Not at Home: The Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and Architecture

Abstract

The notion of domesticity - the home, the family, privacy, comfort - has often been challenged and ridiculed by modernist artists, architects and designers. Today, after more than 100 years of dispute, the domestic is being re-evaluated and returned to a position of cultural prominence, looking back over the mainstream of modernism in an effort to trace it hidden domestic subcurrents. The book investigates domesticity in modern art and architecture from the Victorian period up to the present day. Through the essays, the notion of the home is freed from stereotypes of sentimental nostalgia and emerges as an arena of modern art.