1.
Prairie School
–
Prairie School was a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States. Horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the prairie landscape. The Prairie School developed in sympathy with the ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement begun in the late 19th century in England by John Ruskin, William Morris, and others. Many talented and ambitious young architects had been attracted by building opportunities stemming from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 was supposed to be a heralding of the city of Chicagos rebirth. But many of the young Mid-western architects of what would become the Prairie School were offended by the Greek, in reaction, they sought to create new work in and around Chicago that would display a uniquely modern and authentically American style, which came to be called Prairie. The designation Prairie is due to the dominant horizontality of the majority of Prairie style buildings which echoes the wide, flat, treeless expanses of the mid-Western United States. The Prairie School is mostly associated with a generation of architects employed or influenced by Louis Sullivan or Frank Lloyd Wright, although the Prairie School originated in Chicago, some Prairie School architects moved away spreading the influence well beyond the Midwest. A partial list of Prairie School architects includes, The Prairie School houses were related to the American Arts and Crafts movement, an alternative to the then-dominant Classical Revival Style. Some firms, like Purcell & Elmslie, however, consciously rejected the term Arts and Crafts for their work, the Prairie School was also heavily influenced by the Idealistic Romantics and the Transcendentalist philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In turn, the Prairie School architects influenced subsequent architectural idioms, particularly the Minimalists and Bauhaus, architectural historians have debated the reasons why the Prairie School went out of favor by the mid-1920s. Perhaps a serious consideration of one of its own members would be worth their serious attention. Mahonys and Griffins work in Australia and India, notably the collection of homes at Castlecrag, isabel Roberts Veterans Memorial Library in St. Cloud, Florida, is another. The House at 8 Berkley Drive at Lockport, New York was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, the Oak Circle Historic District is a historic district in Wilmette, Illinois, United States. It primarily consists of fifteen single-family homes representative of the Prairie School, the Oak Circle Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 21,2001, it was the first historic district to be designated in Wilmette. Several not-for-profit organizations and on-line communities have formed to educate people about the Prairie School movement
2.
Grand Rapids, Michigan
–
Grand Rapids is the second-largest city in Michigan, and the largest city in West Michigan. It is on the Grand River about 30 miles east of Lake Michigan, as of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 1,005,648, Grand Rapids is the county seat of Kent County, Michigan. A historic furniture-manufacturing center, Grand Rapids is home to five of the leading office furniture companies. Its more common nickname of River City refers to the landmark river for which it was named. The city and surrounding communities are diverse, based in the health care, information technology, automotive, aviation. Grand Rapids is the hometown of U. S. President Gerald Ford, for thousands of years, succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples occupied the area. Over 2000 years ago, people associated with the Hopewell culture occupied the Grand River Valley, later, a tribe from the Ottawa River traveled to the Grand River valley, fighting three battles with the Prairie Indians who were established in the area. The tribe later split, with the Chippewas settling in the lower peninsula, the Pottawatomies staying south of the Kalamazoo River. In 1740, an Ottawa man who would later be known as Chief Noonday, between 1761 and 1763, Chief Pontiac visited the area annually, gathering over 3,000 natives and asking them to volunteer to fight the British in Detroit, which would culminate into Pontiacs War. The Potawatomi attacked the Ottawa in 1765, attempting to take the Grand River territory but were defeated, by the end of the 1700s, there were an estimated 1,000 Ottawa in the Kent County area. After the French established territories in Michigan, Jesuit missionaries and traders traveled down Lake Michigan, at the start of the 19th century, European fur traders and missionaries established posts in the area among the Ottawa. They generally lived in peace, trading European metal and textile goods for fur pelts and they were French-speaking and Roman Catholic. They likely both spoke Ottawa, Madelines maternal ancestral language, La Framboise, whose mother was Ottawa and father French, later merged her successful operations with the American Fur Company. By 1810, Chief Noonday established a village on the west side of the river with about 500 Ottawa, madeline La Framboise retired the trading post to Rix Robinson in 1821 and returned to Mackinac. The first permanent European-American settler in the Grand Rapids area was Isaac McCoy, general Lewis Cass, who commissioned Charles Christopher Trowbridge to establish missions for Native Americans in Michigan, ordered McCoy to establish a mission in Grand Rapids for the Ottawa. In 1824, Baptist missionary Rev. L. Slater traveled with two settlers to Grand Rapids to perform work, the winter of 1824 proved to be difficult, with Slaters group having to resupply and return before the spring. Slater then erected the first settler structures in Grand Rapids, a log cabin for himself, in 1825, McCoy returned and established a missionary station
3.
