At the start of a new year, one wonders what innovations the field of residential architecture may see. Judging from past predictions it can be difficult to say what innovations we may see. Moreover, will they take hold or just be a fleeting novelty? Here are a few predictions from the past about what the modern home will look like in the future.
Jean-Marc Côté’s Cigarette Card House of the Future-1899
In 1899, French artist, Jean-Marc Cote imagined life in France in the year 2000. Bought by a Tobacco company, these images were issued as collectors items in cigar boxes. On of his illustrations (seen above) predicted that houses would be on wheels and roll through the countryside. Obviously, this did not come to pass in France. Did Cote have a premonition of post WW II America, though, where mobile home vacations reached there peak in th 1960’s and early 70’s?
for more on Jean- Marc Cotes cards follow this link https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vision-of-the-year-2000
House of the Future by architects Arne Jacobsen and Flemming Lassen-1929
Arne Jacobsen and Flemming Lassen designed this house for the Forum exhibition in 1929. Though it existed for a limited time, it had a great impact on Scandinavian Architecture by bringing developing European modernism to Denmark. The house was a radical departure from houses of the time having a spiral-shaped plan and white plastered exterior walls. Along with living spaces, two garages for a speedboat and a car and a helipad on the roof.
more here: https://arnejacobsen.com/works/house-of-the-future http://danishdesignreview.com/architecture/tag/House+of+the+Future
Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition- The Smithson’s House of the Future-1956
Allison and Peter Smithson, the leading UK architects of the time, designed this for the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition. More a set design than an inhabitable house, the architects designed everything in the exhibit house including the clothing worn by the models during the demostrations. The house had no exterior windows and looked inward towards a courtyard. The innovative materials included plastics and telephone calls were broadcast throughout the house.
Check out this link:
https://www.treehugger.com/look-alison-smithsons-house-future-4858335
The Monsanto House of the Future-1957
The House of the Future was sponsored and funded by Monsanto. Working with the Massachussetes Institute of Technology (MIT), and Walt Disney Imagineering, Monsanto sought to demonstrate plastic’s use as a high-quality, engineered material. It featured four symmetric wings cantilevered off a central core, each fabricated with glass-reinforced plastics. It also demonstrated new household appliances such as microwave ovens, which eventually became commonplace. The house saw over 435,000 visitors within the two months of it’s opening in 1957 at Disneyland. Twenty million people visited before it was closed ten years later.
For more on the Monsanto House of the Future, check out Yesterland here- https://www.yesterland.com/futurehouse.html
Philco-Ford Corporation’s House of the Future-1967
The Philco- Ford House of the Future was not a real house but a short film, titled 1999 A.D. It envisions houses being made up of hexagonal pods allowing limitless expansion. The inhabitants were enveloped in electronics, from mood walls to organs that emitted scents, and the dishwasher seems to have a limitless supply of clean dinnerware. Pre-frozen meals are designed and customized by computer for each family member and sent by a tube directly to a microwave. Viewed today for its camp value, the film does accurately predict home shopping, zoom calls, and MTV.
The film is not to be missed and can be founds here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1p6fmPzoJk
Ashwatukee House of the Future -1980
The brainchild of developer Randall Presley, the Ahwatukee House of the Future was designed to promote the building of new houses in the Ahwatukee neighborhood in Scottsdale, Arizona. Designed by architect Charles Schiffner of Taliesin Associates in cooperation with Motorola, the house integrated ten MC6800 microprocessors. The microprocessors did everything from opening and closing windows to storing shopping lists and children’s homework assignments.