramatic upswept roofs, Space Age motifs, exposed structures, plate-glass walls, and integrated neon signage.

Duck

A building whose physical shape and construction explicitly announce its function, transforming the entire structure into a three-dimensional sign without requiring applied signage.

Decorated Shed

A generic, often utilitarian building whose identity and function are communicated through applied signs and surface ornament.

House of Free Creativity

A building in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, designed in the shape of an open book to house the state-controlled press; cited as a prime example of an architectural "duck."

Learning from Las Vegas (1972)

A theoretical text by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour that challenged the International Style by analyzing commercial roadside vernacular through the method of "learning from everything."

Ebenezer Howard

Urban planning theorist (1850–1928) who authored Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1904) and developed the Garden City model, regional networks, and Welwyn Garden City.

Garden City

An urban planning concept designed around human scale, wheel-and-spoke diagrams, regional networks, and surrounding green belts to address urban density and congestion.

Welwyn Garden City

A Garden City development in England planned by Ebenezer Howard and dated to 1920.

Den-en-ch■fu

A planned residential district in Tokyo, Japan (1912–26), where developer Shibusawa (Eiichi) translated Ebenezer Howard's Garden City principles to the Japanese context.

Usonian House

An affordable, standardized residential house design developed by Frank Lloyd Wright, exemplified by the Herbert Jacobs House in Madison, Wisconsin.

Principles of Planning Small Houses (1940)

A Federal Housing Administration (FHA) publication featuring standardization guidelines and minimum-house plans and renderings.

Redlining

A discriminatory U.S. lending practice originating in the 1930s New Deal era in which mortgage lenders drew red lines on maps to deny loans and services to creditworthy applicants based on race or ethnicity.

Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC)

A New Deal-era agency that created color-coded "security maps" to evaluate mortgage loan risk in American urban neighborhoods.

HOLC Grade A (Green)

The highest category on HOLC maps, designated as "Best" or minimal risk and characteristically assigned to upper-class White neighborhoods.

HOLC Grade B (Blue)

The second tier on HOLC maps, classified as "Still desirable" and typically assigned to mostly White residential areas.

HOLC Grade C (Yellow)

The third tier on HOLC maps, classified as "Declining" and frequently applied to immigrant or working-class neighborhoods.

HOLC Grade D (Red)

The lowest tier on HOLC maps, categorized as "Hazardous" with highest perceived lending risk, routinely applied to neighborhoods with minority populations.

National Housing Act (1934)

New Deal legislation that established the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to facilitate home financing.

Fair Housing Act (1968)

U.S. civil rights legislation that outlawed discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.

Tropical Architecture

A self-assigned term coined by British architects and imperial institutions during the decolonization era to describe modern design and construction in British West Africa.

British West Africa

The regional geographic frame identified in the Tropical Modernism curriculum, comprising Nigeria, the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Sierra Leone, and The Gambia.

New India Assurance Building

A 1936 Art Deco structure in Mumbai, India, designed by Master, Sathe and Bhuta with artistic designer N. G. Pansare.

Eastern Columbia Building

A 1930 Art Deco landmark in Los Angeles, California, designed by Claud Beelman.

Atlantic Greyhound Bus Terminal

A 1938 Streamline Moderne transportation facility in Savannah, Georgia, designed by George Dewey Brown.

Big Duck

A 1931 roadside structure in Flanders, New York, created by Martin Maurer, George Reeves, and William and Samuel Collins, functioning as the origin exemplar of a "duck."

Randy’s Donuts

A famous roadside building listed in the course materials as designed by Richard Bradshaw in Los Angeles (1953) and alternately attributed to Henry J. Goodwin in Inglewood, California.

New Gourna

An experimental village project in Egypt (1945–1948) designed by Hassan Fathy utilizing vernacular traditions and earth architecture.

House of Tomorrow

An experimental residential project designed by George Fred Keck for the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition.

Bateson Building

An environmentally conscious public building in Sacramento, California (1977–81), designed by Sim Van der Ryn.

Ang Mo Kio–Bishan Park

An ecological park project in Singapore initiated in 2006+, designed by Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl.

Oasia Hotel

A biophilic high-rise project in Singapore (2012–16) designed by WOHA (Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell).

Village Housing in the Tropics (1947)

A publication authored by Jane Drew outlining planning and housing design principles for tropical climates.

Self-Build Village in Asawasi

An experimental housing estate in Asawasi, Ghana, designed by Jane Drew, Maxwell Fry, and Alcock collaboratively with local residents.

Wind Catcher / Badgir

A traditional passive ventilation and cooling element incorporated in vernacular architecture to catch and circulate breezes.

Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs)

A building material formed from compressed damp soil, categorized under earth architecture and appropriate technology.

Biophilia

The concept of innate human affinity for the natural world, serving as the basis for biophilic architecture and the Biophilic City model.