Michigan
–
Michigan /ˈmɪʃᵻɡən/ is a state in the Great Lakes and Midwestern regions of the United States. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, Michigan is the tenth most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit, Michigan is the only state to consist of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is noted to be shaped like a mitten. The Upper Peninsula is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, the two peninsulas are connected by the Mackinac Bridge. The state has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, as a result, it is one of the leading U. S. states for recreational boating. Michigan also has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds, a person in the state is never more than six miles from a natural water source or more than 85 miles from a Great Lakes shoreline. What is now the state of Michigan was first settled by Native American tribes before being colonized by French explorers in the 17th century, the area was organized as part of the larger Northwest Territory until 1800, when western Michigan became part of the Indiana Territory. Eventually, in 1805, the Michigan Territory was formed, which lasted until it was admitted into the Union on January 26,1837, the state of Michigan soon became an important center of industry and trade in the Great Lakes region and a popular immigrant destination. Though Michigan has come to develop an economy, it is widely known as the center of the U. S. automotive industry. When the first European explorers arrived, the most populous tribes were Algonquian peoples, which include the Anishinaabe groups of Ojibwe, Odaawaa/Odawa, the three nations co-existed peacefully as part of a loose confederation called the Council of Three Fires. The Ojibwe, whose numbers are estimated to have been between 25,000 and 35,000, were the largest, French voyageurs and coureurs des bois explored and settled in Michigan in the 17th century. The first Europeans to reach what became Michigan were those of Étienne Brûlés expedition in 1622, the first permanent European settlement was founded in 1668 on the site where Père Jacques Marquette established Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan as a base for Catholic missions, missionaries in 1671–75 founded outlying stations at Saint Ignace and Marquette. Jesuit missionaries were received by the areas Indian populations, with relatively few difficulties or hostilities. In 1679, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle built Fort Miami at present-day St. Joseph, in 1691, the French established a trading post and Fort St. Joseph along the St. Joseph River at the present day city of Niles. The hundred soldiers and workers who accompanied Cadillac built a fort enclosing one arpent, cadillacs wife, Marie Thérèse Guyon, soon moved to Detroit, becoming one of the first European women to settle in the Michigan wilderness. The town quickly became a major fur-trading and shipping post, the Église de Saint-Anne was founded the same year
4.
Frank Lloyd Wright
–
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer, and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures,532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment and this philosophy was best exemplified by Fallingwater, which has been called the best all-time work of American architecture. Wright was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture and developed the concept of the Usonian home and his creative period spanned more than 70 years. In addition to his houses, Wright designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums and he often designed interior elements for these buildings as well, including furniture and stained glass. Wright wrote 20 books and many articles and was a lecturer in the United States. His colorful personal life made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire. Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as the greatest American architect of all time, Frank Lloyd Wright was born Frank Lincoln Wright in the farming town of Richland Center, Wisconsin, United States, in 1867. His father, William Carey Wright, was an orator, music teacher, occasional lawyer, William Wright met and married Anna Lloyd Jones, a county school teacher, the previous year when he was employed as the superintendent of schools for Richland County. Originally from Massachusetts, William Wright had been a Baptist minister, Anna was a member of the large, prosperous and well-known Lloyd Jones family of Unitarians, who had emigrated from Wales to Spring Green, Wisconsin. One of Annas brothers was Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who would become an important figure in the spread of the Unitarian faith in the Western United States, both of Wrights parents were strong-willed individuals with idiosyncratic interests that they passed on to him. According to his biography, his mother declared when she was expecting that her first child would grow up to build beautiful buildings and she decorated his nursery with engravings of English cathedrals torn from a periodical to encourage the infants ambition. In 1870 the family moved to Weymouth, Massachusetts, where William ministered to a small congregation, in 1876, Anna visited the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia where she saw an exhibit of educational blocks created by Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel. The blocks, known as Froebel Gifts, were the foundation of his innovative kindergarten curriculum, Anna, a trained teacher, was excited by the program and bought a set with which young Wright spent much time playing. The blocks in the set were geometrically shaped and could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions, the Wright family struggled financially in Weymouth and returned to Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the supportive Lloyd Jones clan could help William find employment. They settled in Madison, where William taught music lessons and served as the secretary to the newly formed Unitarian society, although William was a distant parent, he shared his love of music, especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, with his children. Soon after Wright turned 14, his parents separated, Anna had been unhappy for some time with Williams inability to provide for his family and asked him to leave. The divorce was finalized in 1885 after William sued Anna for lack of physical affection, William left Wisconsin after the divorce and Wright claimed he never saw his father again. At this time he changed his name from Lincoln to Lloyd in honor of his mothers family
5.
