“Little Red School House,What Now?” Two Centuries of American Public School Architecture

Abstract

This article examines two centuries of public school architecture in the United States with attention to the relationship between architectural form and reformist educational philosophy. Building types reviewed include the one-room schoolhouse, the metropolitan school at 1900, the early twentieth-century suburban school, and the late twentieth-century urban school. The siting, building plan, and exterior articulation of both ideal plans and built structures are reviewed as evidence of the expectation and realities of the public school as a democratic institution.