Home Futures

The twentieth century offered up countless visions of domestic life, from the aspirational to the radical. Whether it was the dream of the fully mechanised home or the notion that technology might free us from home altogether, the domestic realm was a site of endless invention and speculation. But what happened to those visions? Are the smart homes of today the future that architects and designers once predicted, or has 'home' proved resistant to radical change?

Home Futures: Living in Yesterday's Tomorrow -accompanying a major Design Museum exhibition of the same title-explores a number of different attitudes toward domestic life, tracing the social and technological developments that have driven change in the home. It proposes that we are already living in yesterday's tomorrow, just not in the way anyone predicted.

This book begins with a lavishly illustrated catalogue portraying the 'home futures' of the twentieth century and beyond, from the work of Ettore Sottsass and Joe Colombo to Google's recent forays into the smart home. The catalogue is followed by a reader consisting of newly commissioned essays by writers such as Dan Hill and Justin McGuirk, which explore the changes in the domestic realm in relation to space, technology, society, economy and psychology.

“Home Futures provides a robust overview of the changing face of domesticity.”

"Home Futures: Living in Yesterday's Tomorrow", the companion to an exhibition running through March 24 at London's Design Museum, explores how designers throughout the 20th century imagined the future -- and whether our 21st-century domestic trappings matched their visions.--Jeremy Allen "New York Times"
--Rahel Aima "Bookforum"

Eszter Steierhoffer is Senior Curator at the Design Museum and editor, among other books, of Imagine Moscow: Architecture, Propaganda, Revolution (Design Museum Publishing, 2017).

Justin McGuirk is a writer and Chief Curator at the Design Museum, formerly the design columnist for the Guardian, and editor of Icon magazine.

Marcus Engman is Head of Design at IKEA.

Deyan Sudjic is a British writer, founder of Blueprint Magazine, former editor for Domus, former design and architecture critic for The Observer, an author published by imprints such as Penguin and Phaidon, and currently Director of the Design Museum in London.

Pier Vittorio Aureli is an architect, author and founder of DOGMA.

Jing Liu is an architect, educator and co-founder of the award-winning design firm SO- IL in New York City.

Adam Greenfield is a writer and Managing Director of Urbanscale.

Sarah Kember is a writer and Professor of New Technologies of Communication at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Barry Curtis is a writer and Tutor in Critical and historical Studies at the Royal College of Art, London.

Emilio Ambasz is an architect, award-winning industrial designer, and, from 1969 to 1976, Curator of Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

The past's visionary future of domestic design, from Alison and Peter Smithson to Superstudio The "home of the future" has long been a topic of fascination in popular culture and an intriguing prospect for designers, and the 20th century offered up countless visions of the future of domestic life, from the aspirational to the radical. Whether it was the dream of the fully mechanized home or the notion that technology might free us from the home altogether, the domestic realm was a site of endless invention and speculation. But what happened to those visions? Are the smart homes of today and patterns of use in the sharing economy the future that architects and designers once predicted, or has the "home" proved resistant to radical change? Home Futures: Living in Yesterday's Tomorrow explores different approaches to reinventing domestic life, tracing the social and technological developments that have driven change in the home. The first comprehensive survey of the 20th century's aspirational, radical and futuristic visions of the home, this richly illustrated publication showcases a range of ideas and plans for the future--from the prescient to the fantastical--that designers produced as they imagined new ways of living at home and on the move, independently and collectively, with more and with less. Home Futures brings together a range of leading contemporary curators, designers, architects, critics and academics to consider projects by designers such as Ettore Sottsass, Alison and Peter Smithson, Superstudio, Enzo Mari, Archigram, Dunne & Raby, OMA, Joe Colombo, Absalon, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Atelier Van Lieshout, Yona Friedman, Buckminster Fuller, Richard Hamilton, Hans Hollein, Haus-Rucker-Co, Industrial Facility, Jan Kaplick

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