A History of Domestic Space: Privacy and the Canadian Home - Softcover

Ward, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0774806850 ISBN 13: 9780774806855

Publisher: UBC Press, 2009

Synopsis

Homes are our most personal, private places, at the heart of how we conceive of life outside the public sphere. A History of Domestic Space explores how domestic architecture has shaped and been shaped by family and social relationships over the past three centuries. The changing form, setting, and technology of the home have profoundly affected our opportunities for individual privacy within a family and family privacy within a community.

The earliest Canadian house form consisted of a single room. We've added and moved rooms and their functions according to the needs and wants of the changing Canadian family. In the eighteenth century, for example, most people would expect neither bed nor bedroom to themselves. When bedrooms did appear, they first opened directly off the main room, only later moving upstairs or down a corridor to the most private part of the home. The bathroom, which now often takes the form of a spacious en suite, began life as the humble outdoor privy. Among the most revolutionary domestic technologies, indoor plumbing has changed the interior of the home forever. Peter Ward examines the evolution of each room in turn - its placement, priority, and purpose - before turning to the exterior of the house and its meaning.

How have today's big houses and small families affected the bond between parents and children? Does the occupant of a high-rise apartment have more or less privacy than the occupant of a farmhouse? What did Canadians consider to be enough domestic space for one person in the eighteenth century? What do they think in the present? These are just some of the questions that Peter Ward considers in this beautifully rendered exploration of the Canadian home. Its unique perspective breathes life into the homes of the past and throws the door open to the homes of the present.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Ward teaches in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia.

From Library Journal:

Both a typological history and a cogent sociological exploration, this book methodically discusses the nature and content of residential architecture in CanadaAfrom the bourgeois parlors of turn-of-the-century Port Perry, Ontario, to postwar poverty in Toronto's Cabbagetown. The book begins with a brief essay on the nature and meaning of privacy, then traces the evolution and development of the bathroom, parlor, kitchen, and bedroom and the apartment (introduced in Canada at the turn of the 20th century). Throughout, in direct, simple prose, Ward offers stimulating observations on and excellent documentation of the domestic landscape. The photographs and other illustrations are, likewise, highly informative. An excellent complement to Gwendolyn Wright's Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America (1983) and Witold Rybczyski's Home: A Short History of an Idea (LJ 9/1/86); highly recommended for all architecture, interior design, and material culture collections.APaul Glassman, New York School of Interior Design Lib., New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: UBC Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0774806850
• ISBN 13: 9780774806855
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192