During the six years of my architectural education the subject of comfort was mentioned only once . . . it was a curious omission from an otherwise rigorous curriculum; one would have thought that comfort was a crucial issue in preparing for the architectural profession, like justice in law, or health in medicine
This is not a book about interior decoration. It is not so much the reality of the home that is my subject as the idea of the home, and although history is here, it is the present that concerns me.
Witold Rybczynski, Forward, vii-viii
Read, in Home: A Short History of an Idea, by Witold Rybczynski
Chapter 1, Nostalgia, pp. 1-14
Chapter 2, Intimacy and Privacy, pp. 15 - 50
We make a distinction between the ideas house and home, though both describe the same space. Rybczynski's book is quite remarkable, in that the author explores one of our most basic cultural artifacts to explain its origin. As we'll see the ideas which form the basic American home comes from many different places and appear over a long period of time. The modern Western house usually dated to the invention of the chimney, which happens more recently than one might think: only a generation or so before the Pilgrims and Puritans venture to North America in the early 17th century.
We will need to understand something of Rybczynski's writing technique in order to get the most out of him. Unlike most scholarly authors, he doesn't at all hesitate to use the word I in his writings. He is not at all anonymous, and he shares not only his thoughts, but the processes by which he reaches them, as well. This is a rare privilege. I hope you'll enjoy it. I hope you will also use it in the writing you do for me.
Chapter I. Nostalgia
Writing nearly twenty years ago, Witold Rybczynski begins with a most unlikely character, the designer Ralph Lauren. Today, he could still use him to introduce the concept of nostalgia and the concept of comfort, but he would most likely include Martha Stewart in his list of examples. This chapter will introduce you to thinking about the conscious creation of images, and using imagery to "invent" traditions: creating, as it were, pasts which never were. How does one express Americanism in domestic building?
Click on the picture to the right to visit Martha Stewart's online catalogue. The furniture section will give you a good idea of her version of Americanism. Not every American dotes on her, however. Satirist Trystan L. Bass asks, "What if Martha Stewart were a Goth? To find the answer, click on the image below...if you dare.
Chapter II. Intimacy and Privacy.
Language is not just a medium, like a water pipe, it is a reflection of how we think.
Here, we'll learn that "comfort" like many other ideas, is a cultural invention. As Rybczynski will show us, it really has very little to do with questions of temperature or humidity. The distinction between house as place and home as place may actually relate most closely to the invention of the idea of comfort, and the application of this concept to the house
We can talk about some desires or needs we have as being "ends in themselves," and others as being "means to an end.” This will be the case in considering "privacy" and "intimacy." We usually think of privacy as being such a fundamental human need that it is hard to consider that its absence from early houses was not a problem arising from poverty or ignorance. People didn't seek what they didn't need. This may suggest that privacy isn't so much an "end in itself" as a means invented to achieve something else. This other thing is what Rybczynski calls intimacy, and most particularly, a kind of intimacy called stimmung. Make sure you understand the meaning of this word borrowed from the German. How do you create stimmung in your environment?
Albrecht D̀ürer's St. Jerome (left) and Antonello da Messina's stimmung-less version of the same Saint. (right). Do these pictures show the presence or absence of a sort of intimacy?.
Note, for example each Jerome is pictured reading, Which Jerome is really involved with his text? How can you tell?
Chapter 4 introduces us to the idea of comfort achieved through domestic furniture. The two terms, "Commodity," and "Delight" can roughly be equated with the ideas of functional and aesthetic qualities of things which furnish houses. An object demonstrates commodity if it accommodates itself to our needs, including our physiological needs. An object delights us if it maintains our interest and pleasure. About the time of the American Revolution we begin to expect our domestic furniture (at least some of it) to do both of these. Rybczynski suggests that in a world divided between "squatters" and "sitters" we need to be sure we don't assume one or the other of these postures is objectively superior to the other.
Internet Study Preparation Exercises:
1. Click on each of the chairs above and read about them. Then visit the Metropolitan Museum of Artsweb site. Locate the little magnifying class to open the search box and type in the name of a type of furniture (chair, easy chair, bed, sofa or something like that). Then when you find one that illustrates your ideas of commodity and delight, click on the image to go to the page which has additional information about that item. Save the url of that page to your resource folder. IF you find more than one thing or type, feel free to at the extra ones, as well.
2. Take the Virtual Reality Tour of the Hart Room, and consider the ways in which it does, and does not represent qualities we expect of modern domestic rooms. Note that you can explore the major elements of the room in detail by clicking on them.
Three American Arm Chairs
These Three Chairs represent a little over 100 years in the evolution of the easy chair. Knowing very little about furniture, it still should be a fairly simple task to place them in sequence of development. Try it. Which is earliest, which is latest, which is intermediary? What makes you think so?
Read, in Rybczynski,
Chapter 4, "Commodity and Delight," pp. 77 - 100
To date, we've seen how houses evolve from single roomed, semi-public affairs to multi-roomed structures which allow for intimacy through the creation of privacy, and we've located the origin of this idea in northern Europe, chiefly Scandinavia. We've also seen the feminization of domestic space occur, through innovations of the Dutch. This day we'll add a contribution to the American House, courtesy of the French.
It's only a shanty
in old Shanty Town
the roof is so slanty it touches the ground.
But my tumbled down shack by an old railroad track,
like a millionaire's mansion is calling me back.
I'd give up a palace if I were a king.
It's more than a palace, it's my everything.
There's a queen waiting there with a silvery crown
We’ve read in Jackson about the increasing role of women in and around the house in nineteenth century America. But this process began in Europe much earlier. The feminization of the home in seventeenth-century Holland was one of the most important events in the evolution of the domestic interior. This parallels the ideas we encountered in Borderland, suggesting the imprinting of feminine ideas on the suburban environment. You’ll find in Rybczynski that there is a parallel reason that this happens. This should reinforce the idea that parallel cultural experiences evoke parallel responses.
You have this illustration of De Witte's Woman Playing Virginal in your text. I thought you might like to see it in color to understand something of the richness of the composition
This interior shows some signs of feminization, . The grand scale of this rich merchant's house disguises that a bit.
Rybczynski suggests that we get our ideas of Privacy and Intimacy from the Scandinavians, who seem among the first to carve up larger spaces into smaller, more private, ones. If we are to believe him, domesticity--those characteristics which tell us that what we see is "home" not "office" other kinds of space, comes from the Dutch. We will see how the family structure in Holland influences both the rise in status of the kitchen and the use of certain specific types of decorative objects throughout the house. At least one of those visual cues or icons of domesticity appears on the Stonewall dormitories for just this reason.
Rybczynski suggests that part of feminizing the house was accomplished by taking the ordinary domestic objects associated with women's roles in the household, and transforming them from useful to decorative objects.
Associated with the rise of domesticity was the growth in popularity of the still life composition in painting..
Still life raised the stuff of ordinary living, such as food and its preparation, or flowers, into high art. Note how the compositions below glorify things associated with the role of woman as mistress of the house, including such ordinary things as cutlery and china. Click on the images to see larger copies.
