A new approach placing American architecture in its social and cultural context

American Architecture is astonishingly varied. From Indian sites in New Mexico and Arizona, and the ancient earthworks of the Mississippi Valley, to the most fashionable contemporary buildings of Chicago and New York, the United States boasts three thousand years of architectural history. It is characterized by the diversity of its builders and consumers who include Native American men and women, African, Asian, and European immigrants, as well as renowned professional architects and urban planners.

Dell Upton`s revolutionizing interpretation examines American architecture in relation to five themes: community, nature, technology, money, and art. In giving particular attention to indigenous, folk, ethnic and popular architectures like Chaco Canyon, Brooklyn suspension bridge, and native American houses, as well as to the great monuments of traditional histories such as Jefferson`s Monticello and Wright`s Fallingwater, Architecture in the United States reveals the dazzling richness of America`s human landscape.

Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Map
1. An American Icon (Monticello/The Ordinariness of Architecture/The Domestic Community/Host and Hermit/Design/Consumption/Rethinking the Landscape/The Republican House/The New American House/Heirs of Monticello)
2. Community (Authority/Metaphors/Citizenship/Ancestral Homelands/Cultural Authority/Community/Communities)
3. Nature (Neoclassical and Romantic Nature/Country Life/Place/The Primitive/The Simple Life/Act Naturally)
4. Technology (Work/Ventilation/Gender, Sex and Filth/The Technological Sublime/Producers and Consumers/Consuming Architecture)
5. Money (The Political Economy of Architecture/Proximity/System and Flow/The Social Life of Work/The Public Life of Business/The Moral Authority of Capitalism/The Spatial Economy of Consumption/Consuming Architecture/Housing Non-Consumers)
6. Art (Architects and Builders/Why Architects/Architecture as a Business/Architecture and Social Class/Style/Architect as Artist/Styles of the Self/Who is an Architect/Beyond Art)
Bibliographic Essay
Timeline
List of Illustrations
Index