The critic Robert Venturi has referred to gas stations and other vernacular structures located along commercial strips as “decorated sheds.” His use of the name of a utilitarian, work-oriented structure suggests that sheds, barns, and other such structures are most importantly utilitarian; nevertheless, they also possess meaning that is based on a definable structural program. Buildings used in American agriculture possess clear structural forms, but their emphasis as work buildings also allows them to function as a material artifact of changes in the social and economic context of labor on the American farm. The agricultural landscape is a composite of many structures designed around the natural cycles of planting, harvest, and maintenance that define farm labor. Such component structures might include those designed for a specific animal (such as chicken houses), specific storage (milk houses or springhouses), limited processes (smokehouses, summer kitchens, sugarhouses, evaporators)...