For the next week, I’m working on a study and proposal to analyze vernacular architecture building forms in Detroit and prototype ideas on how to preserve those forms (without necessarily restoring the entire home). The following is a preview of an analysis of my first Case Study Structure, a duplex house in Hamtramck (above).
As the railroad network expanded throughout North America, it became easier to process and ship lumber. Folk and vernacular architectural styles and materials became less regional and more standardized as home building processes become standardized. As new towns and neighborhoods cropped up in the American Midwest and west, the demand for cheap, easy-to-construct housing grew. Large home manufacturers began to produce “kits” and sent out catalogue with illustrations, floor plans and the explicit cost for these homes. Advertised as “Built in a Day,” the company would send all the lumber and parts needed to construct a home to the local railway stop. This resulted in the growth of popular neighborhoods along railway stops. These “streetcar suburbs” had narrow lots, favoring short walks from the nearest streetcar and railway stop. Kit homes were the preferred suburban housing method from 1900-1940; post-war development, aided by the Federal Housing Administration, favored large tract development.
The most common of these manufactures were Sears-Roebuck, but there were other kit-home manufacturers as well. The Aladdin Home Company out of Bay City, Michigan, pioneered kit-home manufacturing, beginning operations in 1906. Their home models can be seen throughout South-Eastern Michigan, including Detroit and streetcar suburbs like Ferndale and Royal Oak. The 1917 catalogue has plans and illustrations of many vernacular styles including craftsman, prairie four-square, colonial revival, simple shot gun homes and duplexes, “ideal for urban dwelling.”
The majority of Hamtramck housing stock was built between 1910 and 1920, when the population increased from 3,500 to 48,000. Most of these “workers houses” were duplexes, constructed in a vernacular style similar to those found in plan books by Aladdin Company.
Other Detroit neighborhoods developed between 1900-1920 include housing in this style, in both duplex and single forms. These neighborhoods include the North End, Corktown (later infill), Woodbridge, Poletown, Hubbard Farms, and West Village; neighborhoods developed in a 3-4 mile radius from downtown during Detroit’s first housing boom.
The National Railroad Folk homes are architectural examples of the great transportation and manufacturing innovations taking place at the turn of the century. The popularity and successes of pre-cut and processed lumber and “balloon framing” (framing using 2×4 studs, stills and nails, and uses less lumber than previous construction methods) meant that these homes could be constructed cheaper and easier than previously. The standardization of transporting materials created similar styles of structures throughout the United States, and the architectural details lack few regional variations.
The auto industry’s growth attracted thousands of immigrants from the states and abroad to move to Detroit. Relatively high manufacturing wages and inexpensive land prices lead to obtainable home ownership for the majority of Detroiters. These homes are indicative of the both the economic, transit and architectural innovations that helped solidify the connection between middle-class wealth and home ownership in America.
The asymmetrical design of the house, with most of the visual emphasis resting on the right tower of bay windows, is a direct reference to the popular Queen Ann Victorian style constructed around 1880-1900. While this house was probably constructed after the Queen Ann style became less popular and contemporary to Hamtramck’s housing boom in the 1910’s, some elements remained fashionable.
The most striking Victorian element of the Hamtramck Duplex is the bay window. The bay window grew in popularity with the Queen Ann style of Victorian homes in the late 1800’s. Urban kit homes, like Aladdin’s “The Elliot,” advertised the floor plan description’s emphasis on light and air flow, a reaction to crowded urban tenements and the Victorian idea that access to light and fresh air improved public health. The inclusion of a bay window increased light and airflow throughout the narrow flat, and opened up the floor plan without drastically increasing the footprint of the house.
The wide eaves on the front gable and heavy brick columns suggest both Queen Ann elements and the burgeoning Craftsman style. This element suggests a transitional architectural period between the elevated drama and ornamentation of the Victorian style, and the simplicity and earth-hugging Craftsman. While the soaring gable indicates the presence and airiness of a Victorian home, the wide eaves and thick brick columns indicate a new taste for the horizon lines of a Craftsman home, with weighty elements rooting the structure to the ground.
The duplex form references a solution for the rapid expansion of American industrial cities and the increasing taste for individual homes rather than apartment buildings. The very American belief in the morality of home ownership has its roots in the industrial revolution and the expansion of cities. The Progressive belief that the overcrowding of cities increased all manner of sin including crime, prostitution, alcoholism and the spread of disease, also touted individual home and landownership as the moral solution for the sins of tenement houses. In a city like Hamtramck, built thick with ideas about the morality of hard work, the duplex form carefully bridged the divide between the practical need to conserve space, and the idealism of home ownership. By the mid 1920’s, 78% of Hamtramck residents owned their homes.
The addition of the aluminum porch and Islamic archway suggest the changes in construction and Hamtramck’s demographics in the post-war period. The original construction of the house likely had a wooden porch, but it was probably replaced later with aluminum in the late 1940’s. The archway brick is slightly different than the column and foundation brick, which suggests it too was added later. The color and style of the banding of the arch references Islamic motifs and was probably added later as Hamtramck’s population shifted from majority polish immigrants to Bangladeshi and Middle Eastern immigrants. Many practice Islam, and there is an Islamic Mosque in the city. Similar cultural references in architectural additions and retrofits can be seen in the ethnic enclaves of South West Detroit (Hispanic population) and Dearborn (Middle Eastern immigrants).