Dallas Architectural Styles

Texas Modern and Eclectic Architecture

Great Architecture is a Cross Pollination of Ideas and Styles

Douglas Newby captures intertwining relationships of architects and architectural styles as they relate to the neighborhoods of Dallas. Buyers make a smarter purchase when they understand the relationship of a specific style to the neighborhood. There has not been an attempt in this section to reference every style or document every architectural event with a parallel expression in another city. It is left to you to recognize and explore the many similarities in your past or present environment. It is my feeling that if you are in the United States you will look upon these Dallas homes with fondness and sentiment as they recall influences from your surroundings. If you are from outside the United States you can be confident the homes shown here reflect the style and approach and success of the architecture found across North America.

Clifford D. Hutsell Homes in East Dallas Capture Spanish Colonial Style of California

Doug – thanks a million – the drumbeat for good design marches to your cadence.

Bryce Weigand
University Park Homeowner
Architect

Dallas Architecture

Dallas Eclectic Architecture

Before specialization, the best architects received the best commissions whether they were residential or commercial. As a result, some of the finest homes in Dallas were built in the first part of the twentieth century by architects known for their monumental commercial work. 

Texas Modern Architecture

David Williams best described the melding of modernism with the 1800s inspiration of the early pioneers that gives us Texas Modernism. He states in the 1931 April issue of Southwest Review, “There is not in any one of these homes built in the Southwest before 1850 an instance of imitation of foreign styles, of show, of striving for effect, of any use of unnatural, unnecessary ornament, or of material not structural and fit for its purpose. Their style is modern for it satisfies all the requirements of modern design and construction.”

Dallas Modern Architecture

The city was new with plenty of room for people and plenty of room for ideas. This is reflected in the modern architecture of Dallas. In the first half of the century, Dallas was being built, the architectural foundation laid, a sense of permanence desired.

Hi Doug,

I hope you are well.  I enjoyed your interview on 90.1 yesterday and appreciate that participation in these forums can have a profoundly positive effect for Dallas.

Michael McCarthy, AIA

Articles on Dallas Architecture and Dallas Architects

Elements of Style

The architectural style and history of Dallas is best expressed and understood through its neighborhoods and individual houses, not its commercial or public monuments.

Legacies: Seventy-Five Years of Texas Modernism in Dallas

One of the most compelling groups of houses to emerge from recent nominations for Dallas, 50 Significant Homes, was the Texas Modernist dwellings built over the last seventy-five years.

Dallas Modern: A Perspective on the Modern Movement in Dallas by Stephen Fox

As an architectural historian, I am always frustrated to read or hear that Dallas has no reason for being. This myth must have originated as a humorous acknowledgement of the extent to which human will and political intervention—especially regarding the routing of the Texas & Pacific Railway in 1872—accounted for Dallas’s startling emergence as Texas’s biggest city in the late 1880s.

Dallas, America’s Twentieth Century City

Dallas, more than any other city in the country, is defined architecturally by its twentieth century architecture. Virtually all of the existing homes in Dallas were built after 1900. American architecture has strong regional influences and Dallas is no exception.

Dallas Architecture: Dallas Eclectic Style

Architectural styles of Dallas in the first half of the twentieth century reflected the eclectic styles that swept the country. San Francisco and Dallas are the same age cities and they began with Victorian architecture. 

Dallas Architecture: Texas Modern Style

Regionalism is usually rooted in centuries of influence and historical precedence. In Dallas, regional or indigenous architecture was pursued simultaneously with the explosion of modern architecture in Europe.

Dallas Architecture: Dallas Modern Style

The city was new with plenty of room for people and plenty of room for ideas. This is reflected in the modern architecture of Dallas. In the first half of the century, Dallas was being built, the architectural foundation laid, a sense of permanence desired. 

My family and I recently spent almost three months in Dallas…Loved the people and the amazing architecture. Not looking to make a move from SC (Greenville) right now, BUT…maybe at some point down the road. Glad I discovered your wonderful site (and insight)!

Jim Simkins