Chad Randl

The story of A-frame Houses

As a graduate student in the Historic Preservation Planning program at Cornell University, Chad Randl found himself in search of a thesis topic. Leafing through old copies of Sunset, a home design and outdoor living magazine, he came across numerous plans for do-it-yourself homes in the shape of an A. Intrigued by the attention for this triangular building form, Randl embarked on research that eventually led to his critically acclaimed book A-Frame. Published in 2004, the book chronicles the cultural history of the pitched roof dwelling from prehistoric hut to lifestyle-changing leisure home in the post World War II-era.

After receiving his Master of Arts at Cornell, Randl became an architectural historian at the National Park Service in Washington, DC. In 2008, he published Revolving Architecture: A History of Buildings that Rotate, Swivel, and Pivot. This new book is packed with a variety of fantastic revolving structures, such as a jail that kept inmates under a warden's constant surveillance, glamorous revolving restaurants, tuberculosis treatment wards, houses, theaters, and even a contemporary residential building whose full-floor apartments circle independently of each other. 

His books and other research and writing explore the rise and fall of architectural ideas. Randl examines how varied cultural forces align to push a form, material, or concept from obscurity to the height of fashion and then often to widespread disfavor. These trajectories map flows of influence and interaction between so-called high design and architecture of the everyday, between the profession and the mass market. When followed to the present, they demonstrate how once discredited ideas are picked up and reinterpreted through current imperatives.