Month: October 2006

Perhaps not surprisingly considering how long it took America to develop a literature of its own, it was nearly the 20th century before American preferences began to show up in American homes:

The great American innovation in the home was to demand comfort not only in domestic leisure, but also in domestic work. Giedion makes the point that the organization of work in the home was well under way before mechanized tools became available. He should have added “in America,” for the introduction of efficiency and comfort into housework occurred first in that country. The earliest exponent of what would come to be called home economics was Catherine E. Beecher, who wrote A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School in 1841. Although it was concerned primarily with managing the household, this textbook also included a chapter “On the Construction of Houses.” Like her English contemporary Robert Kerr in The Gentleman’s House, Beecher emphasized the importance of health, convenience, and comfort in house planning, although she placed a good deal less emphasis on “good taste,” holding it to be “a desirable, though less important, item.”

Perhaps it’s not entirely coincidental that the American philosophy of
pragmatism was developing as Beecher was writing her treatise, for there seems to be several parallels between her ideas and theirs.

Considering our own recent trend towards larger homes, it’s interesting to note that Beecher advocated smaller homes than had previously been stylish:

Beecher’s obsession with reducing the size of the house was not simply a question of saving money though a small house always costs less to build than a large one. She was suggesting something different: that a small house, because it was easier to take care of and use, could be more comfortable than a larger one. The disadvantage of a large house, she wrote, was that “the table furniture, the cooking materials and utensils, the sink, and the eating room, are at such distances apart, that half the time and strength is employed in walking back and forth to collect and return the articles used. This appreciation for smallness was something that had disappeared from the domestic scene since the snug Dutch home. Its reappearance marked an important moment in the evolution of domestic comfort. In this, as in so many things, Beecher was ahead of her time, for the nineteenth century still associated comfort with spaciousness, and the idea of living in a reduced area would have been difficult for most people to accept. But it was only a question of time.

I know when I look at huge mansion-like homes I’m not at all envious, but, instead, wonder who has the time, or desire, to clean that big of a house. Surely, there must be better things to do. Of course, I’ve always considered a living room a waste of space and money considering how seldom it is used.

Although I find myself drawn to Frank Lloyd Wright, and other high-tech, homes, looking at the new homes that surround me suggests that Rybczynski is right when he argues that efficiency has become more important than design in modern homes:

This was where Le Corbusier parted company with the domestic engineers. He was still, in a sense, a nineteenth century architect, fighting the battle of the styles. That was what the New Spirit was all about a new style, a style suited to the twentieth century, a style for the Machine Age, a style for more efficient living. His was not simply a modern home, but a home that looked modern. He was right about the need for domestic efficiency, even if that was not always evident in practice, but he was wrong about its effect on the appearance of the home. Efficiency did not depend on what the interior of the home looked like, but on how work was organized within it. If the kitchen was planned according to the principles of scientific management, it really did not matter if the cupboards had colonial trim or flowered porcelain handles, just as long as things were in the right place and not too far apart. And if people felt more comfortable, and worked better, with patterned tiles or cheery curtains, well, that was efficiency too. It was not the absence of wallpaper and ogee trim that made a house “modern,” it was the presence of central heating and convenient bathrooms, electric irons and washing machines. Like most architects, Le Corbusier did not understand, or would not accept, that the advent of domestic technology and home management had put the whole question of architectural style in a subordinate position.

Obviously no one style has come to dominate the American home, but God help the architect who’s kitchen is too small, too inefficient, or too far from the serving area. No matter how beautiful a home may be, most Americans wouldn’t buy it if lacked adequate closet space.

When I read the Witold Rybczynski’s chapters entitled “domesticity� and “commodity and delight� I immediately identified with the Dutch definition of home because it dovetailed so nicely with my own definition of home:

The Dutch loved their homes. They shared this old Anglo Saxon word ham, hejm in Dutch with the other peoples of northern Europe.* “Home” brought together the meanings of house and of household, of dwelling and of refuge, of ownership and of affection. “Home” meant the house, but also everything that was in it and around it, as well as the people, and the sense of satisfaction and contentment that all these conveyed. You could walk out of the house, but you always returned home. The Dutch affection for their homes was expressed in a singular practice: they had elaborate scale models built of their houses. These replicas are sometimes inaccurately referred to as dollhouses. Their function was more like that of ship models, not playthings but miniature memorials, records of dearly beloved objects. They were built like cupboards which did not represent the exterior appearance of the house. But when the doors were opened the entire interior was magically revealed, not only the rooms complete with wall coverings and furnishings but even paintings, utensils, and china figurines.

