reading notes

by Witold Rybczynski

ISBN: 0140102310

Rybczynski looks at the origins and development what we mean by home, which means he examines attitudes about and the meanings of comfort, privacy, domesticity, and technology. Oh, he also explores decor, indoor plumbing, ventilation, lighting, housework and domestic efficiency, the impact and role of women in the home. He also provides an incredible amount of information on chairs and sitting. You may not know that furniture didn’t really get comfortable until the eighteenth century; I didn’t before I read this book.

The format of the book is engaging and easy to follow. At the beginning of each chapter is a black and white reproduction of a painting which is taken from the time period under discussion. (Clever idea, but the reproductions could have been of higher quality.) His focus is mainly on European and American homes: the cozy households developed by the Dutch, English country homes, the Rococo in France, and the more efficient “servantless” houses in the United States are all considered.

I was amazed to learn how late toilets were considered important to install, yet how old the standard bathtub-toilet-sink layout of modern American bathrooms is. I also have a new appreciation for housework and how the interior layout can effect how easy or difficult some of the work is to do — not to mention how time consuming it can be (and has been) across decades and even centuries.

This book is in no way a how-to primer on creating a comfortable home, though it is thought-provoking. If you are at all interested in domestic arrangements through time, or in learning more about how your house probably got to be the way it is, you would probably enjoy reading this book. Recommended.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 28th, 2003 at 10:49 pm and is filed under nonfiction.