Dominic Bradbury - The Secret Life of the Modern House: The evolution of the way we live now

Charles Gwathmey Gwathmey Residence and Studio, Amagansett, Long Island, New York, United States, 1965

House and home represents the point where architecture and design impact most prominently upon our lives.

O ur homes are our most precious safe havens. In good times, they offer the focal point for so many of our personal pleasures and delights. In more difficult times, they become refuges and one of our greatest sources of reassurance. Given this central position in our day-to-day lives, the importance of house and home can hardly be overstated. For the fortunate, home becomes a silent but beloved member of the family, which plays an important part in so many daily experiences and routines. In this respect, house and home represents the point where architecture and design impact most prominently upon our lives.

So when our homes evolve, this has real resonance for us all. Since the beginning of the 20th century, houses and apartments have changed radically, within a gentle revolution that has gradually shaped and altered the manner in which we live. Over this period we have begun to pay more and more attention to the way that our homes are designed, arranged and ordered, while at the same time architects and interior designers have introduced ideas that have transformed patterns of living.

From the late 19th century through to the present, this quiet revolution has seen a move away from traditional, cellular and formal rooms towards a more relaxed, fluid and interconnected collection of living spaces. From the Victorian ideal of reception rooms, a dining room and back-of-houses spaces, including the kitchen, we have shifted increasingly towards open-plan living with combined spaces for living, eating and often cooking as well. Reacting against the restrictions of box-like rooms, architects have created universal spaces or great rooms with a more generous sense of scale, volume and light. Banks of glass within non-supporting curtain walls have also helped to dissolve the boundaries between inside and outside space, connecting us to terraces, outdoor rooms and gardens.

While such changes may have been pioneered by architects designing and building new, modern houses, these ideas have also filtered into many period properties, where rooms have been combined and opened up to create more open and sociable living spaces.