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Architecture, like clothes, goes in and out of fashion. Will spartan ranch homes one day be all the rage?

Le Corbusier may have decreed that the house should be "a machine for living," but Alison Lurie knows architecture carries a far greater moral charge than such minimalist efficiency implies. In "The Language of Houses," she takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the social and psychological significance of private and public structures: schools, churches, government buildings, museums, prisons, hospitals, hotels, restaurants and of course homes. She makes a powerful argument that how we choose to order the space we live and work in reveals far more about us, our place in the world and our preoccupations than we know. Architectural design is both a mirror and molder of human experience.

While we may not be able to agree on what beauty in domestic architecture looks like, the concept is, as Ms. Lurie remarks, so widely accepted that the United States today boasts not just a magazine but a TV show and a website called Beautiful Homes. "According to these authorities, the beautiful home is usually large, relatively expensive, and landscaped to within an inch of its life. It is also in perfect condition and very clean." A look, in other words, that is almost impossible to achieve in a functioning family home, where the kids have an inconvenient habit of climbing over the kidskin sofas.....Continue Reading

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