- Post War Suburban America
After reading texts about how housing and architecture was going after the Cold War in the United States, I wanted to talk about how the post war housing represented different symbols of safety to the American population and also keep in mind how the architecture changed due to economical danger since the US wasn’t physically affected by the war.
I will be talking about housing in the United States post Cold War in an urban scale. In the post war era, many families in America loved from cities into suburbs with guaranteed home loans. Furthermore, it was also the idea of the American dream that symbolized American culture with its white picket fences and backyards. But what did these things actually symbolize to the Americans and why what was it about suburban life that presented them with so much safety.
As I mentioned earlier, the Americans were not physically unsafe after the war but they were yearning for economical safety and high standard of living which these suburban homes had as they were payed for by loans and they were the visual representation of the American Dream.
What happened to the way people built houses? America had already been producing and construction firms had been mass producing planes and and barracks. When the war was over and everyone yearned the American Dream lifestyle and veterans were promised a high standard of living, one of the biggest industrial firms in the US Lewitt and Sons, embarked on a plan to mass produce homes on the outskirts of NYC. These houses were built using principles of assembly line mass production. The town he had built grew from nothing to a population of 8200 in 10 years. Every house had the exact same floor plan and exterior, suburban homes have started to lose a sense of personal identity and the industry has taken creative control from the owners of the house themselves.
