Illustrated Architecture Dictionary ........... Styles of Architecture
American Foursquare style in Buffalo,
NY
Alternate name: Prairie Box
1900-1920
Sometimes classified as a substyle of Prairie houses
Essential features:
- Symmetrical
- Hipped or pyramidal roof
- Hipped dormer is common
- Overhanging eaves
- Front entry entered or off-center, a conspicuous focal point of the facade
- Usually has a front porch, which may turn the corner on one side
- One-story wings, porches, or carports are clearly subordinate to the principal two-story mass
- Double-hung sash windows common
- Most commonly built in frame and stuccoed frame, but they are also found in stone or brick.
- Four rooms on each of two floors, arranged one on each corner with no through hallway
This was the earliest Prairie form
The Foursquare may be seen as a stripped-down version of a couple of late eighteenth- and mid-nineteenth-century forms, including the Georgian block and the square Italianate house.
The simplest Foursquares have two single windows on the second floor, while more elegant houses may have two double or triple windows, or even a third set of windows.
There may be a low, small dormer with a flat or pyramidal roof. As the style becomes more elaborate, the dormer arrangement moves from one or two to three sash within each of the dormers, and in some houses there may be dormers on all four sides of the main roof.
"Shirtwaist" Foursquares typically have a belt course below the windows of the second floor, separating the different materials used on the first and second floors (stone below and stucco above, for example).
Examples from Buffalo:
- Illustration above: Photo - 98 Tillinghast Place
- Concretre block house - Clark Street, Hamburg, NY
