Architectural Home Styles Worksheet

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering historic American architectural home styles, characteristics, time periods, and architectural regulations from the Home Styles Worksheet.

Greek Revival (1840–1890s)

An architectural style featuring columns, pilasters, bold and simple moldings, pedimented gables, and heavy cornices with unadorned friezes.

Art Deco (1920–1940s)

A style featuring stucco walls painted white or light pastels, glass blocks, steel casement windows, small round windows, curved corner walls, and concrete basement walls, popular for banks, movie houses, and courthouses.

Bungalow (1910–1930s)

A narrow rectangular house style originating in British India, popular in small Midwestern towns, characterized by low-pitched gable or hipped roofs, screened front porches, and floor plans sold through catalogs like Sears and Roebuck.

California Ranch (1950–1960s)

A long rectangular-shaped, single-story or split-level suburban house with very low pitched or hipped roofs covering attached garages, ridge poles parallel to the street, rectangular picture windows, and pink or turquoise siding or trim.

Cape Cod (1940–1950s)

Post-WWII suburban houses frequently called GI houses, characterized by 1.5 stories, small rectangular volumes, gable roofs, small dormers, wide wooden clapboard or aluminum siding, and detached or attached garages.

Counter Culture Styles (1960–1970s)

Contemporary folk house styles including A-Frames (simple structures with open interior spaces used for vacation or communal homes) and Geodesic Domes (popularized by Buckminster Fuller at the 1967 Montreal World's Fair).

Cubic (1900–1920s)

A smaller, simpler variation of the New England Four-over-Four or Colonial Revival featuring a square-ish floor plan, 2.5-story cubic height, a very plain design, and simple front porches.

Upright-and-Wing (1860–1900s)

A 19th-century rural and urban house style composed of a vertical main structure (the Upright) joined with a lower side section (the Wing), built in 1, 1.5, or 2 stories.

Tudor Revival (1900–1930s)

A 1.5–2.5-story style with complicated peaked roofs, massive sculptured chimneys, reddish bricks, stucco, half-timbering with herringbone brickwork, small leaded glass or tall mullioned windows, and jettied first floors.

Spanish Colonial (1910s–1930s)

A 1–2-story revival style featuring plain white stucco walls, low-pitch Spanish clay tile roofs, and arched openings with wooden beams, closely related to Southwestern Mission and Pueblo styles.

Second Empire (1870s–1880s)

A 2-story symmetrical house identified by its mansard roof with dormers that increase attic headroom, often incorporating a tower, arched openings, and bracketed eaves.

Queen Anne (1880s–1890s)

The most elaborate 19th-century house type, displaying 2.5–3.5 vertical stories, wooden relief decorations in gables, large porches, corbelled chimneys with chimney pots, balconies, stained-glass windows, and cut stone foundations.

Prairie School (1900–1950s)

An architectural movement developed by Chicago architects, most famously Frank Lloyd Wright, featuring a two-story rectangle with broad hipped or gabled roofs, overhanging eaves, enclosed porches, and casement windows.

New England Colonial (1890–1930s)

Also called the four-over-four, this 2–2.5-story revival style features a rectangular floor plan with four rooms on each level, gable roofs, symmetrical fenestration, and classical columns, cornices, and shutters.

Neo-Dutch Colonial (1900s–1940s)

A house style identified by its gambrel roof with flaring eaves, symmetrical windows and floor plans, single or shed dormers, and central doorways.

Minimal Tradition (1950s)

A post-WWII suburban style following the Cape Cod, characterized by a horizontal look, square-ish floor plans, hipped roofs, small picture windows, and detached garages.

International (1930–1950s)

A modern style utilizing concrete, glass, and steel, known for a boxy look, bands of glass, flat roofs, cantilevered rooms over basement footings, and corner-placed casement windows.

I-Style (1820–1880s)

A two-story, one-room-deep, and two-room-wide house common in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, featuring tall vertical windows, narrow clapboards, and scroll work porches; two joined together form an Upright-and-Wing.

Gothic Revival (1830–1880s)

A romantic English-origin style characterized by pointed arched windows, steep gable roofs, towers, lacy bargeboard, verandas, bay and oriel windows, Carpenter Gothic jigsaw trim, and Collegiate Gothic school buildings.

Garrison Colonial (1935–1955)

A residential architectural style characterized by a cantilevered, wood-sided second-story overhang, single or shed dormers, and central doorways.

French Provincial (1900–1930)

A simple, square, and symmetrical house resembling a small manor home, featuring massive hipped roofs, window shutters, tall second-floor windows breaking the cornice, and expensive materials (copper, slate, brick) without towers.

Folk Victorian (1870–1900s)

Plain vernacular houses mimicking high Victorian styles in working-class and rural areas, comprising five subtypes: Front-Gabled, Side-Gabled, Upright-and-Winged, Pyramidal, and Two-Pen.

Colonial Saltbox (1670–1780s)

A wooden frame house named for its resemblance to a lidded salt box, featuring two stories in front, one story in back, a central chimney, and an asymmetrical rear roofline that slopes steeply down.

Italianate (1840–1885s)

A style popularized by Alexander Jackson Davis featuring emphatic eaves supported by corbels, low-pitched or flat roofs with wide projections, and belvedere or campanile towers.

Shingle (1880–1900s)

A style emphasizing horizontality and weathered massing through continuous cedar shakes (sometimes dipped in buttermilk for a grayish tinge), illustrated by McKim Mead and White's Low House and Kragsyde.

Federal (1780–1820s)

An early American Republic style reflecting ancient Greek and Roman ideals, distinguished from Georgian by its flatter, smoother facades, plainer surfaces with attenuated details isolated in panels, and minimal use of pilasters.

Georgian (1720–1780s)

A 1–2-story, two-room-deep symmetrical timber box with centered paneled doors, elaborate entablatures, dentil-work cornices, and non-paired multi-pane windows arranged five across.

Dutch Colonial (1650–1710s)

An early domestic style featuring gambrel roofs with curved eaves along the length, stone walls, end chimneys, double-hung sash windows with outward swinging shutters, and a central double Dutch door.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

A law enacted on July 26, 1990, prohibiting discrimination against disabled persons in employment, transportation, and building access, mandating physical access standards for both existing and new construction.