Vizcaya, Miami, Florida. Architect: F. Burrall Hoffman. Built: 1916; Model by Studios Eichbaum + Arnold, 2010. Photo by National Building Museum staff
Editor's Note: See locations of the exhibition for 2015 and beyond (link below)
House & Home is going on the road!
House & Home, which opened at the National Building Museum in April 2012, was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Each year, the NEH chooses a few projects, prepares them for travel, and sends them across the country to increase visibility for the exhibitions and provide access for visitors nationwide. Through NEH on the Road, a division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, House & Home began its journey in September 2013, and will travel for another four years to venues across the country.
Drawn from the flagship installation at the National Building Museum, the traveling version of House & Home explores houses both familiar and surprising, past and present, and reveals the varied history and cultural meanings of the American home. Though smaller than the original exhibition, the traveling version draws on similar themes, encouraging visitors to explore how our ideal of the perfect house and our experience of what it means to "be at home" have changed over time.
The exhibition includes domestic furnishings and home construction materials, photographs, "please touch" interactive components, and films. Together, the objects and images illustrate how transformations in technology, government policy, and consumer culture have impacted American domestic life. Quotations, toys, and other graphic advertising materials prompt visitors to think about the different ideas embodied in the words "house" and "home." The exhibition also showcases domestic objects − from cooking utensils to telephones − and traces how household goods tell the stories of our family traditions, heritage, and the activity of daily living..jpg)
Installation photo showing House & Home’s dramatic display of 200 household objects. Credit: © 2012 National Building Museum, Photo by Allan Sprecher
House & Home also explores how different laws, historic trends, and economic factors have impacted housing in America. The American Dream, once more generally seen as an aspiration to prosperity, grew in the 20th century to be synonymous with home ownership. Visitors learn about the economy of housing and how homes have been promoted and sold. Issues of housing inequality, land distribution, and the role of the government are examined, from the Colonial period though the Homestead Act and the creation of the Federal Housing Administration in the 1930s; and from the Oklahoma Land Rush to the subprime loan crisis.
Related sections of House & Home look outward, exploring the relationship of the individual house to the larger society by presenting examples of contemporary community development through film. House & Home moves beyond the bricks and mortar to challenge our ideas about what it means to be at home in America.
Here is a schedule of this traveling exhibition from the National Building Museum. And don't forget the National Building Museum shop with such unusual products as this Glasgow School of Art Facade Model:
Glasgow School of Art's Mackintosh Building, "The Mac" or "Toshie" as it is commonly known, was voted Britain's favorite building of the last 175 years in a 2009 Royal Institute of British Architects poll. The facade is asymmetric with tower like masonry walls and small windows which evoke Scottish baronial architecture. Building was started in 1897 to a design created by the school's most famous alumnus, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a leading proponent of the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements in the United Kingdom. The Mackintosh Building is his masterwork. This architectural sculpture is of the slightly off-center entrance facade. It was handcrafted by the duo Chisel & Mouse in their studio in Sussex, England and is made of strong plaster that has a reassuring weight and smooth, cool feel. The window frames and door are made of etched brass. See more work from Chisel & Mouse here.
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