The home show
dal 3/6/2000 al 20/8/2000
Segnalato da
3/6/2000
The home show
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Today's resurgent interest in the home—unprecedented since the postwar housing
boom of the 1950s—has been spurred by record sales in the nation's real estate
markets and the burgeoning segment of the economy related to home
improvements and the propagation of various "shelter lifestyles." The dramatic
increase in the number of publications devoted to the home (Wallpaper, House &
Garden, Nest, Martha Stewart Living), the growth in designer housewares (Calvin
Klein Home, Ralph Lauren Home, Target, Pottery Barn), and the shifting nature of
domestic life itself (home offices, hi-tech media rooms, non-nuclear families), are
but a few examples of the public's tremendous interest in the design of domestic life.
This four-part exhibition begins with a look back at the Walker’s own role in the development
of domestic design with its Gallery of Everyday Art and Idea House projects from the late
1940s, presented as a case study to examine the unique position of the Idea House in the history
of architecture and design. It ends with The Un-Private House, a survey of recent international
architectural projects—realized and imagined—that examine the shifting relationship between
public and private space in contemporary life. Providing a bridge between these two galleries is
a functional design studio and lab, where students and faculty will tackle issues of domestic
architecture in cooperation with community partners. This studio is undertaken in collaboration
with the University of Minnesota Architecture Department. The fourth component of the
exhibition features the work of Los Angeles–based artist Mark Bennett, whose elaborately
detailed floor plans of famous television homes from such classics as "The Dick Van Dyke
Show" and "The Brady Bunch" highlight the media’s role in constructing our collective notions
of domestic architecture and design.
THE IDEA HOUSE
The Walker Art Center opened Idea House I to the public in 1941, making it the first full-scale,
working house built by a museum to demonstrate the efficacy of modern home design. The Idea
House Project included plans to build a total of eight houses, two on the Walker site with the
remaining six to be located in suburban Minneapolis. Although only the first two were built, the
project remains one of the most ambitious design programs undertaken by a museum in the
United States.
When Idea House II opened in 1947 (demolished 1969), it embodied many of the ideals of
modern architecture and design for the home and represented a logical culmination of the
Walker Art Center’s institutional philosophy of educating the public on the virtues of good
design. More than 60,000 people visited Idea House II, including several families who had
won an essay competition to spend a weekend in the house. This split-level, contemporary
house was not intended as a model home to be duplicated, and no blueprints were made
available. Rather, it was a house of ideas—ideas that visitors might take away with them about
the latest technologies for the home (central heat and air conditioning, garbage disposals,
dishwashers), the benefits of open and efficient space planning (the galley kitchen and breakfast
bar, the "4-in-1 living area"), the practicality of lightweight modern furniture (by design
luminaries such as Eames, Aalto, Noguchi, Nelson). Despite its emphasis on "newness," Idea
House II intentionally avoided the use of unconventional materials and construction techniques.
By utilizing standard building materials and mass-produced furnishings, Idea House II hoped to
demonstrate that modern design was readily attainable for the typical middle-class consumer.
The Home Show is the first to fully document the Idea House Project. A full-scale re-creation
of Idea House II’s main living space serves as a focal point for the installation, allowing visitors
to experience the house’s approach to modern space planning and home furnishings. Other
contextual information, including audio interviews with former inhabitants, large-scale
photographic displays, and archival documentation, will be included. A photographic timeline
will trace the development of Idea House II as an embodiment of the "contemporary" style of
home design and place it in historical context. Utilizing materials drawn from the Walker’s
archives, another display will present the public reception of the project, from media coverage
in major magazines of the day to firsthand accounts of the home from its occupants as well as
original visitor reactions and observations. The Gallery of Everyday Art will also be re-created
and updated with contemporary products for the home, including displays that trace the
evolution of the contemporary shelter lifestyle.
