40 Houses - The Architectural Forum Magazine of Building

Volume 88. Number 44. April 1948

Published by: Time. Inc., 350 Fifth Ave., New York 1., N.Y.

There have been 12 other special house issues of The Forum, which—any hotel architect knows—makes this one number 14. The numerical gap has further significance in that this collection is amazingly different from the last group The Forum printed, in April, 1941. The time since then has been comparatively short, only long enough for a war, but somehow during these seven years the suburban house has changed immensely. Our collections of houses up through number twelve were always occasion for hopeful, pleased editorial observation, which each time could point out that the houses showed consistent improvement, in a gradual evolution toward a modern home. But in each group a majority still fell within the limits of the French - Dutch - English - Spanish - Puritan-Confederate - Swiss-Chalet American Home. An increasing number of good modern houses were being built and immediately published, but they were always exceptional in the eyes of Americans—nice houses to motor out and look at on a Sunday afternoon, but hardly places to live in. But in this collection, we have something different. The limits are gone. These 40 houses are not isolated examples, but are a representative section of the good houses being built today, a documentation of the fact that house architecture is not only changing—(the hopeful wording of other House Issue introductions)—but has changed.

These houses are smaller, not only because of present inflated building costs, but because of the nation’s continuing change in social character. What is sought in even the most minimal is not mere practicality, but smallness with a new servantless luxury, and planning is the first method toward this. Space is shared between functions; furniture is cagily built into dead areas; above all, even larger areas of glass are used to extend rooms onto courts and gardens, in all climates. Cellars are eliminated (31 of these homes have none; only one is fully excavated). Partitions are used lightly, as shields rather than breaks in the flow of space. Design devices that facilitate housekeeping have a new higher value. For the first time in a group of this size advanced ideas are really frankly expressed, not hidden behind half-timber.

We think this is very important, this mass progress and acceptance of modern design— this quantitative as well as qualitive progress. People must be realizing that modern design in houses is not some oddly stimulating drug, but a valuable tonic.

For detailed information on the 40 houses, we refer you to the table on the following page, whose listings document the distance in design the American House has come with such recent speed. And for an indication of where the house is going from here, we refer you back to the September 1947 issue, Seven Postwar Houses, a prophecy of the direction we expect our next house issue to be traveling.

Characteristics :

Format: Magazine with illustrated cover

Pages: 51 plus 172 advertising

Weight: 750 gr.

Height: 31.5 cm. Width: 24.7 cm. Thickness: 1 cm.