Sinclair Lewis is a novelist and Louis Mumford’s piece is on architerctural history, so they write different kinds of texts. What do they think the “modern home” has come to mean to people in the US? Do they share the same view of modern homes?
3 thoughts on “Modern Homes”
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As Mumford explicitly says in his article, he views Lewis’s piece as a satire, of which it is almost certain Lewis did not intend it to be. However, both express pertinent ideas regarding the space that the “modern home” occupies in common American life. Mumford concludes his article with the idea that the home has simply come to be a machine of which humans, or “machine-tenders” can occupy. As a result, forms or artistic expression, elegance, personality, and uniqueness has swiftly exited the mainstream definition of the home. There is much weight in this argument when considering the present day perception of the home; however, it is also important (like we do in all topics of this class) to consider how this perception is different across the socioeconomic divisions of society. The wealthy classes of privilege, as we have seen many times, use the home as a way to express their personality, elegance, and personal preferences, whereas for the working classes understand the home as a simple living space that does not necessarily define their personality, or artistic expression but rather their economic reality and availability to certain neighborhoods and geographical areas of a city. Even today, you can understand the zoning and socioeconomic distinctions of a city not just simply on the size and immensity of a house, but in the style and detail of the house. Homogeneity is not an artistic choice for anyone; it is a forced response to the their certain economic privilege.
Mumford is highly critical of modern architecture in the United States; he argues that architecture has been eclipsed by the businessman’s desire to maximize land values and the engineer’s desire to create spaces where new inventions and machines can “serve” the people who live in those spaces. In the process, human interests have been completely ignored. Lewis shares a negative view of the modern home — Babbitt’s god is “Modern Appliances,” and he basks in the modern machines like his alarm clock. Lewis focuses more on the importance of consumer culture and the Babbitts’ ridiculous obsessions with the eyeglasses, guest towels, and pressed suits that mark their social status and respectability. Though Lewis describes the city of Zenith in mostly positive terms, there is a vein of Mumford’s criticism in his portrayal of a mass-produced city that doesn’t seem to satisfy the needs of individual humans.
Mumford views the modern American home as a product of modern science. He feels that architecture has failed humanity and in turn the home is no longer a place to live and interact, but more a set of places. With the innovations of science, Mumford cannot see humanity.
Lewis, as stated by Mumford, makes the home seem less relevant than everything else. This point of view makes the home seem like a thing of the past. This point of view emphasizes the prevalence of consumption, things and activities serving a greater role than the setting of the home.