It was quite late in my life before I ever identified with a particular “house,� but I’ve always identified with this definition of home, particularly when you accompany it with the other characteristics the Dutch admired:

It is precisely because Holland’s scrubbed floors and polished brasswork did not reflect a profound understanding of health or hygiene that they are significant. The cleanliness of the Dutch interior was not simply a part of the national character, nor a response determined by external causes, but evidence of something much more important. When visitors were required to take off their shoes or put on slippers, it was not immediately on entering the house the lower floor was still considered to be a part of the public street but on going upstairs. That was where the public realm stopped and the home began. This boundary was a new idea, and the order and tidiness of the household were evidence neither of fastidiousness nor of a particular cleanliness, but instead of a desire to define the home as a separate, special place.

Though I’ll have to admit I often got in the way of my mother’s attempts to keep our house spotless, it wouldn’t have been home otherwise. We lived in some pretty shabby neighborhoods when I was growing up, but our house was always spotless, or at least it was once my mother had cleaned up after me or gotten me to clean up after myself. If cleanliness is really next to godliness, my mother was a real saint.

Add that to the Dutch belief that:

… the kitchen was the most important room; according to one historian, “the kitchen was promoted to a position of fantastic dignity and became something between a temple and a museum.â€? Here were located the cupboards that held the prized table linens, china, and silver. Copper and brass utensils, brightly polished, hung on the walls. The chimney piece was enormous and elaborately decorated overly so to modern tastes and contained not only he hearth with the traditional hanging pot, but also a simple kind of stove. The sink was copper, sometimes marble. Some kitchens had interior hand pumps (one is visible in de Witte’s painting) and even reservoirs with a continuous supply of hot water. The presence of such amenities signified the growing importance of domestic work and the premium that was beginning to be placed on convenience. This was natural. For he first time, the person who was in intimate contact with housework was also in a position to influence the arrangement and disposition of the home. Servants had to put up with inconvenient and ill thought out arrangements because they had no say in the matter. The mistress of the house, particularly when she was as independent minded as the Dutch woman, did not.

and it would be hard to find a closer definition of my idea of home. My fondest memories of childhood are centered in the kitchen. No matter how boke we were, we ate well, even if most of the food came from our fishing and gardening. My grandmother had worked as a cook for several years before getting married, and she passed her best recipes down to my mother. Nothing says love more clearly than blackberry pies, even if picking the small berries meant fighting garter snakes off with a stick while fighting your way through blackberry brambles.

I acquired my love of homegrown, natural, foods from my dad and my appreciation of fine cooking from my mom:

The notion that what is artless must be better than what is not requires a precarious leap in reasoning, but for all that it carries great weight with the American public at least judging from the dozens of advertisements that extol “being natural.” It is a shallow conceit. A little reflection shows that all human culture is artificial, cooking no less than music, furniture no less than painting. Why prepare time consuming sauces when a raw fruit would suffice? Why bother with musical instruments when the voice is pleasant enough? Why paint pictures when looking at nature is satisfying? Why sit up when you can squat?
The answer is that it makes life richer, more interesting, and more pleasurable. Of course furniture is unnatural; it is an artifact. Sitting is artificial, and like other artificial activities, although less obviously than cooking, instrumental music, or painting, it introduces art into living. We eat pasta or play the piano or sit upright out of choice, not out of need. This should be emphasized, for so much has been written about the practicality and functionality of (particularly modern) furniture that it is easy to forget that tables and chairs, unlike, for example, refrigerators and washing machines, are a refinement, not a utility.

Though I would argue that nothing could taste better than a couple of ears of corn picked fresh in the garden, a plate full of freshly sliced garden tomatoes and cucumbers, and a small steak; I still love chicken simmered in a complex mole sauce or Thai beef salad dressed with fresh mint, cilantro, fish sauce, and lime juice. What could be better than eating great food in a beautiful, harmonious environment?