Victorian architecture
–
Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. Victorian refers to the reign of Queen Victoria, called the Victorian era, however, many elements of what is typically termed Victorian architecture did not become popular until later in Victorias reign. The styles often included interpretations and eclectic revivals of historic styles mixed with the introduction of middle east, the name represents the British and French custom of naming architectural styles for a reigning monarch. Within this naming and classification scheme, it follows Georgian architecture and later Regency architecture, during the early 19th century, the romantic medieval Gothic revival style was developed as a reaction to the symmetry of Palladianism, and such buildings as Fonthill Abbey were built. Paxton also continued to build houses as Mentmore Towers, in the still popular English Renaissance styles. In this era of prosperity new methods of construction were developed, other notable Scottish architects of this period are Archibald Simpson and Alexander Marshall Mackenzie whose stylistically varied work can be seen in the architecture of Aberdeen. Victorian architecture usually has many intricate window frames inspired by the famous architect Elliot Rae, some chose the United States, and others went to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Normally, they applied architectural styles that were fashionable when they left England, thus, the influence of English architecture spread across the world. Several prominent architects produced English-derived designs around the world, including William Butterfield, the Victorian period flourished in Australia and is generally recognised as being from 1840 to 1890, which saw a gold rush and population boom during the 1880s in the state of Victoria. There were fifteen styles that predominated, The Arts and Crafts style and Queen Anne style are considered to be part of the Federation Period, during the British colonial period of British Ceylon, Sri Lanka Law College, Sri Lanka College of Technology and the Galle Face Hotel. In the United States, Victorian architecture generally describes styles that were most popular between 1860 and 1900, a list of these styles most commonly includes Second Empire, Stick-Eastlake, Folk Victorian, Queen Anne, Richardsonian Romanesque, and Shingle. As in the United Kingdom, examples of Gothic Revival and Italianate continued to be constructed during this period, some historians classify the later years of Gothic Revival as a distinctive Victorian style named High Victorian Gothic. Stick-Eastlake, a manner of geometric, machine-cut decorating derived from Stick, on the other hand, terms such as Painted Ladies or gingerbread may be used to describe certain Victorian buildings, but do not constitute a specific style. The names of architectural styles varied between countries, many homes combined the elements of several different styles and are not easily distinguishable as one particular style or another. San Francisco is well known for its extensive Victorian architecture, particularly in the Haight-Ashbury, Lower Haight, Alamo Square, Noe Valley, Castro, Nob Hill, the extent to which any one is the largest surviving example is debated, with numerous qualifications. The Distillery District in Toronto, Ontario contains the largest and best preserved collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture in North America, cabbagetown is the largest and most continuous Victorian residential area in North America. Other Toronto Victorian neighbourhoods include The Annex, Parkdale, and Rosedale, in the USA, the South End of Boston is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as the oldest and largest Victorian neighborhood in the country. Old Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky also claims to be the nations largest Victorian neighborhood, richmond, Virginia is home to several large Victorian neighborhoods, the most prominent being The Fan
6.
