French
Architecture

French architecture swings from formal in the city to unfussy in the countryside. While almost all French architecture employs symmetry, the more relaxed aura of homes in the provinces — hence the term French Provincial — has made it an extremely popular style in American suburbs, especially in the 1920s and ’30s and again in the 1960s. The style is rooted in the manor homes, or chateaux, built by French nobles during the reign of Louis XIV in the mid-1600s. “Many Americans,” writes Dallas scholar Virginia Savage McAlester in her seminal book, A Field Guide to American Houses, “among them both architects and builders, served in France during World War I, and gained a firsthand familiarity” with houses in the French countryside. “During the following decade, the 1920s, Americans were entranced by France, having helped rescue it during the war.”