THE UN-PRIVATE HOUSE
The Un-Private House features 26 recent projects by international architects, selected by
Terence Riley, Chief Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern
Art, New York. The exhibition includes models of the houses as well as "wallpaper" that
contains photographs and contextual information. The gallery is designed to invoke a domestic
interior space, with ample seating areas for contemplation and discussion of the work on view
as well as selected resource materials. The Walker’s installation of The Un-Private House will
be designed by Minneapolis-based Blu Dot Design. Each project can also be explored through
interactive digital displays that allow visitors to virtually tour the homes and obtain contextual
information about the projects and the architects.
The Un-Private House examines the role of the house in contemporary society, both as a
response to changing cultural conditions and to developments in technology. With roots in the
modernist spirit of domestic experimentation, the houses in the exhibition relate to the Idea
House Project’s early efforts to respond to specific cultural circumstance and technological
advancement. The represented architects shape living space to reflect current social
phenomena—the redefinition of the nuclear family, new models of work and leisure, and an
increasing proliferation of new media. As the title suggests, a central question raised by the
exhibition relates to public and private spaces, as definitions of both shift and overlap in
response to the increasing intrusion of the outside world into our private spaces.
Projects include Harriri & Harriri’s The Digital House, where new technology allows for the
creation of private spaces whose very boundaries serve as interfaces to the world at large. Walls
made of liquid crystal are more than digital enhancements, and allow a fluid interactivity
between private and public throughout the house. A series of moveable "plug-in volumes"
function like appliances, to be added and reconfigured as the needs of the occupants dictate. The
design of Herzog & de Meuron’s Kramlich Residence and Media Collection in Oakville,
California, also reflects an increasing influence of digital media in private spaces. Built to serve
dual functions as a living space and as a gallery for the owner’s extensive collection of
electronic art, the design is characterized by an intentional ambiguity. The natural, physical
world of its Napa Valley setting stands in contrast to the artificial, immaterial world reflected in
several wall-sized video installations. But, within the house, partitions that define living spaces
also function as projection screens, allowing the reality of private space to mingle with the
imagined virtual space.
DESIGN STUDIO
The second gallery, bridging The Idea House and The Un-Private House, will contain an
active design studio operated by advanced architecture students from the University of
Minnesota developed in collaboration with the University’s Architecture Department and the
Walker’s Education and Community Programs Department. The studio will expose the design
process to museum visitors as it focuses on solving domestic design problems, both conceptual
and real. The students will conduct research for this project by meeting with community and
neighborhood groups and with Walker staff. Over the course of the summer, in an architectural
space designed and built by the students in the gallery, they and their professors will conduct a
design studio class, display their work in progress, and hold presentations to evaluate the
results of their work. In addition, there will be interactive displays to engage museum visitors in
the design process. This integration of exhibition and production, of gallery and classroom, of
observation and interaction, has few precedents and will provide an extraordinary opportunity
for the public to see and hear how housing takes shape.
MARK BENNETT
The work of Los Angeles–based contemporary artist Mark Bennett highlights the media’s role
in framing our collective notions of domesticity and design. His elaborately detailed blueprints
of famous television houses from such classics as "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Brady
Bunch," and "All in the Family "continue several important thematic trends from the other
exhibitions. The imaginary architecture that Bennett documents reflects the idealized and
stereotyped notions of domesticity and family life as perpetuated by mass culture—ideas that are
in turn mirrored in our own domestic architecture. The floorplans chart not only the
architecture, but also the subtext of our culturally accepted models for living, narrating the
American Dream for us. The familiarity of these imagined spaces reflects the penetrating
influence of television into our own private houses from the 1950s onward, beginning the trend
of non-privatization of our living spaces.
Curators: The Un-Private House: Terence Riley, Chief Curator, Department of Architecture
and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Coordinating Curator: Siri
Engberg; The Idea House: Andrew Blauvelt; Design Studio: Anastasia Shartin; Mark
Bennett: Siri Engberg