, Design Museum, London, to 24 March 2019
ACCORDING to a of London property, a unit in posh Kensington costs 拢19,500 per square metre. Renting in central London isn鈥檛 broadly affordable either, with 拢1000 a month paying for less space than you would get in a three-person tent.
As housing prices reach similar heights in big cities from New York to Hong Kong, the latest exhibition at London鈥檚 Design Museum couldn鈥檛 be more timely. Home Futures showcases futuristic visions of domestic efficiency from the 20th century, exploring ideas about minimal living and nomadism through a broad selection of architectural models, design prototypes and associated drawings.
Advertisement
While the layout is somewhat cluttered and the historical background insufficient in both the show and its catalogue, the artefacts on display more than outweigh these weaknesses. Together, the materials create an important context for assessing present solutions to housing problems, and grounds for imagining radical change.
Designers have typically made housing more efficient by shrinking the living space and using technology to enhance the environment. These processes, often linked, are well represented in Home Futures, particularly through innovations dating from the 1950s to the 1970s. At the 1956 Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition, for instance, British architects presented the , to be mass-produced in plastic. At the time, the polymer shell had yet to be invented so it was simulated using glossy paint, but the Smithsons reckoned their creation would eventually be inexpensively delivered to a construction site in a single piece, saving labour while providing a low-maintenance interior.
The House of the Future was also efficient in its allocation of floor space, which could be kept clear by sliding appliances into wall cubicles. Because only a few appliances would be needed at a time, the total footprint could be reduced without impacting the occupants鈥� quality of life.
Nevertheless, the Smithsons鈥� home was only an incremental development because it still conformed to mid-century expectations. It was merely an optimised (or sterilised) version of the single-family unit.
鈥淭he House of the Future from 1956 could be kept clear by sliding appliances into wall cubicles鈥�
By the late 1960s, especially in Italy, designers no longer felt constrained by such bourgeois conventions. Joe Colombo, one of the cleverest designers on show, considered efficiency from the standpoint of extreme minimalism. How little did one person need? How tightly could everything be packed so only the desired furnishings occupied the limited open space?
He reduced domestic life to four foldable units 鈥� living quarters, kitchen, bathroom, cupboard 鈥� which, he said, would be in 鈥渁 continual state of transformation, so that a cubic space smaller than the conventional norm can鈥� be exploited to the maximum鈥�. Each unit was a feat of domestic origami. For example, the living quarters fitted bed, wardrobe, desk, bookshelves and an entertainment centre into a box covering 28 square metres.
Colombo鈥檚 fellow Italian Ettore Sottsass took an equally radical approach by conceiving a home of interchangeable modules. Uniformly scaled and generically styled, each unit contained an essential appliance or piece of furniture 鈥� such as a stove or a desk 鈥� and inlets so wiring and plumbing could be reconfigured. Homes could be completely modified to meet changing needs.
Neither project got beyond prototypes and plans. But ultracompact living is now common in major cities, where micro-flats are designed to maximise profit for absentee landlords. In other words, extreme spatial efficiency has traction (as does the use of plastics forecast by the Smithsons). What is lacking now becomes evident when you consider the motivations for minimalism in the 1960s and the 1970s.
Both Colombo and Sottsass wanted to break with the past because they saw domesticity as a form of enslavement in which the home 鈥減ossessed鈥� its residents. By folding away appliances and furnishings, or reducing them to mobile infrastructure, the designers sought to put the experience of living first. Seeing their idealism today is a step towards re-establishing minimalism as a humanising pursuit rather than as a late-capitalist survival tactic.
Of course, countercultural utopianism can easily be twisted into marketing copy, so the curators are smart to include darker visions from the past. Several of these address a favourite alternative to micro-housing: elective nomadism.
The most sinister-looking project is . Designed in 1964 by architect Ron Herron of the British collective , this multi-legged robotic metropolis is a harbinger of civic irresponsibility in an age of Airbnb: a civilisation that makes a mess and then escapes.
The Supersurface, created by the Italian collective Superstudio in 1971, is more nuanced. In video and photocollage, they represented a planet devoid of buildings and personal possessions 鈥� 鈥渓ife without objects鈥�, they called it 鈥� in which people would roam freely and everything material would be replaced with 鈥渁 network of energy and information鈥�.
Foreshadowing the internet and augmented reality (if not the border controls of Trump and Brexit), the Supersurface simultaneously realises human potential and dehumanises its inhabitants. This ambivalence is fair warning for 2018, when the need for better living conditions must be carefully weighed against unintended consequences, such as encouraging cramped living and maximising landlords鈥� profits.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淣o place like home鈥�
