Aluminum

I recently found a copy of Carl Koch's book "At Home with Tomorrow" (published in 1958), and took advantage of the fact it was rainy and gloomy one morning to spend some more time with it.  I'm about halfway through, which is not particularly material except that the part I was reading was his discussion of housing materials.  And the fact that at the time (as I'm sure is still true today), architects and engineers alike were working on new housing materials, trying to make houses more efficient and cheaper to build.  One of these materials that Karl talks about in the book is aluminum, the glut of it following the war and the vast expertise in working with it.  

I hadn't really considered—ever—aluminum as a real housing material, other than for siding which was a later use and one I only know because my folk's house had aluminum siding and my mother would get very upset with painters (it is paintable, which is brilliantly superior to vinyl) when they'd dent it with their ladders.  Such was my experience with aluminum as a building material.  

Until later this same morning, when I again stumbled across a discussion of aluminum as I was reading a recent post on Curbed Boston highlighting mid-century aluminum homes.  Who knew?! 

So, I did some digging, found some cool stuff, and found some more cool stuff and then was pulled back into the reality that for a variety of reasons aluminum never caught on.  That said there was a lot of push for aluminum following the war with a lot of emphasis on its applicability to 'prefab', affordable construction and while the aluminum piece didn't materialize into the material of the future, some of the modernist themes behind the homes did seem to live on.   And some of the prototype structures are still out there...

Alcoa brochure

The Alcoa Care-free Home, an aluminum prototype designed by Charles Goodman, was one of the first. Alcoa (fka the Aluminum Company of America) wanted to create the "greatest change in residential building materials in centuries". And although the Pittsburgh-based company's homes never took off, they did get a few built, some of which still exist today. 

Worthy of note however about these homes, was how they delivered more sociable communal spaces; a big diversion from the more conventional colonials, ranches and capes of the era. Which is, interestingly enough, the direction more conventional plans eventually went, with today's open floor plans featuring integrated cooking/family/gathering spaces.  So while these aluminum homes may have proven too modern in form to catch on, they maybe were spot-on in terms of function?  

Alcoa home in Portland | http://www.oregonlive.com/hg/index.ssf/2016/01/portland_alcoa_care-free_home.html

A beautiful example of an Alcoa in Rochester, very well documented and photographed | https://spfaust.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/your-1957-dream-house-made-real-alcoa-care-free-home/

Around the same time U.S. steel was promoting its own products through the architect-designed Case Study House Program in California.  This program was designed to accommodate the "average American in search of a home in which he can afford to live", and was further described such that "each house must be capable of duplication."  These case study homes we envisioned by notable architects to address the new post-war way of life. Again, the themes of new innovative materials, affordability and livability carry through this initiative.  Some of these homes still exist as designed today, some were never built.

Another beautiful and still very well preserved example of the use of aluminum is the Frost House, which was built by the Alside Home Corporation. Their pitch was that living in an Alside home "will save your marriage and make you happy". Whether true or not, this example in particular is unique in that the interiors were provided by a collaboration with Paul McCobb and Knoll and the result is stunning (and I think would make anyone happy).  The current owner maintains a beautiful blog sharing their space and the history behind this effort in aluminum. (Dwell recently shared a story and some gorgeous photos as well)

The Frost House | https://thefrosthouse.com/

Why is this worthy of a blog post?  That's a great question.  It's not because I think aluminum will come back into vogue again (if it every really found it's way into vogue), but because it reminds me that there is and always will be innovation in how we build and how we live.  Not only do styles change over time, but materials and uses do to.  And hopefully, we manage to take with us the good, and the let the not so good (think asbestos shingles) die over time.