Vernacular Architecture II: Folk Housing Types

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]welcome to the next unit of F 360 Indiana folklore and folk life in this unit we continue our discussion of vernacular architecture in Indiana last unit we talked about the problem of survival and the politics of cultural representation associated with log buildings in this lecture I talked about a few basic house types this of course is not a complete survey but rather a snapshot to think about the idea of typology they were the kinds of structures that were built in Indiana hope to someday teach a full course on vernacular architecture where we can focus on a range of types styles and functions of housing but for now that's beyond the scope of this module in this course first let's talk about the difference between types and styles of houses a type is a basic structure of a house think floor plan the style is more like the outer appearance of a building this unit focuses on house types how the buildings are as lived spaces the underlying structure of the building next lecture will be about styles last lecture we talked about the small log house that Bill Hardin and his wife lived in this little round log building would be an example of a single pin house in vernacular architecture scholarship a pin is a term used to refer to a room so a single pin house is a one-room house these type of buildings were once common but historical examples are really quite rare though they have received new attention with the rise of the tiny house movement recently the city of Kokomo discovered one of these one-room houses that had been added on to but the original structure was still surprisingly intact and was early in its construction perhaps the 1850s or so similarly down near the Ohio River in Newberg sits this small three hundred square foot brick house it's just one room it to survive from the early 19th century probably because it had been enclosed with additions in this picture it's been stripped in most of those additional layers and almost ready to be moved it was only noticed because of its age and because it was going to be torn down luckily the community rallied to save this tiny historic structure a single room is the smallest of structures and all other buildings are variations and additions to that basic building block of design the next type of house we'll talk about is a simple variation on that one-room house a double pin house two of the one-room houses built as one this double pin from Campbellsburg Indiana is a classic example it is easy to recognize it is one room deep and two rooms wide note the two front doors while the doors and other piercings such as windows can be accomplished in a variety of ways the two doors is common across Indiana and is often associated with German settlements in the state there's a lot of folklore that goes along with the two doors some have argued that the extra door was because it was bad luck to exit the same door you entered for example or that one door was for women and the other was for men I doubt both of these but the two doors has three practical uses that I can think of first they make the house visually symmetrical for most Hoosiers it just looked better second opening both doors provided better ventilation and finally having two doors could allow you to control access company could come into a more formal living area rather than entering into a bedroom do note that the two chimneys are on the exterior of the gable end or the pointy end this means if the house is heated with two fireplaces rather than one wood stove that would have been in the center the Roth house that we saw in our last unit is another double pin it too like the brick house has two front doors but notice the central chimney traditionally when it open house has a central chimney it's called a Saddleback house the two rooms are on both sides of the heart like a saddlebag both of these double pin houses are symmetrical balanced the size of one room is the same as the other however there is an old style of dwelling called a hall and parlor which is also a double pin house note the one large room in one smaller room the hall is not like a hallway but rather an old term to refer to a greater room while the parlor is the more personal intimate space the hall and parlor reflect an ancient way of living it is what could be heated around a hearth where food was prepared music was played and stories told it was organized in a way that was brought to the US by early European immigrants the shotgun house is another common way to build it adds rooms not side-by-side but rather in two end think of our two single pin houses that we looked at one you enter through the side of the house the other through the gable or pointing into the house the saddlebag and the hall and parlor houses are variations on the side entrance a shotgun house like this one from here in Bloomington is a variation on the gable end entrance shotguns are more traditionally associated with the south but the building structure was brought north with the migration of workers you find most of them in southern Indiana cities like this went down in Evansville but you'll also find them in urban areas like this Indianapolis neighborhood I have one more house type that I want us to consider it is the I house it is the basic double pin house but it adds a story so it is one room deep two rooms wide and two stories tall often they would have a central passageway place for the stairwell to go up to the second floor this would also aid in being able to make the house have a center door where people didn't enter directly into a room the number of windows and doors doesn't really matter it's the underlying structure not the piercings the I house gets its name because cultural geographer Fred Kniffin noticed this distinctive structure as he drove through the states of Illinois and Iowa Indiana it's actually found in a much wider geographic distribution but the name stuck when I was over in Franklin County for a few days I photographed a range of AI houses some had four windows and a door in front some had five windows and a door in front and some had six windows and two doors in front one even had ten windows and two doors in front but they all were what we would call an AI house just one room deep two rooms wide and two stories tall there are of course a range of other types to talk about but these are the basic building blocks of folk architecture in the state at least in the 19th century single pin double pin all in parlor shotgun and I house no one made people build in these ways this was just the repertoire in this lecture we've looked at the fundamental building structures in Indiana folk architecture learn to identify the single and double pin houses as well as the shotgun in a house in the next unit we'll talk about how styles if types are the underlying structure of the house style is the outward adornment