PERSONAL NOTE: "MATERIALS SELF-FASHIONING: PLASTIC PLACES"

Jackson shows that suburban housing for middle class families served as evidence between the distinctions of gemeinschaft(domestic relations) and gesellscaft ( communal relations). Technology and innovations of the car, steam railway and water system created suburbanization within the United States. Along with the Manifest Destiny to further push the American populations and immigrants from the congested cities West-ward into the unconquered frontiers of continent, the political environment of post-World War II in the US served as a background and foundation for middle class Americans to participate in consumerism through purchasing suburban homes, kitchen appliances.

Suburbia offered middle class families a chance to own a house which was not possible in the 18th century. Many of the European families who immigrated to the United States remained cultural connected to their European heritages. The dream for an individual to privately own a home remained very important. In Europe, many owned homes remained owned under the same family for years and often times many centuries. Thus many people were subjected to living in the cities in small-sized apartments, with little or no space to relax in away from the urban environment. Levitt standardized housing emerged in the east coast and served as a “socialist” housing which created custom-made, standardized, affordable housing for middle class citizens. The houses were easily constructed and made relatively quickly and much importantly were spacious and wide enough for a nuclear-family to reside in. Within the houses, there were planned floor plans, kitchen design and a convenient dishwasher and dryer provided. More importantly, there were open spaces such as green lawns that were available with the houses.

These green lawns offered large open spaces (privately owned) which was influenced by the European Romantic Movement in the early 19th century, emphasizing the outdoors. The lawn offered families a barrier from their daily hectic work lives and interactions with the gesellscaft, which “separated the household from threats and temptations of the city” (58). Hence, the availability to retreat to a relaxed private home life appealed to many Americans after the War. And consequently, the purchase of homes and consumerism created an upsurge in support of American technological innovations purchased and used in the homes.

Columina reveals in her book that the technological innovations, architecture, and organization and work management found within the smaller infrastructures of society reveal the changes world system shifting towards capitalism and the US as a favorable model of modernism. She shows that there is a redefinition of the architect and architectural design by the war effort and the recycling of military technocrats, materials and attitudes to the reorganization of post war space and lifestyle.

World War II brought new innovations in modern warfare, which included the use of logistics, gathering of information for intelligence on the battlefields, and the management of large scale scientific projects. In order to maintain the United State’s status as one of the World Power ( in opposition to USSR), the U.S. military relied on the growth of industry and academia, to further create new innovations and further boost the American economy and population. As a result, the U.S. army applied their innovations and the skills of their personnel in a smaller, domestic scale, which benefited the economic system of capitalism and liberalism.

Psychologists who were employed in the war used the aptitude tests used on army recruits in the American schools to test the intelligence. This brought organizational theory to raising, training and preparing students to enter the workforce, and further created a rapid rationalization of selection and advancement of individuals into their occupations. During the wartime period, the organization of the army played a pivotal role in organizing the post-war office environment and space within the domestic sphere. As a result, this creates and a developed work ethnic to complete duties and tasks more efficiently.

The Cockpit created the body to become mechanized and systemized. The use of simulations prepared army personnel or showed the army whether the individual was adept to conduct and fly an airplane. After the war, the cockpit simulations were used to boost the American aviation sector, when commercial aviation was used to bring passengers and tourists to their desired destinations. Consequently, in the following decades, airline deregulation in the US market and the European markets occurred, creating a decrease in prices and a leveling of commercial airline prices, as they fairly competed against one another in the free market.

All-in-all, we see that consumerism in the domestic market through buying homes and domestic products support the liberalism, capitalistic system. However, the system itself instills modes of efficiency through applying its military innovations towards the larger scale of society, through logistics through aptitude testing, management of work, and technologies to aid domestic work. Consequently, the economic system is engrained within society itself and acts as a mobilizing agent in affecting the architectural designs of society itself, as now architect serves as a “socialist” agent providing sustenance and conscious safety to the nation as a whole.