Another Modernism: Home Economics and the Design of Domestic Space in the Us, 1900-1960

Targeting an important gap in design history, Another Modernism examines how domestic space was conceived by the US home economics movement in the first half of the 20th century. In doing so, it tells the little-known story of how home economists - mainly women - offered a challenge to the approach of mainstream modernist architects and architecture. Along the way it uncovers new, unacknowledged contributions of women designers to domestic architecture and design history, and reveals innovative early approaches to concepts such as accommodating the disabled body, participatory design, sustainable design, and anti-consumerism.

In contrast to the modernist model of space, which was primarily visual, contemporary home economists centred on a user who interacts with the interior in a tactile, bodily way. Both movements strove for efficiency, but they understood it differently: for many modernist architects the term ’efficiency’ denoted functionalist aesthetics, whereas for home economists it signified design solutions intended to ease the labour of an average American homemaker. This book analyses the home economists’ conception of space and argues that their focus on the user’s corporeality, tactility, and preferences, and her engagement in the design process, constituted an alternative model of modern architecture - a popular and largely rural modernism which focused on the specificity of the female user and her personal experience of the domestic interior.

Based on little-known archival material, and with an emphasis on (mostly) female researchers and users/occupants, Another Modernism will appeal to architects, design historians, and anyone interested in gender, women’s, and disability studies.

Anna Myjak-Pycia is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (GTA), ETH Zürich, Switzerland.