Hip roof
–
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus a hipped roof house has no gables or other vertical sides to the roof, a square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on houses could have two sides and two trapezoidal ones. A hip roof on a plan has four faces. They are almost always at the pitch or slope, which makes them symmetrical about the centerlines. Hip roofs often have a consistent level fascia, meaning that a gutter can be fitted all around, Hip roofs often have dormer slanted sides. Hip roofs are more difficult to construct than a gabled roof, Hip roofs can be constructed on a wide variety of plan shapes. Each ridge is central over the rectangle of the building below it, the triangular faces of the roof are called the hip ends, and they are bounded by the hips themselves. The hips and hip rafters sit on a corner of the building. Where the building has a corner, a valley makes the join between the sloping surfaces. They have the advantage of giving a compact, solid appearance to a structure, in modern domestic architecture, hip roofs are commonly seen in bungalows and cottages, and have been integral to styles such as the American Foursquare. However, the hip roof has been used in different styles of architecture. A hip roof is self-bracing, requiring less diagonal bracing than a gable roof, Hip roofs are thus much better suited for hurricane regions than gable roofs. Hip roofs have no large, flat, or slab-sided ends to catch wind and are much more stable than gable roofs. However, for a region, the roof also has to be steep-sloped. When wind flows over a shallow sloped hip roof, the roof can behave like an airplane wing, lift is then created on the leeward side. The flatter the roof, the more likely this will happen, a steeper pitched hip roof tends to cause the wind to stall as it goes over the roof, breaking up the effect. If the roof slopes are less than 35 degrees from horizontal, greater than 35 degrees, and not only does wind blowing over it encounter a stalling effect, but the roof is actually held down on the wall plate by the wind pressure
7.
Leadlight
–
Leadlights or leaded lights are decorative windows made of small sections of glass supported in lead cames. The technique of creating windows using glass and lead came is discussed at came glasswork, traditionally, leadlight windows differ from stained glass windows principally in being less complex in design and employing simpler techniques of manufacture. Stained glass windows, such as commonly found in churches, usually include design components that have been painted onto the glass. The extra time and cost employed in painting and firing the glass usually prohibited its use in domestic architecture, quarries may be mould-cast into patterns such as fleur de lys and imprinted with black and yellow stain. Used extensively during the 19th century in England and Commonwealth countries, another form of decorative quarry is the etched or engraved quarry, which is made of flashed glass, most often ruby red or royal blue over a transparent layer. It then has a cut into it using either acid or a lathe. Etched quarries of Venetian glass are often employed, sometimes in conjunction with panels of stained glass, particularly in Italy, lathe-cut quarries with a simple star-burst pattern are very common in the late 19th century domestic architecture of many regions, both in leadlighting and in simpler wooden-framed glazing. The colours employed in leadlight windows may range from pastels to intense hues. The glass used may be textured or patterned or bevelled, however, since they are generally non-pictorial, and are primarily to illuminate the interior, with or without a decorative function, the glass is usually of pale hue, or transparent. The work of the leadlighter was essentially to provide windows that excluded the weather, leadlight has been in use for over a thousand years, having its origins in the Roman and Byzantine windows that were made of thin sheets of alabaster set in armatures of wood or wrought iron. By the late Middle Ages the profession of domestic leadlighter was common across Europe, until World War II most towns had a commercial shop producing domestic leadlight. These craftsmen did not refer to their product as stained glass, the provision of decorative stained glass windows was a task requiring many more complex skills than the provision of domestic leadlight. Many buildings exist that were glazed at this period, Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, England, during this period large sheets of glass were unavailable. Domestic windows were small and were made of broad glass or cylinder glass before crown glass was first made in England in 1678. Broad glass is usually around 1.5 to 2 mm thick and uneven, often with scars and marks on the surface where it has been ironed flat, and often has a greenish tint. Later windows often had crown glass, which has a better surface quality. Old windows often contain a mixture of types of glass, as they will have been re-leaded about every 100 years. The irregular glinting surface of windows is a distinctive feature of old European houses
8.
Casement window
–
A casement is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges. Casement windows are hinged at the side and they are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a casement stay, windows hinged at the top are referred to as awning windows, and ones hinged at the bottom are called hoppers. In the UK, casement windows were common before the window was introduced. These casement windows usually were hinged on the side, and opened inward, by the start of the Victorian era, opening casements and frames were constructed from timber in their entirety. The windows were covered by functional exterior shutters, which opened outward, variants of casement windows are still the norm in many European countries. They are opened with a crank, lever, or cam handle, a crank, stay, or friction hinge is necessary when the window opens outward, to hold the window in position despite wind. Often the glass panes are set in a frame and sealed with beveled putty or glazing compound to secure the glass. Casement windows generally have lower air leakage rates than sliding windows because the sash closes by pressing against the frame, casement windows are also excellent for natural ventilation strategies, especially in hot climates. They can be hinged to open outward and angled in order to direct breezes into the building
9.
