Gwendolyn Wright

Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America

ISBN 978-0262730648
New York, Pantheon; paperback ed., MIT Press
1981; paperback ed. 1983
Architectural History

An overview of paradigmatic American domestic architecture from the 17th to the late-20th century --- single-family dwellings, rowhouses, workers' housing, public housing, suburbs, cluster housing, and other recent phenomena. This book explores the myriad ways in which architectural typologies conveyed the sometimes conflicting ideals of architects, builders, government officials, media powers and diverse consumer-groups that often battled amongst themselves to establish national aspirations about 'home'. It then asks how contemporary readers might reconsider the interconnections between established norms and new possibilities in design and consumer demands.

Awards
Prairie Avenue Bookstore's 'Important Books on Architecture That One Should Own'

Selected Review Quotes
'Gwendolyn Wright is an architectural historian. In this volume she ignores the stately public buildings that generally capture the attention of her profession and concentrates entirely on the relatively neglected field of domestic architecture. She traces the design and styling of American homes and their relationship to contemporary ideas, technology, and society....'
   Roger Starr, New York Times book Review

'Building the Dream gives insight into new ways of thinking about the design of housing that will better reflect the needs of today's multifaceted society.'
   Carol Barkin, L.A. Architect

'The volume and range of material is impressive. . . . Wright is sophisticated enough to show that cultural and social theory has wrestled with these questions.'
   Robert Gutman, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

'With copious quotations and illustrative examples Wright demonstrates that the diversity of US housing types are a reflection not only of individual demand but also of normative ideas about the function and place of a home in the larger community. . . . Clearly, such attempts to define a good home and community through imposing an order of architectural structure are still with us.'
   Gretchen Weismann, Center for Urban and Regional Policy

'A classic book. . . [consistently found] on university syllabi and citation indexes.'
   Clay McShane, Journal of Urban History