Stefanie Strebel - Between Dream Houses and God's Own Junkyard - Architecture and the Built Environment in American Suburban Fiction

People were exposed to the marketing of the dream house in various cultural domains, and “[t]his exposure helped to raise and multiply the expectations that Americans would have of their dwellings, while at the same time identifying and expanding dimensions in which commodity culture could meet and satisfy those expectations” (Archer 250). There were ever-growing desires relating to domestic architecture among the population, and materialism was allowed to thrive in this context. Thus, even though the suburban boom and enthusiasm of the 1920s certainly did not reach the same dimensions as that after World War II, it undoubtedly signalled and paved the way for the future development of the American landscape – and suburban life and the suburban house became part of the American Dream before this term was even coined.3

Apart from these quasi-utopian developments in terms of architecture and planning, the 1920s were also a crucial period and a time of departure for the development of the suburban self in other domains. Not only did women gain the right to vote at the beginning of the decade and thus become more involved in politics, but also in economic terms, people were faced with new luxuries and commodities in this time of prosperity. Hence, the traditional female role underwent a paradigm shift, with women joining the workforce in increasing numbers owing not only to their newly gained rights but also to the new living standards people sought to achieve; materialism and an emphasis on wealth dominated the decade. In this context, the suburbs are an interesting field of study. Even before the postwar period, the suburbs were the realm of families, particularly of the well-to-do variety – suburbia was largely a landscape of business-oriented husbands and stay-at-home wives. However, with regard to suffrage, the traditional role of the suburban wife and mother was seriously challenged. Furthermore, as the suburbs were generally more affluent than inner cities or rural areas, the phenomenon of materialism and consumerism had a far greater impact on the life and identity of suburbanites. Be it the architecture of their home, the distinct interior design of their dwelling, or modern commodities and appliances, people in the suburbs shaped and fashioned their identity by means of newly acquired modern luxuries.

The domestic interior is a particularly salient realm in this respect, given that interior design gained increasing importance in terms of representing the self between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. According to Downey (5), it was the period between 1880 and 1940 that “witnessed the emergence of the domestic interior as a generative space for modernity.” This period was also when the notion of privacy gained importance in interior design and planning, and when conveniences and technology developed into an important part of the modern design aesthetic.

Generally speaking, the relation between architecture, design, commodities and identity has continuously gained importance over the decades and even centuries, and ever-greater value has been placed on it since the late nineteenth century. As Archer (4) points out, in the nineteenth and twentieth century there was a rapid process transforming domestic architecture, or the private dwelling, into a medium for the construction of individuality. In his book Architecture and Suburbia , Archer addresses the question of how built space – which not only includes architecture, but also man-made landscapes, planning and design – constructs personal identity. The first argument is concerned with how space is used and configured, and how it serves as an “anchor of cognition” from birth. The second argument deals with the built environment as a “selective medium of human practice,” meaning that we consciously decide on what we build and what we do not build, and on how the built environment is used. Archer maintains that “the terms in which spaces are configured and the uses to which those configurations are put serve as apparatuses for inculcating highly particularized systems of social relations and of one’s role within them,” and that “because built spaces shape what people do and how they live in highly specific ways, they also necessarily shape who those people are” (Archer 5).

Archer also points out that architecture and the built environment not only shape the individual, but also the way the individual relates to others. The author uses the gated community as an example – a form of inter-community delimitation –, but the factor of intra-community inclusion or exclusion should not be neglected. The appearance of a dwelling, reaching from architectural style to size to condition, sends out signals to the community, with social status being the most important. We thus establish our position within a community and how we relate to that community through the medium of architecture and design to a large extent. However, architecture not only shapes social relations, as the author goes on to explain, but also “internal states of being and awareness,” such as feelings and affect (Archer 5). It determines how individuals feel about themselves, the space they inhabit, as well as the environment that surrounds them.

Given the ways in which architecture and design shape or mirror identity, it was a common practice in nineteenth-century suburbia to build according to different styles – for instance Tudor or Tuscan – in order to establish the public identity of residents. Furthermore, the configuration of the dwelling, as well as a “properly aestheticized interior,” was used to “shape the very architecture of the resident’s consciousness” (Archer 8). Therefore, it can be argued that while the exterior of a house has a greater impact on public identity, the interior has a greater impact on personal identity. Even though both exterior and interior undoubtedly influence both the public and the private self, the interior is necessarily a less publicly accessible realm, and hence plays a less important role in how an individual is perceived by others. The same holds true for suburban commodities in the early twentieth century, with an expensive car, for instance, sending out signals to the public sphere, whereas modern household appliances primarily nourished the private self.

In spite of the various spheres and means of identity creation, it cannot be denied that limited choice with regard to style and design limits the types of identity that architecture, interior design and commodities create. The question thus arises whether architecture can be held responsible for the perceived standardisation of the masses. Due to the accessibility of and the consensus on status symbols in the Roaring Twenties, for example, there emerged a standardisation of architecture and design, and suburban houses were equipped with the same state-of-the-art appliances. This mass consumption and mass production were blamed for leading to a standardisation of society, as people fashioned their identities by means of the same universally accepted designs and consumer goods. The individual, possibly due to the rising individualism in American society at the time, failed to realise that by fashioning its identity through material possessions, it became itself a mass product. The suburban self increasingly turned into a standard identity, so to speak.

The rising materialism and individualism of the 1920s were met with severe criticism in the arts, especially from the Lost Generation, a group of authors who expressed their disillusion in a highly cynical fashion upon returning from World War I. Their social criticism was aimed at materialism and individualism in the United States in particular, and in both novels discussed in this chapter – Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby –, this criticism is voiced loudly. Even though Sinclair Lewis was not nominally part of the Lost Generation, his writings nonetheless reflect the same concerns regarding the contemporary state and future direction of American society.