Poetic and political, Strayed Homes invites architects, interior designers, and urbanists to think again about common concepts in architecture – ‘private’, ‘public’ and ‘home’.
Whereas most writing about the public/private focusses on urban space, this book focusses on the domestic – exploring those overlooked, everyday places where private and intimate activities take place in public.
With four chapters set in four small, liminal spaces: the launderette, the greasy spoon, the fire escape, and the sleeper train - the book is part architectural history, part cultural history. It follows a series of allusions and impressions, to explore how films, adverts, books and anecdotes shape experiences of everyday architecture. Making a case for the poetic interpretation of space, the book can be used as a sourcebook for architects, designers, and theorists alike – prompting the reader to rethink the emotional state of leaving home, intimacy in public, and lonely dreaming.
By:
Edwina Attlee (Bartlett School of Architecture UCL UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 14mm
Weight: 480g
ISBN: 9781350213906
ISBN 10: 135021390X
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 24 August 2023
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. INTRODUCTION Rocks, Dreams and Extensions 1. Secular Eruvin 2. Question your teaspoons a. Reading: Roland Barthes b. The Everyday: Michel de Certeau c. Space: Gaston Bachelard 2. LAUNDERETTE 1. Gossip shops for lazy people 2. What was the state of Britain’s laundry in 1949? a. The public washhouse b. The commercial laundry 3. The arrival of the launderette 4. Play 5. Wait 3. COUCHETTE 1. Double negative: a. Location b. Consciousness 2. Cut up and carve 3. Hide and seek 4. Missing and Crossing 5. Strayed homes 4. FIRE ESCAPE 1. The long and heavy ladder 2. Trapdoor 3. Unmarried women 4. Theatre box 5. Left space 5. GREASY SPOON 1. The milk comes and the post goes 2. Home-cooking 3. Stay 4. Cramped 5. For the price of a cup of tea 5. STRAYED HOMES: Politics, Practices, Emotions Bibliography Index
Edwina Attlee is Senior Lecturer in Critical and Contextual Studies at the Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design and a Teaching Fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture.
Reviews for Strayed Homes: Cultural Histories of the Domestic in Public
Strayed Homes brings a valuable contribution on spaces as they're occupied and used; a type of enquiry that is rare in architectural history, which tends to be concerned predominantly with designers. It would make heartening reading for architects who feel stuck in regulations and requirements and would like to rediscover spaces as sites of practices, movements and memories; and for anyone who enjoys cultural history written with care and attention to the small details, anxieties and pleasures of life in buildings. * Architect's Journal *
