| |
Architecture and Suburbia: From English Villa to American
Dream House, 1690-2000, by John Archer
Blubberland:
The Dangers of Happiness, by Elizabeth Farrelly.
In recent years critiques of suburbia
have shifted from a focus
on the much-known negative traits of the condition to an
acceptance of their existence, good or bad, and asking: What
can be done to improve them, to make them sustainable? These
two books fall at both ends of the spectrum, be they fashionable
or not. Australian writer Elizabeth Farrelly falls into
the former category, outlining a sometimes harsh and always
biting critique of the conditions that not so much create
suburbia but make it bigger, more bloated and further from
sustainability with each passing day. Professor of cultural
studies and comparative literature John Archer rather is
aligned with the latter in his academic history of suburbia
as a locale for shaping and expressing of the individual
self.
Certainly each book differs in its
aim, style, audience, and speculations, but like other
books on the suburban condition they share certain traits
by sharing a particular subject. For example Farrelly, who
constantly ricochets from theme to theme throughout her
book, examines democratic freedom and its impact on architecture,
comparing it to how architecture created under tyrannies
is prized by so many citizens of democratic countries, "from
Mykonos to Paris." Her all-too-brief look (like much
of the themes covered in the rest of the book) at what could
be used as a description of Archer's thesis gets to one
of the many repercussions of the conditions that created
and perpetuate suburbia, but it leaves the reader nodding
but asking for more. Sure, Farrelly speculates on the future
of the world post-peak oil, with rising waters, billions
more people, and not enough food to go around (humorously,
to a non-Australian, where the best case scenario exists
in Australia) but it is severed too drastically from what
came before that it is hard to swallow; it is too distant
and lacks the in-between steps that really need speculation.
Nevertheless her book is a thought-provoking and very entertaining
romp through the varied aspects of the contemporary suburban
condition, with the usual SUVs, McMansions, and other destructive
pieces skewered with Farrelly's skilled and witty prose.
Archer, on the other hand, strays
from the judgments that are Farrelly's life-blood, opting
for an academic analysis of the thesis that suburbia rose
from the 17th century to today, a la England and the United
States as the locale for exploring identity of
the capitalist bourgeoisie. This study of individualism
expressed in architecture begins with John Locke's theories
on shifting social relations and continues through the English
villas and rus in urbes, before arriving in America
and its rampant embrace of the suburban ideals, most especially
in the mid-20th century when the dream was nationalized,
to use Archer's phrase. The spanning of over 300 years and
two countries means that by the time Archer arrives at the
current day the lineage he traces seems so remote. But the
consistent emphasis on identity holds the book together,
even though the writing doesn't hold one's attention as
rapt as Farrelly's. Like her, Archer offers a future scenario,
though advice would be a more appropriate word. While he
sets his aim closer to the present than Farrelly, Archer's
embrace of the hybrid as a solution for suburbia's future
course also leaves one longing for more. His thorough and
deep history becomes a future that is little more than surface,
the applied decoration that makes on house different from
another. It seems that the problems of suburbia (energy
consumption, wasteful land use, the destruction of natural
areas, etc.) are much greater than the difference between
you and me, but here we have another overlap between the
two books: Archer and Farrelly see architectural expression
as important elements in suburbia's future, the former with
the location of the individual in a changing suburban landscape
and the latter with the shared beauty that lies not just
on the surface but deep down within all of us.
or 
for Arch. and Suburbia
or
for Blubberland |
