Reading Response 27th April

The recurring idea of encouraged or sometimes manufactured communities in this weeks readings was very interesting to me.  The Spencer Wood’s piece  ”Their World Their Household” addressed this idea on a number of levels but the part which I found most fascinating that which discussed the community cooperatives and kitchenless households.  She writes that these were “experimental neighborhoods of kitchenless houses with central cooperatives”(172).  The lack of a kitchen in these homes forced the residents to eat in the central dining room, increasing the chance of interaction between neighbors.

A similar idea is explored in John Leland’s “A Prefab Utopia’, which examines the BoKlok housing in Sweeden.  These L shaped dwellings were designed in such a way to “force greater contact among building residents”(391).  One individual states that “The BoKlok idea is that you have to be as close to your neighbors and have dialogue”(391).  

This insistence of interaction between neighbors is something I find quite strange.  Frequent meetings with your neighbors is all well and good provided you get along, but what might happen if neighbors were to have a falling out, yet the design of the residential area made it almost impossible for them to avoid each other?  Is this kind of forced communal atmosphere really healthy for a neighborhood and does the neighborhood lose anything of great worth when it does not exist?

Reading Responses

I found John Turner’s “Squatter settlement – An architecture that works” very interesting. It captured the importance for many of the process of personalization in order to make a house a home.  Turner’s comparison between the experience of living in the primitive surroundings of a squatter and the banal, generic modern home made me think about one’s priorities for homemaking.  He writes that “plastered masonry walls and ceilings [and]… modern kitchens and bathrooms…are extremely costly items and, unless furnished properly, their naked dinginess is often alien and unattractive while the honestly poor shack is often personal and warm” (313).  For me, this raises the question as to what is more appealing when setting up a home; cleanliness, organization and well functioning appliances or personalized, self-expressive decoration.

Alice Gray Read’s “Making a home in Philadelphia neighborhood” also touches on similar subjects.  She describes the emptiness of a home that is void of human interaction, writing “an unoccupied house exists in the same strange void of meaning as an empty theatre”(326) claiming that without human presence it is “anonymous and mute”(326).  The process of decoration and personalization is almost as much a passive procedure as it is a deliberate decision.  The reflection of the resident in the aesthetics of the home as a result of both planning and the mere process of living in the home is summed up by Read when she writes that “Only when it is touched by an owner, lived in, and made over inside and out does it begin to bear the identity of its occupants”(327).

Keats

John Keat’s “The Crack in the Picture Window” creates a harrowing image of a young family struggling to realize its hopes of a happy family home in the California Cape Cod Rambler community.  What I found most interesting about this was the sacrifice that the Drones were willing to make in order to make the transition from apartment life to life in a house.  According to Keats, John Drone “didn’t make that much money in a month, and they were able to save nothing but perhaps by relentless economy, by borrowing from Mary’s mother, they could scrape together the settlement fee”(274).  The cost of this house undoubtedly created a great economical strain for the Drones.  Once they moved to the apartment, family life became completely segregated with John working all day and Mary leaving the house at night to socialize with the other women.  The Drones only rented this house and so the psychological impact of being a “home-owner” would not have influenced their decision.  Is there a psychological impact that comes with living in a house as opposed to living in an apartment that could compel families to put themselves under this strain in order to raise their family in a house?

Clarke & Heathcott readings

I found Clarke’s “The Aesthetics of Social Aspiration” really interesting.  In her exploration of the three different households I was intrigued by her discussion of both gender roles and public perception of the home.  Is it in some way stereotypical that she analyzed each different household through the mother/female character or is this just perhaps the most convenient way of approaching the situation seeing as how the women in question typically spend more time in the home than the men.  I found it very interesting how each household attempted to “fit in” with the relevant social norms of London, and to reflect this in the interior of their home when it was noted that the occurrence of guests visiting the houses was rare.

Heathcott’s “Reading the accidental archive” drew upon similar ideas of attempts to adhere to social norms and impress the “other.”  This becomes particularly evident after the war when the Aufderheide’s aimed to demonstrate an American allegiance, and even St Louis attempts to detach itself from German culture by reverting to American names of streets in favor of German names.  This leads me to question how influencial the idea of “the other” is when it comes to making decisions about our homes.  How big a weight do we place on how others will perceive us from the way in which we decorate our home?

Response to readings March 1st

In Susan R. Henderson’s “A Revolution in the Woman’s Sphere” she writes that through the evolution of technology in the kitchen “the private patriarchy represented by the family was gradually given over to a public patriarchy dominated by industry and government” (252).  I found this idea very interesting.  Yes, these advancements in appliances and the kitchen enhanced the ease at which one could operate within the home, but it also reinforced the stereotype of the woman as the housewife.  I struggle to decide whether Lihotzky’s developments had a positive or negative effect on society and the home.

