After the United States was founded in 1776, leaders like Thomas Jefferson chose to emulate classical architecture when building its Washington, DC, capital as a nod to the democratic ideals of the Greek and Roman empires. Now, 250 years later, the style still feels like an American paragon to some: Last summer, the Trump administration released an executive order declaring its preference for “traditional and classical architecture” for American public federal buildings. Since then, it has attempted to erect a monumental arch on the National Mall and an oversized ballroom at the White House, both with loosely neoclassical designs.
“President Trump seems to think that classicism in some form is truly American, but that was popular only at certain periods and among certain groups. There is no good reason why those have to typify an entire country,” says architectural historian and author Carol H. Krinsky, PhD. “It wasn’t the first or the only architectural style promoted in the lands that eventually joined as the United States.”
In fact, the pursuit of a truly American design style—one that turns away from imitation and toward exploration—has been a focus for architects since this country was founded. What has resulted is not a singular vision, but rather a wide variety of technology-, culture-, and vernacular-driven movements throughout the nation’s architectural history. “When we’re talking about an American architectural style, for us, it’s less about one signature aesthetic, but rather a set of values that architecture projects reflect,” explains Aileen Fuchs, the president and executive director of the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. “American style is innovation; it’s reinvention; it’s adaptation. Those things are more American than any one look.”
Especially in a country as large as the United States, to synthesize the built environment into a one-size-fits-all look is futile. “It is impossible to characterize any architecture over 3,000 miles east to west, with a multicultural population from its beginnings, as representing the entire country and over more than two centuries,” says Dr. Krinsky. Instead, a series of architectural “archetypes” have come to represent distinct periods in America’s societal goals, values, and global reputation since its founding. And it’s these moments that have come to define American architecture.
Adobe built some of the original homesteads
Long before Europeans settled in the United States, Native Americans lived across its lands in homes built with local natural materials. These structures were regionally and culturally inspired, and largely destroyed during rapid and callous colonization. In the canon of American architecture, “Indigenous architecture has traditionally been ignored altogether until recently when we are trying to salvage what has been lost and to apologize for all the destruction in the past,” says J. Philip Gruen, a professor at Washington State University’s Pullman School of Design and Construction. However, one of the most physically enduring typologies is the prehistoric great houses of the Pueblo people in New Mexico.