Radiator (heating)
–
Radiators and convectors are heat exchangers designed to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of space heating. In the patent he wrote that his invention was a kind of apparatus. The heating radiator was invented by Franz San Galli in 1855, in the late 1800s, companies, such as the American Radiator Company, promoted cast iron radiators over previous fabricated steel designs in order to lower costs and expand the market. The term convection heater or convector refers to a class of devices in which the source of heat is not directly exposed, as domestic safety and the supply from water heaters keeps temperatures relatively low, radiation is inefficient in comparison to convection. Convection heaters also work differently to electric radiators in that they disperse heat differently, the international standard for energy efficient consumer products Energy Star recommends placing heat-resistant reflectors between radiators and exterior walls to help retain heat in a room. A hot-water radiator consists of a hollow metal container filled with hot water by gravity feed. As it gives out heat, the hot water cools and sinks to the bottom of the radiator and is forced out of a pipe at the other end, anti-hammer devices are often installed to prevent or minimize knocking in hot water radiator pipes. Traditional cast iron radiators are no common in new construction. They consist of pipes which have aluminium fins to increase their surface area. These conduction boiler systems use conduction to heat from the water into the metal radiators or convectors. The radiators are designed to heat the air in the room using convection to transfer heat from the radiators to the surrounding air. They do this by drawing air in at the bottom, warming the air as it passes over the radiator fins. This sets up convective loops of air movement within a room, if the register is blocked either from above or below, this air movement is prevented, and the heater will not work. Baseboard heating systems are fitted with moveable covers to allow the resident to fine-tune heating by room. Steam has the advantage of flowing through the pipes under its own pressure without the need for pumping, for this reason, it was adopted earlier, before electric motors and pumps became available. Steam is also far easier to distribute than hot water throughout large, however, the higher temperatures at which steam systems operate make them inherently less efficient, as unwanted heat loss is inevitably greater. Steam pipes and radiators are prone to producing banging sounds often incorrectly called water hammer, the bang is created when some of the steam condenses into water in a horizontal section of the steam piping. Subsequently, steam picks up the water, forms a slug and hurls it at high velocity into a fitting, creating a loud hammering noise
10.
Alcea
–
Alcea, commonly known as hollyhocks, is a genus of about 60 species of flowering plants in the mallow family Malvaceae. They are native to Asia and Europe, the single species of hollyhock from the Western Hemisphere, the streambank wild hollyhock, belongs to a different genus. Hollyhocks are annual, biennial, or perennial plants usually taking an erect, the herbage usually has a coating of star-shaped hairs. The leaf blades are often lobed or toothed, and are borne on long petioles, the flowers may be solitary or arranged in fascicles or racemes. The notched petals are usually over three centimeters wide and may be pink, white, purple, or yellow, the fruit is a schizocarp, a dry disc divided into over 15 sections that contain seeds. They are easily grown from seed, breeds with red flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Cultivars have been bred, especially from A. rosea and they include the double-flowered Chaters Double, the raspberry-colored Creme de Cassis, and The Watchman, which has dark, nearly black, maroon flowers. The stems of hollyhocks can be used as firewood, and the roots have been used medicinally, alcea species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Bucculatrix quadrigemina and Vanessa cardui, the painted lady. The mallow flea beetle is a pest that makes tiny holes in the leaves, cutworms, aphids, and capsid bugs use the plant as a food source in hotter and drier conditions. A number of weevils use A. rosea as their host plant, including Rhopalapion longirostre, Alocentron curvirostre, the plants are also susceptible to the pathogenic fungus Puccinia malvacearum, the hollyhock rust. A hollyhock flower, known in Japan as aoi, was incorporated into the seal of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan. For example, it inspired the name and symbol of Mito HollyHock, the Aoi Matsuri is one of the three main festivals of the city of Kyoto. During the Victorian era, the hollyhock symbolized both ambition and fecundity in the language of flowers