Walter Gropius’s piece “Program for the funding of a general housing-construction company” discusses the differences between contractors and architects, weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of each on the building of a home.  At one point he expresses that “the prototypes built by the contractors in accord solely with economic considerations are immature and technically as well as aesthetically bad and therefore inferior in quality to houses whose components are still produced by hand” (238).  Though he admits that this process of craftsmanship is too expensive for many to be a realistic option, I wonder if we are willing to sacrifice time and money in order to create the ideal home for ourselves?  At what lengths will one go in order to ensure that their home is truly “perfect” for them?

Rich & Poor – Week 5 Reading Response

In the third chapter, Rich and Poor, of Richard Plunz’s A History of Housing in New York City, Pulz creates an image of extreme poverty in New York City in the 1800s, through descriptive depiction’s of the primitive housing situations of many of the city’s inhabitants.  With the modernization of technology the gap between the rich and poor widened and the poor were left living in the cellars, tenements and squatters in the shadows of the rich man’s high rise apartment.  In New York City today, do you think that the gap between the rich and poor is still as extreme or has the standard of living reached a more equal basis across the board?

Week 4 Response

In Elizabeth Collins Cromley’s piece “Alone Together” she discusses the physical structure of the Stuyvesant Apartments, a block of French flats in the lower East side of New York, and how the aesthetics of these buildings were suggestive of the activities behind the walls. She writes  ”Through its incomplete match with ordinary and private houses and other familiar dwelling forms, the building’s style hinted at unusual uses within.”  This leads me to question just how much can we tell of the activities that preside within a household just from looking at the exterior?

Elizabeth Blackmar’s “The Social Meaning of Housing, 1800 – 1840″ raised many interesting points about the idea of home.  The description of home that I find most striking in this piece comes in the second paragraph in which she states that “home is a place that exists primarily in imagination or in memory.”  When people talk about being homesick or nostalgic about their home, the desire is often to return to that physical place where home exists.  But does this suggestion that home is primarily something of the imagination or memory expresses the idea that the psychological experience of remembering home can be more comforting than actually returning to the physical place of home?

In “The American Front Porch”, Beckham repeatedly refers to the front porch as a “liminal space.”  One of the things that I found most interesting in this piece was Beckham’s statement that “The rules that apply to relationships and behavior in the structured environment on either side of the liminal space do not apply within it.” The fact that social norms could be ignored in this one space is fascinating.  As the popularity of the structure of the front porch declines, is there any other structure within the home that could potentially act in the same way as the porch – bridging the gap between public and private, allowing for exceptions from what is socially acceptable?

The discussion of the Hannah’s actions at the window in “Excavation and Reconstruction” I found interesting. She “watched the goings-on of the people along Second Avenue” and the window became “her portal to the outside world.”  This echoes the idea of the porch as a bridge between the intimacy of the home and the publicity of society.  There is more detachment from society in sitting at the window than at the porch, as the window acts as a physical barrier.  Hanna’s elevated view places her in the position of watcher rather than participant.  I find it intriguing that the act of sitting at the window is one of solitude, where Hanna removes herself from the activities within the home, whereas sitting on the porch is a communal activity, one in which all members of the home are expected to partake.

Reading Responses Week 2

The Idea of Home – Mary Douglas

In “The Idea Of Home” Douglas presents the home as the control of a space. This relates to the idea of possession and control that comes with the psychology of homeownership.  The time schedule of the house, the food that is bought and cooked within it, and the language and speech that occurs are all dictated by the specific dwellers of each home.  Douglas does however descibe the home as a place of  “scrutiny and control” for young people, due to the fact that they come lower on the hierarchical ladder that exists within a home.  Taking this into consideration, is it easier to feel at home in the place where one grew up, and was somewhat detached from decision making though surrounded by familiarity and memories, or a place where one creates and designs the rule of that home community?

Homeplace  (A Site of Resistance) – Bel Hook

Bell Hook describes the home as a place of escapism for black women.  In their own homes black women assume a role of power and authority that they are deprived of in society.  I find it interesting that a woman can be a servant in one home, and the rule maker in another.  Hook’s portrayal of the home as a place where black women “heal [their] wounds and become whole” (Hook, 71) epitomizes the idea of escapism.

 The racial hierarchy that exists in the house of the white person that Hook discusses mirrors that of society.  In the black person’s house however, black women gain authority that does not exist outside the walls of that home.  Do the walls of a house alter the cultural norms of a society?  Are there exceptions to social norms when out of the public eye?