Make Up Post 2 – Keats + Suburbia

This semester we didnt really focus on how the inhabitant feels about home. Yes we’ve discussd how one functions, how one organizes and how one supervises in a home but not really the emoition behind it all. In a satirical narrative of the suburbian “Drons” shows even if skwered, the mental function of one in their home. Focus specifally on the woman, ‘homemaker’, brings a familiar voice to suburban displeasure. But the issues of privacy, reversion, competetion and communty are highlighted in relatable ways. With examples liek who has the latest grill and opening   of curtains show how the home creates person and not person creates home.

Make Up Post 1 – Temporality in Home

Communal Apartments and Squatter Housing

How is ho me viewed when it is an incosistent space? Is it possible to understand or identify home as a temporal spot? During the semester we’ve viewed home as a sound structure. We move in, we inhabit, we create and some how the home lives on. This is such a fixed perception. Really home is fluid and moving, for some literally. Communal living specifically in a squatter setting is an interesting part of temporal living. Going through change in home in a group is comforting. Perhaps the love of a community is cherishd in place of the feeling of love in your home.

Plunz readings

In the Plunz chapters Garden apartments and the move uptown were discussed. The idea of the garden apartment, another European idea New Yorkized for the middle class, seemed to work really well for the short period it could. The privacy and natural aspects are two things alot of city dwellers look for, myself especially. In a city like New York, now and fleeting at this time, nature is hard to find. Garden apartments provide a natural space that is not only still in  the city but in your building. Plunz says these apartments were able to be constructed because there was space at the time. Also developments in the city transit began to connect the far away places of Manhattan and the other boroughs close to each other. In these chapters Plunz talks about the move to other boroughs to garden apartments else where. Did Manhattaners have a stigma about out of city living at this time? Does the serenity of a garden help those who are not living in the concrete jungle?

This weeks readings dealt alot with public and private space in the home and community. More so than other pieces we’ve read so far, these readings really analyzed the culture of a community and how it translates into the dwelling, in design and life. Issues of class, gender and race were raised and defined through housing structure in these pieces. I found the Blackman article about 19th century antebellum NYC really interesting in contrast to the Groth article about YMCAs because of the two views of New York life offered. Blackman shows the progression of the upper middle class into high society. Viewing their homes as public but only for a select few and for certain purposes. The home was the new social networking site. Society people looked down on those living in tenant housing or boarding houses because they found the shared domestic space to be immature. But while reading Groth’s article about the YMCAs I saw a similarity in the social aspect of high society homes and boarding houses. YMCAs where places for young in transition people to find dependable cheap housing. People interacted with each other in a seeming similar networking way.

Response for 2/1/2010

These articles raise very interesting and vast definitions of home and space. What is home? the title of the section was certainly addressed by each author, some better than others. Overall each article described home as a space. How this space comes about and what someone does with this space is where the author’s descriptions vary. While reading the Heidegger piece I found myself really understanding and appreciating his break down of building and the transition between location, space and home. He also addressed dwellings, defining them by their purpose – shelter, which them becomes a space for man to dwell in and form a relationship with, thus dwelling. Simple and easy formula. The idea of the space existing independently of man and meaning until it is occupied is interesting to consider. This idea of man creating house and not house creating man or house is in opposition to parts of the Douglas piece.

In her article Douglass says a home, “makes time rhythms in response to outside pressures” with the example that a room would provide itself for use of storage as opposed to someone giving it that use. This distinction is small but I think I understand what she means. The rest of the article was a little one note. She stays in a definition of home being an authoritarian place to flee, to Lifetime to be a concrete definition.

My question comes from the Bell Hooks article. Hooks raised an important point of view in the relationship to homes when discussing black servitude in white households. How does one view and make home while they must work in someone else’s? Servants and maids know the homes of their employers better then them. They spend all day in the house taking care of it, do they form a homeplace relationship for the home they help to create but don’t actual live in? Is it even possible for them to feel connected to this place when the circumstance of their being there is so unfortunate?

In class discussion – home and dwelling

In class on the first day we discussed the difference between home and dwelling and what our definitions of each were. After reading so much already about these definitions my thoughts have changed because of the influence from our reading’s descriptions of home and dwelling. In class that day I came up with a few things that would separate a dwelling from a home. A dwelling is a place you live in, a personalized space, unique to the inhabitant that is meant for comfortable living. This is different that a home which can be physical or imaginary. Home is not just a location but also a feeling. It’s where you come from: house, family, friends, and city. Its there before you are, like a dwelling, but you adjust to it and make it yours as you grow. Home is where you come from and a dwelling is where you go.