Lecture, three hours. Many historians consider single-family houses to be one of two most American contributions to world architecture (next to skyscrapers). Examination of this claim critically by placing single-family houses in broader context of varied dwellings built and occupied by residents of present-day U.S. over last 500 years, including both aesthetically ambitious houses and ordinary (or vernacular) ones, houses of indigenous groups and those of immigrants of many sorts, urban and rural houses, and single-family houses and multiple dwellings of all sorts. Offers ways to think about houses we occupy and to understand how they relate to major themes in history of American architecture. P/NP or letter grading.