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摘要

The bungalow is a product of colonialism, as Anthony King showed in an excellent book many years ago. As a housing type, it was introduced by ex-colonials returning from India, and began its chequered history here. It was also re-exported to colonies and other countries that looked to Britain, including Australia, where it was reinvented in a variety of idioms. Sometimes it bumped up against indigenous versions of the single-storey house, as in Ireland, where the notion of adding upper storeys to ordinary dwellings had rarely been a consideration, save in a few urban centres. In colonies where there was a tabula rasa approach to the existing land and population, it offered a ready and consistent image of independence. For settlers in Australia, the bungalow soon became the norm and led to the Neighbours-style suburbs of cities like Melbourne and Sydney, though often with a carefully disguised basement or attic level slipped in that barely showed on the exterior.