Current issue:

Number 2 :“From the house of the future to a house for today”
Deadline: april 21th 2014
Issue launch date: june 2014

 

“From The House of the Future to a House For Today” is the title of an exhibition prepared by the Delft School of Architecture, which sought to research Western Europe’s Modern Movement. The exhibition focused on Alison and Peter Smithson’s work, particularly their houses’ design. It showed the Smithsons’ interest in the ordinary, the common, what they defined as “the art of inhabitation”: the way homes are used, dwelt, enjoyed by their occupants. The exhibition also echoed the “house of the future” then thought. The quotidian represents a “place of values” in which new relations between realism and idealism can be determined.

 

Applied to nowadays architecture, this suggesting title displays the expectations generated by the architectural project during every historical period. In the futurist movies of the sixties and seventies people appear strangely dressed, driving flying cars, in a robotized environment. Houses also formed part of these prospects, although a significant majority of the ideas has not come to reality. It might have been because time turned them into unnecessary. Or simply because we have not evolved as much as we thought we would.

 

The “house of the future” has become today’s house, and same as then we nowadays imagine how houses will be in fifty years’ time. Comparing the different invented futures of every period could be interesting, especially as a way of thinking in the evolution of the domestic space. Quotidian versus imagined. What did we thought then and what do we imagine now? Materials, forms, technologies, fixtures, fittings. How does the concept of dwelling change? Which patterns remain and which have changed? Which are the expectancies in each case? We are looking for articles that explore these topics.

 

Carmen Moreno Álvarez

Architect, PhD

Architectural Projects Department

Granada School of Architecture