The Place of Home: English domestic environments, 1914-2000

by Ravetz; Alison

• ISBN13: 9780419179801
• ISBN10: 0419179801
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-09-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

A comprehensive and in-depth history of the 20th century English home, how it has been created, and how it works for people. It focuses on the various influences bearing on the development of domestic space since 1914 and covers both design and housing policy. Current debates from participation to co-operative housing are examined and several themes not previously brought together are linked, e.g. urban development/house design; technology at home/women and home; social meaning of home.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
Introduction: The Context	1	(17)
The Suburban Home	18	(23)
The suburban home in its context	18	(3)
The speculative suburban house	21	(2)
The suburban council house	23	(3)
Suburban estates between the wars	26	(3)
The postwar family house	29	(7)
Postwar estates and suburbs	36	(5)
Flats and Maisonettes	41	(20)
The origins of the English flat	41	(2)
Middle-class flats after 1914	43	(1)
Flats for special groups	44	(2)
Council flats to 1939	46	(3)
Council flats after 1945	49	(2)
The high-rise estate	51	(1)
Living in flats	52	(9)
The Survival of the Pre-1914 House	61	(19)
The English terraced house	61	(2)
The social function of terraced housing: control of private renting	63	(3)
Uncrowding the slums	66	(3)
Unfit for human habitation	69	(5)
Improvement of the older houses	74	(3)
The pre-1914 house in its neighbourhood	77	(3)
At Home in `Homes': Institutional Living	80	(16)
People without homes	80	(4)
The postwar homeless	84	(2)
From workhouse to residental Home	86	(1)
From residential care to `care in the community'	87	(3)
From common lodging house to hostel	90	(3)
Homes in `Homes': contradictions of institutional living	93	(3)
Self-Help and Alternative Housing	96	(23)
Prefabricated houses	96	(2)
Nomadic housing	98	(4)
Residential caravans and mobile homes	102	(3)
Self-help housing: shacks and plotlands	105	(1)
Self-help housing: self-build	106	(3)
Squatting	109	(3)
Housing co-operatives and alternative communities	112	(4)
The significance of self-help housing	116	(3)
The Technology of the Home	119	(30)
Technology and the domestic interior	119	(3)
Fuel and power	122	(1)
The coal-fired house	123	(3)
Gas and electricity in cooking and space heating	126	(1)
Central heating	127	(1)
Daylighting	128	(3)
Artificial light	131	(2)
Water	133	(1)
Baths and hot water	134	(4)
Sanitation	138	(2)
The changing technology of the home: `white goods'	140	(2)
Telecommunications and the automated home	142	(2)
The energy-conscious home and the self-sufficient home	144	(2)
Domestic technologies at the end of the century	146	(3)
Rooms	149	(27)
The evolution of the house interior: cultural codes	149	(2)
Space in the home	151	(2)
The scullery and kitchen	153	(3)
The parlour	156	(1)
The contributions of the interwar semi	157	(2)
The downstairs after 1945	159	(2)
The Parker Morris house	161	(2)
The upstairs	163	(2)
The changing interior: space and function	165	(2)
The changing interior: users' contributions	167	(3)
Users' contributions: furnishings	170	(6)
Gardens and External Space	176	(24)
The origins of the modern domestic garden: the vernacular gardening tradition	176	(2)
The origins of the modern domestic garden: the Victorian suburban garden	178	(2)
The forecourt and the front garden: the Edwardian house	180	(1)
Tidy and `twee': the interwar front garden	180	(3)
The erosion of the front garden	183	(1)
The backyard and allotment garden	184	(1)
The `home gardener': back gardens in the interwar years	185	(2)
The interwar garden: preference and popularity	187	(2)
The war years: `dig for victory'	189	(1)
The postwar years: from the `minimum' to the `patio' garden	190	(5)
The side of the house	195	(2)
The garden and external space in the twentieth-century home	197	(3)
The Changing Experience of Home	200	(25)
House and home: housing progress and housing users	200	(1)
Residential movement	200	(2)
Residential movement and `community'	202	(3)
Why people moved	205	(1)
Attitudes to the home	206	(2)
Users' contributions to the home: housekeeping	208	(3)
Care of people in the home: meals and hospitality	211	(3)
Other forms of care giving in the home	214	(2)
The contributions of housework to the home	216	(3)
The postwar housewife and the division of household labour	219	(1)
`Women's liberation' and the time spent on housework	220	(4)
The further reaches of the home in the twentieth century	224	(1)
Bibliography	225	(12)
Abbreviations and Measurements	237	(2)
Index	239