From September 2011 until March 2012 the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe organized in Lviv the exhibition Home: A Century of Change, which explored the history of dwelling in its cultural and social dimensions, as well as in its political and ideological contexts throughout the 20th century. The exhibition looked at home as a multi-faceted place, which contains complex political, ideological, national, cultural, and gender histories within the context of Eastern and Central Europe. While both global and regional contexts were incorporated, the exhibition focused on the case of Lviv, which offers an opportunity to study the re-making and transformation of “home” in the 20th century.
The present publication is the result of this endeavor. Its content follows the structural concept of the exhibition but also includes materials which were not displayed. The first part is dedicated to general aspects of the topic, such as modernization, design, and housing policy. The second section visualizes five basic functional units of the home. Each of these units is interpreted in its relation to a certain essential social and cultural aspect: the corridor (public/private), the living room (comfort), the kitchen (gender), the bathroom (hygiene) and the bedroom (intimacy). A special focuses is set on a number of historical domestic devices – from the TV set to the vacuum cleaner – in order to give an intuitive visual understanding of how the 20th century changed the functionalities and aesthetics of our domestic worlds.
This publication is available at ERSTE Foundation Library.
