Prairie School

a group of early 20th-century architects of the Chicago area who designed houses and other buildings with emphasized horizontal lines responding to the flatness of the Midwestern prairie; the best-known member was Frank Lloyd Wright.

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Group of architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, who created low-lying "prairie houses" in the U.S. Midwest с 1900–17.

Prairie houses were generally built of brick, wood, and plaster, with stucco walls and bands of casement windows. The Prairie architects emphasized horizontal lines by using low roofs with wide, projecting eaves. They discarded elaborate floor plans and detailing for flowing internal spaces organized around a central fireplace or hearth. The resulting low, spreading structures are characterized by light, crossing volumes and spaces; they reach out to nature, not to other buildings. Other architects working in the style included George Grant Elmslie (1871–1952) and Barry Byrne (1883–1967).

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