The first is that in the city’s early twentieth century industrialization, there was an emphasis, by those with money, on acquiring the “old world” status symbols of fine French and English furniture (that you’d done the “Grand tour”, shopping along the way), in combination with wanting to look back to a local buccolic past… that never was.

Those references, in domestic architecture, are still regarded by local agents, as more “sellable” than any modern period looks from the thirties forward.

From the sixties forward, a lot of “improved” (affordable) housing in rural Alabama has been of the “drop on site” variety – and until recently, most of those have also used designs that referred back to earlier periods as well.

I think that any local push to develop a local modern regional style has been hampered by a lack of local manufacturers with an eye – and some design training.

If there’s an post secondary art and design school in the state, I haven’t found it yet.