Houses without Names: Architectural Nomenclature and the Classification of America's Common Houses

In countless neighborhoods across America, the streets are lined with houses representing no established architectural style. Many of the 80 million homes in the United States today have only loose-fitting, general names like ranch, duplex, bungalow, and flat. Most, however, cannot even be identified by these common names, much less by an architectural type such as Colonial, Italianate, or Queen Anne. The few regionally recognized vernacular terms— shotgun, Cape (Cod), three-decker, and the...