Model houses and housing ideology in Australia

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This paper explores the meaning of the house through an interpretation of model house advertisements and display houses in Australia over the past 20 years. The advertising discourse is analysed as a set of cultural constructs, which, being market sensitive, reflect changing social structures, values and ideologies. Over this period the house structure has been transformed. The informal ‘family’ area has expanded, become formalised, and is becoming the new heart of the house. The back yard has been both both segmented and integrated with the new heart. The parents’ realm has been enlarged, and detached from children and family areas. There has been an overall increase in the symbolic importance of the interior of the house which is called upon to fill an onerous role in resolving social problems. The increasing number and size of interior spaces are identified with a dream of privatised freedom that ironically locks many Australians into financial bondage.

This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit: