Constructing the American home: The rhetoric of domestic architecture.

摘要

This project explores how the American family home constitutes people amenable to life in an industrialized capitalist democracy. It poses the question: What is the rhetoric of domestic architecture ? My analysis examines the socioeconomic context out of which particular home types emerge, the underlying ideologies of their architects or builders, the structure and design of the homes themselves, and the popular press coverage the homes received. These elements function synergistically to cultivate and reinforce particular subject types.; My central point is that the physical structure of a home is itself a rhetorical document subject to interpretation, and that interpretive process is informed by contextual, ideological, and promotional forces. The project examines three domestic architecture case studies: the industrial town of Pullman, Illinois (1880–1894); the mail-order bungalows of the Arts and Crafts movement (1906–1932); and the post World War II Levittown developments (1947–1960). Each case study was selected because of its architectural notoriety and its significant role in shaping future domestic architectural forms and rhetorics.; Despite their differences, all three case studies emerged from remarkably similar ideologies to constitute subjects tailored to particular historical moments in American capitalism. Pullman, Illinois, was designed to constitute a docile and loyal worker who would steer clear of labor organizers. The mail-order bungalows of the Arts and Crafts movement; focused attention instead on workers' psychic fulfillment and personal expression. The homes of Levittown functioned to produce domesticated, upwardly mobile consumers who believed firmly in the viability of the American Dream. As this study illustrates, the case-study houses themselves exhibit important structural and design similarities. Likewise, American domestic architecture has historically been characterized more by continuity than by discontinuity. It argue that the similarities and differences between American domestic architectural forms are both rhetorical and structural in nature. The case-study homes were rhetorically framed in subtly different ways through prevailing ideologies, social conditions and press coverage. These factors, in combination with the ways the homes arranged space for human use, contributed to the rhetorical constitution of subtly different subjects. Nevertheless, all of the homes were supported by a unifying rhetoric about American work, consumption and identity.