'Individuality' and the standardised house: the display home interiors of Australian builder Pettit & Sevitt, 1961-1978

摘要

Pettit & Sevitt was a highly successful "project home" builder that operated in Australia during the 1960s and 1970s. The company specialised in the production of standardised architect-designed homes, targeted at the upper end of the homebuy-er market. This paper examines the sophisticated marketing strategies adopted by Pettit & Sevitt that centred on the principle of "individuality". It is argued that in order to reconcile this principle with its standardised product, Pettit & Sevitt attempted "a complex blurring of the edges" between the "real" and the "ideal". Pivotal to this strategy was the design and detailing of the builder's display home interiors.