Architecture Commons^™

Farmhouses That Became Boarding Houses In The Catskill Mountains Of New York State, Virginia Scheer

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this thesis the author uses oral histories to study vernacular architecture, analyzing the changes in the way people in the Catskills have used buildings, specifically farm dwellings, to make a living, first as farmers and then as proprietors of boarding houses. The Catskills region in upstate New York is well known for its dairy farms and also for its resorts, but little has been researched to trace continuities and discrepancies between the rural residents and urban visitors. Boarding on farms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries showed continuity between the two groups: recent immigrants who lived in …

Approaching Fallingwater: An Ethography Of Place, Brian Gregory

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Fallingwater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, has always been more than just a house. It has also functioned as a workplace, a tourist destination, "the best all-time work of American architecture," and a cultural symbol. By talking to some of the people involved in its history and by examining "autho-ethnographic" texts found within the community, I attempt to use ethnographic methods to understand a complicated site. Nestled in the rural Appalachian foothills of southwestern Pennsylvania, Fallingwater is also isolated. It is tempting for visitors to view it as a work of art "plopped down in the middle of nowhere." And …

The Altered Mobile Home: A Stationary Image Of Work And Value, Gregory Kendall Jenkins

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

As the medium cost of conventional housing rises, many people unable to incur such an expense look for alternative forms of adequate housing. In rural areas surrounding Bowling Green, Kentucky, several families have utilized the mobile home as a base to expand, embellish, and personalize, creating a larger more conventional-looking home. Many of these altered homes possess gabled roofs, rock exterior walls, and expansive interior space. Of primary concern is: why have these families undertaken a project of this nature?

As material culture scholars and folklorists examine our built environment, they find relationship between construction and the builders. What can …

The Use Of Architectural Drawing In The Documentation Of Log Folk Housing, Ira Kohn

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In order to remedy the shortcomings of past log structure documentation efforts, six proficiencies were established as necessary for the folklorist: (1) knowledge of, and use of, aerial photographs and topographic maps, (2) familiarity with usage of the compass, steel measuring tape and alidade, (3) accuracy in building measurement techniques, (4) the ability to competently compile a field notebook using standardized architectural notation, (5) operation of the camera as a recording tool, and (6) the production of measured drawings using the techniques specified by the Historic American Buildings Survey. The Rigsby House, a log structure in Warren County, Kentucky, served …