Popular architectural styles “tell their stories” and explain why they remain popular today. The Tudor style explains its roots in the Roaring Twenties and reveals its beginnings in Medieval designs. A series of Neo-Classic buildings trace their roots to ancient Greece and speculate about why they remain popular thousands of years later. Each style gives viewers visual clues to help identify its style.

Aegis Award Finalist

A Guide To Architectural Styles

Redecorate. Refurbish. Rebuild. Houses need work to keep them up-to-date, and so do educational videos. We’ve taken our popular The American House and brought it up-to-date, into the digital age.

If you teach design, history, architecture, or a course about the American city and don’t yet have a copy of The American House, now is a great time to order this brand-new version.

The American House lets popular architectural styles “tell their stories” and explain why they remain popular today. The Tudor style explains its roots in the Roaring Twenties and reveals its beginnings in Medieval designs. A series of Neo-Classic buildings trace their roots to ancient Greece and speculate about why they remain popular thousands of years later. Each style gives viewers visual clues to help identify its style.

A lively Victorian explains why it was once an example of “high tech” design and why it still inspires houses built today. The Prairie style explains its strong horizontal lines. Colonial Revival houses explore their origins and viewers learn that the style of a house is a visual expression of social values. The “less is more” contemporary style is contrasted to post-modern styles where “less is a bore.”

Runtime: 24 minutes

Copyright 2006 Learning Seed

This video explores the basic meaning of shelter. It explores the forces shaping contemporary housing and shows that a house is far more than a box we live in. Viewer will see that a house is a collection of symbols that announce identity; it is nothing less than a dream turned into bricks and boards. A fascinating and provocative look at the "why" of a house.

Recommended by School Library Journal

This video explores the basic meaning of shelter. It explores the forces shaping contemporary housing and shows that a house is far more than a box we live in. Viewer will see that a house is a collection of symbols that announce identity; it is nothing less than a dream turned into bricks and boards. A fascinating and provocative look at the "why" of a house.


Learn:

- Who lives in the largest room of a suburban house?
- How front porches and "stoops" close to the street became deck and patios behind the house.
- Why houses are growing in size even though family size is smaller?
- Why houses have shutters that don't shut?
- Why fireplaces are still valued in the age of central heating?
- Why we prefer traditional styles of architecture that dream of the past instead of contemporary styles that look to the future.

Runtime: 22 minutes

Copyright 1999 Learning Seed