Organic Architecture vs Prairie School

有機的建築 / プレーリー・スクール

Both sit in Modern Architecture, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.

Organic Architecture

Organic Architecture — ライト 落水荘 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainOrganic Architecture — ライト グッゲンハイム美術館（CC BY 2.0）Organic Architecture — ライト ジョンソン・ワックス本社（CC BY-SA 4.0）

Refuses to treat building, furniture, material, terrain and light separately, designing them as one continuum that includes the place and the life lived in it.

Prairie School

Prairie School — ライト ロビー邸 1910（CC BY 4.0）Prairie School — ロビー邸の水平線（CC BY 4.0）Prairie School — パーセル＆エルムズリー〈パーセル＝カッツ邸〉ミネアポリス 1913 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0

An architecture of the horizontal line answering the midwestern prairie. Deep eaves, ribbon windows, low roofs and continuity between inside and out established the first American modern house free of imported European styles.

Organic ArchitecturePrairie School
Era1900s–1893–1920s
FamilyModern ArchitectureModern Architecture
KindStyleStyle
CuesIntegration with terrain / Horizontals / Natural materials / Inside-outside continuityEmphasized horizontals / Deep overhanging eaves / Ribbon windows / Low-slung roofs
Best used forHouses on slopes or in woodland where floors step with the ground instead of cutting it. · Projects where built in furniture and building share one module throughout.Planning a low suburban house to lie along the land and the ground line · Running inside into outside so garden and living room read as one space
TypeRepeat one geometry down to signs and furniture, adding no foreign typeface.Wide capitals set in one horizontal line, aligned with the eaves
CompositionStretch the horizontals and open from a low entry into a tall room.A hearth at the core, rooms divided by ceiling height instead of walls
MaterialLocal stone and solid timber joined by plaster and matched metalwork.Roman brick and quartersawn wood, only the horizontal joints raked
CautionAssembling natural materials and curves without reading contours and sun produces a shell that could stand anywhere, missing the principle that unites site, structure, furniture and movement.Applying the horizontal motif to the elevation while shortening the eaves, so no shadow falls and the lines flatten into surface pattern.

Put these two together

Modern Architecture

IndexStyle