Ideal Homes

At the end of the First World War, local authorities across Britain created over a million 'homes fit for heroes', establishing a widespread model of private ownership. The new communities that emerged soon began to assert their own, unique identity. Resisting official notions of good taste, they sought out varieties of architecture and design that were both modern and nostalgic.In this book, Deborah Sugg Ryan explores how new class and gender identities were shaped by the creation of the interwar suburban home. Drawing on exhibitions, memoirs, advertisements and films, as well as surviving examples of suburban architecture and interiors, she uncovers longings for 'Old England' and the British Empire, while revealing how modernity crept in through the back door - via the kitchen, where women embraced new labour-saving technologies. What emerges is a distinctively suburban modernism, embodied by the Tudorbethan semi. This 'ideal' home was both a retreat from the outside world and a site of change and experimentation. Sugg Ryan concludes by considering how such houses are lived in today.