Jacobs First House
Madison, WI 1936
The Jacobs House is recognized as the first of Wright’s Usonian houses. It incorporates the most basic forms and materials to create elegant but minimalist design for a family of ordinary means, a response to economic and social conditions during the Great Depression. Here Wright first used his “sandwich-wall” construction: interior and exterior layers of horizontal pine board with a vertical pine board core. A cantilevered carport, the first that Wright designed, projects from the 1,550-square-foot house. The walls are largely solid except for bands of clerestory windows. In the living room full-height glazed doors open onto a garden terrace to create a sense of flow between indoors and out. The house is privately owned and open selectively for public tours.
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