Modernizing: Or, “You Never See a Screen Door on

Affluent Homes”Elizabeth Collins Cromley

Elizabeth Cromley bibliographyEvers, Alf, Elizabeth Cromley, Betsy Blackmar, and Neil Harris. Resorts of the Catskills. New York, NY: St. Martins Press, 1979. Blackmar, Betsy, and Elizabeth Cromley. "On the Verandah: Resorts of the Catskills." Nineteenth Century 8, Nos. 1/2 (1982). Cromley, Elizabeth Collins. "Modernizing: Or, 'You Never See a Screen Door on Affluent Homes'." Journal of American Culture 5, No. 2 (1982): 71-79. Cromley, Elizabeth Collins. "The Development of the New York Apartment, 1860-1905." Ph.d. Dissertation, City University of New York, 1982. Cromley, Elizabeth. "Riverside Park and Issues of Historic Preservation." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 43 (1984): 238-249. Cromley, Elizabeth Collins. "Public History and the Historic Preservation District." Past Meets Present: Essays About History Interpretation and Public Audiences. Jo Blatti, ed. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987. Cromley, Elizabeth. "Apartments and Collective Life in Nineteenth-Century New York." In New Households, New Housing. Karen A. Franck and Sherry Ahrentzen, eds. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989. Cromley, Elizabeth Collins. Alone Together: A History of New York's Early Apartments. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. Calloway, Stephen and Elizabeth Cromley, eds. The Elements of Style: A Practical Encyclopedia of Interior Architectural Details from 1485 to the Present. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1991. Cromley, Elizabeth Collins. "A History of American Beds and Bedrooms." Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, IV. Thomas Carter and Bernard L. Herman, eds. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press for the Vernacular Architecture Forum, 1991. Pp. 177-186. Cromley, Elizabeth Collins. "A History of American Beds and Bedrooms, 1890-1930." American Home Life, 1880-1930: A Social History of Spaces and Services. Jessica Foy and Thomas J. Schlereth, eds. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. Pp. 120-141. Cromley, Elizabeth. "Masculine/Indian." Winterthur Portfolio 31, No. 4 (Winter, 1996): 256-280. Cromley, Elizabeth C. "Transforming the Food Axis: Houses, Tools, Modes of Analysis." Material History Review/Revue d'historie de la culture matérielle 44 (Fall, 1996): 8-22. Carter, Thomas and Elizabeth Collins Cromley. Invitation to Vernacular Architecture: A Guide to the Study of Ordinary Buildings and Landscapes. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005.

Elizabeth Collins Cromley is a Professor of Architecture at Northeastern University in Boston, MA

Goals of article

Art History looks at renovations. – Clashing and full of anomalies– But eye-catching, intriguing, and full of vitality

if allowed to speak on their own terms.

What’s my interest?– What have people done– What have they preserved

Read “popular aesthetics.” – Design Principles

Conclusion

Architecture is important to people for what it says about them and their relationship to larger world.

Urban housing is easily changed

Manifests attitude it is good to be different– Double desire: Different and part of a group.– Self-assertive and self-effacing

Limited, yet flexible vocabulary

Trends

Brighter color.– Juxtaposing colors– Harmony is replaced by staccato

Portable ornaments– Symbols of the past – Outbreaks (imitation)

Architectural features make reference to past styles and the museum collection of materials

Vernacular De-construction

Traditional relationships among historic shapes and materials have been dismantled.

Syntactic freedom of juxtaposing elements

Unstated is the lack of alternatives to source—mass production is the sole source.

Dispensable

Facade is maleable, but overall dimensions are fixed.

Windows are changed

Porches are dispensable.

Gardens and yards

Uniformity of texture and color is dispensable

Most Striking changes

Materials– All imitative of natural materials.

Asphalt

Aluminum

Plastic– Appearance of labor-intensive materials

Synthetic and imitative materials have a long history (who cares? Art Historians)

What is modernizing?

Modern as convenience not form

Houses reject modernist aesthetic for domestic use.

– Owners have little experience articulating aesthetic. (use of interviews)• Clean• Neat• Different• “In keeping”

Renovation

Necessary to maintain the building

Often done by contractors (not owners)

Imitation is a form of flattery.