American Suburban Architecture

In crafting this page, I'm going to pull together some old photos I have collected along with ones that I find in the Creative Commons so we can reuse them.  Unless noted otherwise, all images are from Wikipedia Commons.  Most are from Richmond and I'll ask Mr. Kunstler to have a look at them.

A motive for this slide-show is to prepare you for the "Place Analysis" that will be the take-home part of your final. More on that soon.

Railway or "Streetcar" suburb: These types of developments appeared in Richmond's Ginter Park, Forest Hills Park, or even at the current UR campus (ironically, a former amusement park at the end of a street-car line).

Above, stucco and brick detached homes in Richmond's Ginter Park. Note the street plan with trees to set pedestrian sidewalks apart from road traffic. This development appeared at the dawn of the automotive age. Some houses are really exceptional there and feature architectural details such as turrets and many-gabled roofs. These homes, of the wealthiest original residents, are highlights of this still very desirable neighborhood, as shown in an example below:

Modernist subdivisions: The Geography of Nowhere covers, in detail, this automotive-age pattern of development. It left its mark on cities. Here's the template for much of midcentury American suburbia, Levittown, PA. note the uniformity of the plan, the width of the streets, the lack of trees or common space. Ginter Park, in contrast, borders several public parks and though most commercial space, with the exception of a central block of small stores, was too far for walking. Children living in Ginter Park could, however,  safely walk or bicycle to school. 

The little "Rambler" below is from Jordan Utah. It could just as easily have been built in Henrico County. I have a soft spot for these modest homes the embody solidly Postwar Middle-Class values; in many neighborhoods that have matured, trees now line the streets to soften the boxy lines of the homes; with some renovation, the homes can lose their uniformity of appearance. I have lived in two of them, without the garage. 

Sadly, many of them around Richmond are in declining inner suburbs (a side-effect of urban renewal as central cities become desirable again). I plan to renovate one near campus for a faculty rental. These are fun homes for learning some basic carpentry, plumbing, or roofing skills. There is not a lot to mess up; the boxes are well built, unlike newer suburban homes with vinyl siding and "production" materials. That means cheap and likely to fail quickly; floors warp and doors get stuck on many post 1970s homes.

Modernist Shopping: Willow Lawn is a favorite and modest place to shop for me. It began as a Modernist, car-focused suburban shopping center with "breezeways" between the stores in the 1950s. Here is a short history of what must have seemed an amazing place to war-weary Richmonders.

First is a shot of Willow Lawn's "Dino Land" show, ironically sponsored by Sinclair, an oil company that used a dinosaur as a mascot. I went to this event and really enjoyed making little dinosaurs from petroleum-based wax in giant molding machines. 

Willow Lawn images courtesy of Style Weekly

The second image shows the original breezeway, later enclosed as a mall. Some sort of special event is in progress. Willow Lawn held contests and had live music. The place was ugly but vital and within easy walking distance of residential neighborhoods. Many shoppers walked to the place. 

When I last had students write analyses of  the place in the early 90s, a failed attempt to get it to become an upscale enclosed mall was underway. Willow Lawn failed at this, then began to court chains catering to lower-income customers with some higher-dollar "anchors" such as Kroger's, Staples, and Panera.

Bit by bit (see image below, same spot pictured above, but with 2005 demolition under way), the mall and food court were torn down to reveal new pedestrian breezeways. Today Willow Lawn simulates a city street. It is more walkable, but it does not quite work for reasons too complex to list here. That said, it is pleasant enough for what it offers, and business is again booming there. I wrote about the bonuses and shortcomings of the current resurrection of the place for Style Weekly.

Suburbanizing the City: Many cities tried to spur growth and funnel commuters in from the suburbs by urban super-highways. Richmond built its downtown expressway in the 1970s, displacing 900 families and businesses whose properties were purchased, then bulldozed. As a pre-teen I saw my grandparents forced to sell their home, though I did get to play in the highway cut and get in trouble with the authorities.

Like James Howard Kunstler, I'm highly critical of these projects; in Madrid, Spain much of the super-highway along northern sections of the Paseo de la Castellana went underground. We could have done better, though Madrid traffic is no delight!  Here's an article recapping what happened in Richmond in that era. It could have been much worse for Richmond. Our lovely parks on the south bank of the James would have been bulldozed for a "Riverside Parkway" but wealthy residents, who had the power and connections to fight back, stopped this place. Money talks!

Cary Street: I grew up just south of Cary. It was not hip and not "Carytown" then but a blue-collar commercial district. It was in steep decline in the mid-70s but soon rebounded and is one of Richmond's most profitable shopping destinations. Retail now is largely locally owned with many expensive boutiques along Cary and some chains in the western outskirts where suburban strip-mall type development from the 50s and 60s clusters. Even so, the street provides natural shelter from vehicles, namely street trees and rows of parked cars. The street is also narrow enough to keep speeds under 30 miles per hour.

Cary Court, pictured, in the center of Carytown, was one of America's first strip shopping centers. Quite modest by today's standards, it features quality building materials such as granite, marble, and stainless steel. A recent renovation returned Cary Court "Park and Shop" to its 1930s appearance, though the businesses then were blue-collar establishements. Today you'll find a high-end chocolate shop, a French bistro, expensive furniture, and Yoga classes.

4615 West Broad Street

I worked in this dreadful building in the mid 1980s, when it housed part of the Virginia Department of Corrections. The non-opening, gun-slit windows kept visiting inmates from escaping (a few did anyhow). Mostly, however, the windows were narrow to save energy in the 1970s, after the two Oil Crises. It does front the street, something Kunstler favors, but a more boring facade would be hard to imagine. Could such a building be remade?  

The American Red Cross did that with a similar ugly duckling downtown, at Cary and 5th Streets. Here's the after picture, a space less "dead" than the 4615 property, because it better honors the relationship to the spaces around it by connecting them (Kunstler 252). Admittedly, it is in an urban setting originally designed at the human scale for walking and horse-transit. Note the man actually walking.  

The area, with a nice view of the James River (this view from Google Street View faces away from the river) is safe to stroll but usually rather quiet. That may change as downtown attracts more residents, a trend well underway in Richmond now.