Ideal homes: Uncovering the history and design of the interwar house - Paperback

by Deborah Sugg Ryan (Author)

Ideal homes investigates the tastes and aspirations of the suburban communities that emerged in Britain after the First World War. It explores how new class and gender identities were forged through the architecture and decoration of the home. This edition includes a chapter on researching the history of your own house.

Front Jacket

At the end of the First World War, local authorities across Britain created over a million 'homes fit for heroes', establishing a widespread model of private ownership. The new communities that emerged soon began to assert their own, unique identity. Resisting official notions of good taste, they sought out varieties of architecture and design that were both modern and nostalgic. In this book, Deborah Sugg Ryan explores how new class and gender identities were shaped by the creation of the interwar suburban home. Drawing on exhibitions, memoirs, advertisements and films, as well as surviving examples of suburban architecture and interiors, she uncovers longings for 'Old England' and the British Empire, while revealing how modernity crept in through the back door - via the kitchen, where women embraced new labour-saving technologies. What emerges is a distinctively suburban modernism, embodied by the Tudorbethan semi. This 'ideal' home was both a retreat from the outside world and a site of change and experimentation. Sugg Ryan concludes by considering how such houses are lived in today.

Back Jacket

At the end of the First World War, local authorities across Britain created over a million 'homes fit for heroes', establishing a widespread model of private ownership. The new communities that emerged soon began to assert their own, unique identity. Resisting official notions of good taste, they sought out varieties of architecture and design that were both modern and nostalgic.

In this book, Deborah Sugg Ryan explores how new class and gender identities were shaped by the creation of the interwar suburban home. Drawing on exhibitions, memoirs, advertisements and films, as well as surviving examples of suburban architecture and interiors, she uncovers longings for 'Old England' and the British Empire, while revealing how modernity crept in through the back door - via the kitchen, where women embraced new labour-saving technologies.

What emerges is a distinctively suburban modernism, embodied by the Tudorbethan semi. This 'ideal' home was both a retreat from the outside world and a site of change and experimentation. Sugg Ryan concludes by considering how such houses are lived in today.

Author Biography

Deborah Sugg Ryan is a historian, author and contributor for BBC Two's A House Through Time. A former V&A curator, she is a specialist in the history of housing, interiors, products and everyday life and has appeared on BBC Two's Inside the Factory, Business Boomers; More 4's David Jason's History of British Inventions and Channel 4's No 57: The Story of a House, Heaven, Hell or Suburbia. Deborah is Professor of Design History and Theory at University of Portsmouth and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.