Forgotten Designers: Homes Built By Women

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Women Have Always Played A Role In Home Design

Frank Lloyd Wright can have his Prairie Style houses. Philip Johnson can keep his house made of glass. The world's most livable homes have been designed not by famous men but by forgotten women, say many architectural historians.

Women have always played a role in home design, but their contributions are seldom recorded. However, during the 19th century an odd custom swept through rural parts of the still-young United States: Agricultural societies offered prizes for farmhouse designs. Turning their thoughts from pigs and pumpkins, both husband and wife sketched simple, practical plans for their houses and barns. The winning plans were displayed at county fairs and published in farm journals. Some have been reprinted in reproduction pattern catalogs and contemporary books on historic house design.

Architect and historic preservationist Donald Berg searched through thousands of 19th century plans for his book American Country Building Design. The homemade house plans Berg uncovered were certainly less elaborate than the professional designs of that time period. Yet, the plans were elegant in their efficiency -- and often more useable than houses created by city architects who did not understand the needs of farm families.

And who could understand a family's needs better than the wife and mother?

The house is at the heart of a farm wife's life. Historian Sally McMurry, author of Families & Farmhouses in 19th Century America, found that many home plans published in 19th century farm journals were designed by women. These women-designed houses were not the fussy, highly ornamented structures fashionable in the cities. Designing for efficiency and flexibility rather than fashion, farm wives ignored rules set down by urban architects.

Kitchens were placed on the ground level -- sometimes even facing the road. How crude! "Educated" architects scoffed. For a farm wife, however, the kitchen was the control center for the household. This was the place for preparing and serving meals, for producing butter and cheese, for preserving fruits and vegetables and for conducting farm business.

Dominant kitchens were only part of the picture. McMurry found that women-designed houses also tended to include a first floor bedroom. Sometimes called the "birthing room," the downstairs bedroom was a convenience for women in childbirth and the elderly or infirm.

Other popular features in women-designed houses included separate quarters for workers, a cool porch that could serve as a summer kitchen, and -- most importantly -- good ventilation, which was considered beneficial for the health and important for the manufacture of butter.

Source: architecture.about.com