---
title: "American Houses: A Field Guide to the Architecture of the Home"
url: https://architect-books.com/American_Houses__A_Field_Guide_to_the_Architecture_of_the_Home_0618387994
description: "American Houses: A Field Guide to the Architecture of the Home, by Gerald L. Foster, ISBN 0618387994 in the Architect Books catalogue."
---

# American Houses: A Field Guide to the Architecture of the Home

[Architect Books](https://architect-books.com/)

[Browse the catalogue](https://architect-books.com/l-1005-1.html)

Gerald L. Foster

- **Author line**Gerald L. Foster
- **Released**01 March, 2004
- **ISBN**0618387994
- **Binding**Paperback

## Reader notes

### An artists perspective

The author is the illustrator as well, and his pen and ink renditions are museum worthy. As an artist, and not an academic, his approach is informal and slightly irreverent. The books emphasis is on the Colonial era, whose styles he divides into New England, Hudson River, Mid-Atlantic, Chesapeake, Southern, French and Spanish. He then sums up the dozen or so Victorian styles, predominantly Italianate and Queen Anne, and ends with the Colonial Revival, Bungalow, and Prairie styles (which he interestingly claims derives from the clean lines of H.H. Richardsons Shingle style but whose name, disappointingly, he does not suggest derives from its origin in Illinois, the Prairie State). And he points out some academic styles were revived exclusively for the mansions of the turn of the century industrial barons. He has not much to say about more recent houses, only mentioning the International Style, but overall it is still a good book.

## Related titles in the catalogue

[Other titles beginning A](https://architect-books.com/index-a.html)