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:

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:


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